This is an old review of the GoGuides Directory. Due to various reasons, I have re-looked at the directory once more. I have included comments made by Robert Barger (with premission).

Detail Review: GoGuides Directory & Search

Date Reviewed: 23-02-2007

Name: GoGuides Directory & Search
URL: http://www.goguides.org
Type: General
PageRank: 6/10


Looks & Design: Google Ripoff! Well, the logo anyways (ironically they have the Google logo on the frontpage as well, compare them). But somehow I like their logo more than Google's. The design is very much like any other web directory with the categories and subcategories displayed on the frontpage. Although they do have a lot of categories (and subcategories) and other links, they designed it in such a way that it doesn't look too messy. A thumbs up. I so wish Yahoo would ditch their portal style layout for a neater design. Goguides is using blue coloured fonts, which surprisingly works well in this case. It's just too bad that the main categories and the subcategories have nearly the same shade of blue which makes it slightly difficult to differentiate.

Functionality: Clicking on the ADD URL link will take you to the "Easy Submit" page. For this "Easy Submit" inclusion, they will provide you with a "guaranteed directory rating" which probably means that your listing will be on the top. If you don't want to pay that hefty price tag, you need to use the "Express Submit" option. You can't access it from the front page, you need to browse to the category and choose "Express Submit". Hence this way, it is NOT EASY. This option will not give you a rating, which means that your listing will be delegated to the bottom of the pile below the ones with a directory rating.

Browsing through their categories, you would realize that they have a lot of listings (and categories). And they have very deep levels of subcategories. Try browsing to "GoGuides Directory > Local, Regional & World > North America > USA > Tennessee > Resources > Business & Economy > Real Estate > Memphis" and see how deep they go. That page was last indexed by Google on 22 Dec 2006 (it's 22 Feb 2007 at the time of writing) and is in supplemental results. It also has a Page Rank of 0. Reference: Here. How many of you will be willing to browse so deep to find something, not to mention it could very well be a empty category without any listing? Some categories are empty, but some are pretty crowded with hundred over listings. Take for example, the Internet Marketing Category. GoGuides have a maximum of 10 listing per page, but for a crowded category, you will most likely not be placed on the first page since GoGuides sort their listings by "directory rating". So please be careful if you are planning to submit your site to this directory.

My idea of a paid directory is sort of a premium service and that it will not have too many advertisements, in fact it should not have any advertisements at all. Even if they do have advertisements, it will be a few text links or some sponsors. But if you were to browse this directory, you will find that they not only have site sponsors (or adverts for Site Sponsors) and topic sponsors on every category page, they even have Adsense when you do Searches. This is very distracting to their users and doesn't look professional.

However one thing that I cannot complain about GoGuides is that they do have content. Content as what is supposed to be in a directory - site listings. When you browse or search for something, you will be rewarded with results - a page with the related sites. Unlike the previous 2 reviews I have done (their listings were few), GoGuides is a content rich directory. This is truly a full pledge "old school" directory.

GoGuides doesn't accept Adult sites, but it accepted a listing for webhost which caters primarily for adult sites (try searching for Adult, it came out as the first result). Hmmm.....doesn't make much sense there, does it? But other than that, it seems that most of the listings are at least not spammy ones. There are some sites which are of really high quality and are very useful to their users. However I discovered a few deadlinks but this is expected from a mature directory.

Price: Permanent, one time payment. Express Submit - US$39.99, Easy Submit - US$69.95, Bulk Submit - Refer to their site for price range, Membership - Refer to their site for options

I don't find it suitable for a quality, spam-free directory to allow bulk submit which is usually for SEOers trying to get high rankings for their clients. They don't care about quality or content. How many real webmasters will have 50 websites to submit?? And it is worse for "members", they are allowed to get instant inclusion for sites without any approval from the editors.

Search Engine Friendliness: I can't say that GoGuides is very Search Engine Friendly. It is not. GoGuides has 90,900 pages indexed by Google and 52,000 backlinks (not accurate) according to Google. Yahoo has 125,110 pages of GoGuides indexed. These are pretty impressive figures. However, even with such a huge number of backlinks, GoGuides' very deep directory structure means that Search Engine bots may not crawl these very deep level links. Even if they do crawl it, it won't be often. Getting listed in these categories will be useless, in terms of PR flow as well as backlinks. Popular categories are already crowded, which again mean that your listing may be buried into a inner page which will be crawled less often. As I mentioned before, some pages have not been reindexed for at least 2 months! Sure, the Easy Submit Option (US$69.95) will guarantee a directory rating, but what rating will you get? They have a 1 star rating to a 3 star rating. There is no gurantee of a 3 star rating anyways. So think twice before you submit your site if you are looking to improve your Search Engine rankings.

The mainpage of GoGuides has a PR value of 6. Most of it's categories and subcategories have a PR value of 4. Their inner categories usually have a range of PR3 to PR0. However, it doesn't seem GoGuides is interested in going the high PR route, which I admire very much. They are aiming for the rich content route. We see nowadays a lot of web directories building nothing but backlinks and backlinks to ensure themselves a high PR. Hence, they try to keep their PR high and outbound links few. These directories serve no purpose except to dish out PR to it's listings. But what really good about GoGuides is that people do come and visit this directory due to it's number of listings. Think of it as Yahoo directory (on a smaller scale) and you will know what I mean. Unlike the younger web directories, searching for information on this directory will yield results. Thus, you could get some targetted traffic if you get listed.

However, since we are talking about Search Engine Friendliness, I have some points to cover. GoGuide's Meta Descriptions are all based on the category names. Lazy, yes. But still better than having the same meta descriptions on all the pages right? It's doesn't have keyword rich URLs either, so that's a thumbs down for Search Engine Friendliness. The deep categories are also a big negative but I understand why they implemented it. GoGuides have a lot of listings on their directories, too few categories without any proper layout and arrangement will make it impossible to find them. Just that it will not be Search Engine Optimized seeing how many links you have to go through to reach inner pages - always a major problem with big sites.

GoGuides limits their client's site description to 200 characters for Express Submit but there doesn't seem to be a limit for Easy Submit. However looking at their listings, most site descriptions are still one-liners. I have always said that having a good site description can really help their listings, it allows a short preview of the site before actually clicking on the link. And without good text descriptions, Search Engines do not have much to index. I think GoGuides should do more than a little review on their listings and by adding keywords and keyphrases into the site description, help improve both user experience and let Search Engines know what this listing is all about. Not surprising, GoGuides doesn't have a "details" page for it's listing.

Their news section gets all it's information from Newshub Feeds and are all news headlines. So I guess it is not really content here. But I think that the sheer number of quality listings on this directory is enough to qualify it as a suitable resource for searching of information.

Value: I would like to say that this directory is worth the money but sadly I can't. GoGuides doesn't have the name nor the prestige that Yahoo! or business.com or even BOTW has to make it worth that US$39.99/US$69.95. They are just not that famous. I doubt you will get a significant PR boost from listing on GoGuides. Even the amount of traffic generated by GoGuides will be small. If it is traffic you are looking for, better you spend on Adwords or banner advertisements. To this point, they have Adsense on their search results. So if you spend your money on Adwords, you could possibly be advertising on GoGuides as well!

Overall: I like this directory but I don't think it can be an authority site. Especially for a general web directory. More has to be done to make it useful for it's visitors and add value for it's paying clients.

Comments: GoGuides has a very confusing business model. It's a paid (premium) directory but it has a lot of advertisements. It even has adsense advertisements on it's searches. If I am to pay for inclusion, I certainly don't want other advertisements to draw attention away from my listing.

GoGuides should also make it easier for others to submit listings. Having "Express" and "Easy" submit options is confusing, just name them regular and sponsored(or featured). And as for the "Express" option, the money is not refundable if the site is rejected? Why? No one should pay an editor to get rejected. Hiding the Express Option in the categories is not ethnical as well. Have ALL the options available in the Submit page and refund if the site is rejected. And in my opinion, having this "Directory rating" is questionable. How does the editor rate the sites? Is there any set rules to follow?

The next complain I have is the extremely long Terms of Service, Submission Guidelines and other rules. My head hurt. And did you know the GoGuides don't accept sites that sell "any food that is not packaged or does not comply with all laws governing the sale of food to consumers by commercial merchants"? Well, now you know.

Here are the comments made by Robert Bager from GoGuides.

Thank you for taking the time to review GoGuides! We always appreciate feedback even unfavorable feedback because it helps us correct our flaws.

Starting from the top of your review, I will go line by line makingcomments.

> Looks & Design: Google Ripoff!

Several years back we ran a contest for editors to design us a new logo. The reward for the winner was a link from all our topic pages to their website for one year. Even though this was several years ago we have been so happy with the logo that the winner of the contest still has a link to his website in the footer of each topic.

One of the requirements for the new logo was that we kept the color scheme and ideas from the old logo. You can view the old logo here: http://web.archive.org/web/20021122171746/http://www.goguides.org/

A close look at our current logo reveals that it does not use the same fonts that google uses. Additionally our logo colors are a close rollover from our old logo colors, which were in use back in 2001 before Google was that popular. Back in 2001 when I started the GoGuides directory (just after go.com shut down the old GoGuides Directory) I had several editors create new logos and propose them as the new GoGuides logo. The community as a group decided on the new color scheme so to say our logo is a rip-off is insulting to all the editors that voted for it. Simply because we carry a similar color scheme as Google does not mean we ripped it off. It simply means great minds think alike, we just have a better logo.

>ironically they have the Google logo on the frontpage

Google asked webmasters to post that logo and link so people would knowabout sitemaps.

>doesn't look too messy. A thumbs up.

Thank you!

>"guaranteed directory rating" which probably means that your listing will>be on the top

Not true. Regardless of Easy Submit or Express Submit, your website would get the same ranking.

>This option will not give you a rating, which means that your listing will>be delegated to the bottom of the pile

Not true. We rank all submissions based on the same guidelines; overall content, ease of navigation, look-n-feel of the website, etc. All rankings are based on these guidelines regardless of how they were submitted to the directory.

>And they have very deep levels of subcategories.

Necessary when properly building a large-scale directory.

> That page was last indexed by Google on 22 Dec 2006

We use Google site maps so we can suggest that they revisit a topic for indexing as new content is added. For example; these two topics have new content http://www.goguides.org/topic/13465.html & http://www.goguides.org/topic/75682.html and they were both last indexed Feb. 3, 2007.

>It also has a Page Rank of 0.

You should not concentrate so much on pagerank because its been devalued by Googles algorithms to help thwart spam. Although pagerank does play a roll in the ranking system its value has diminished over the years. It is much more important to have your website listed in a content rich environment that is relevant to your product or service. It is also more important to have your website listed in a directory with trustrank rather than PR. The fact that GoGuides is passing reputation is proof positive of our trustrank.

> How many of you will be willing to browse so deep to find something

Surprisingly people are willing to surf deep into topics to find very specific content. This ability to find highly targeted content by topic is what separates directories from search engines.

> not to mention it could very well be a empty category without any listing?

That is something we work on all the time, but hey, the world is a big place! Takes time when being done by hand.

>you will most likely not be placed on the first page since GoGuides sort>their listings by "directory rating"

Ratings are based on a review system with 3 ppl rankings (three people logos) appearing first, 2 ppl appearing second, 1 ppl rankings appearing third, then unranked listings last. Unranked listings have simply not been reviewed yet. All listing are sorted alphabetically by title then rank. That way the better content/websites appear first in the topics. End users seem to like that….

> So please be careful if you are planning to submit your site to this> directory.

Maybe we need to explain this better to the public. Something I will look into.

> premium service and that it will not have too many advertisements,

Come on now…. Two ad slots per page is really not that much advertisement. We also require that a topic sponsors have a listing in the directory. Since we only allow one root url it gives people a way to list their website in additional topics that are relevant to their product or service. As for the Google ads they were added to fill a void in our search when no results were present. As our database grows and our search returns more results adwords that will be phased out.

> I cannot complain about GoGuides is that they do have content.

You are 100% right! We have a content rich environment! That makes us a very important online entity for the public. The public surfing our directory is 100 times more important for listings than any PR page. Remember the public does not care about pr all they care about is finding the content they are seeking. So if traffic is really what matters to a webmaster then we are a pretty important directory for both webmasters and end users.

> but it accepted a listing for webhost which caters primarily for adult> sites

That site met our guidelines for inclusion so it was listed. The main reason we do not allow adult websites is because we carried over many of the old rules from the Disney goguides project. Guess you cannot teach an ole dog new tricks. Nonetheless, what is important to us is that we do not have kids coming to the directory and pulling pornographic material. We do have school systems linking to our directory so we are sensitive to this issue. We want to keep a family friendly environment for our end users. In essence, that site simply did not break the spirit of our guidelines because we do not find it harmful to the end user.

> However I discovered a few deadlinks

Here is your opportunity to contribute to the directory. If you find something wrong with a listing simply click the recycle can located directly beside the title of the listing and fill in the blanks. This will flag the listing and it should be corrected within 24 to 48 hours.

> spam-free directory to allow bulk submit

Truth told there are companies overseeing thousands of clients with quality urls and they find this bulk option very convenient to use. Nevertheless, it makes no difference how the content arrives because every single listing must meet quality control guidelines to be accepted. We do not make exceptions.

> "members", they are allowed to get instant inclusion for sites without any> approval

That is 100% wrong. Paid in-house staff members subsequently review every single submission made by our Submission Specialist Members. If a SSM violates our submission guidelines they face a fined of $50.00 dollars per violation and possible removal from the community. A severe violation could result in the SSM’s company being ban from GoGuides and all their listings removed. Additionally SSM’s cannot rank listings only paid staff can rank listings. That keeps everyone honest.

> I can't say that GoGuides is very Search Engine Friendly.

100% wrong. In the time it has taken me to write this letter GoGuides has received over 1,000 crawls from Google, yahoo, and msn just to name a few. That fact speaks for itself.

> GoGuides' very deep directory structure means that Search Engine bots may> not crawl

That is why we use Google sitemaps. New content goes into the directory then we point them to the topic.

> Getting listed in these categories will be useless,

Not true. People surf deep in the directory looking for targeted content. Remember we have traffic, hold trustrank, and pass reputation. This makes us one of the top directories in the world regardless if you agree or not. Facts are facts…
> hich again mean that your listing may be buried into a inner page

Not true, the quality ranking will always move the better listings to the top of the topic.

> Easy Submit Option (US$69.95) will guarantee a directory rating, but what> rating

Makes no difference if you have a SSM account, volunteer editor submission account, use easy submit, or express submit. All sites are subject to ranking based on content, look-n-feel, and ease of navigation. The main difference between Easy Submit and Express Submit is this:

Easy Submit- 100% refundable, you are not required to read our guidelines simply send us the url and we take care of everything. If it does not meet the guidelines then you get your money back.

Express Submit- nonrefundable. You are required to read all our guidelines and properly submit the website in the correct topic.

Simply put if you want the cheaper price then you have to do your homework. If your website did not qualify for inclusion then we feel you were trying to slip some spam into the directory so no refund.

> think twice before you submit your site if you are looking to improve your> Search Engine rankings.

That is extremely bad advice for your readers. To dismiss a high quality search engine friendly directory that the public uses simply does not make any sense at all.

> It's doesn't have keyword rich URLs either

Imagine you were visiting our real estate topic and found every single listing titled as ‘Real Estate’ would that make any sense? I understand the need to have rich keyword anchor text in the title of a listing. However, in a directory environment where quality is paramount the title must properly reflect the name of the listing.

> description to 200 characters for Express Submit but there doesn't seem to> be a limit

All listings are subject to 200 characters. With easy submit upon submission the script truncates extra lines. The reviewing editor will then properly revise the listing as needed.

> by adding keywords and keyphrases into the site description

Then the directory would look like crap to the end users.

> Search Engines know what this listing is all about

We point the spiders in the right direction its up to their algorithm to figure it all out. The fact that the listing is appearing in a trusted directory and in a relevant topic gives the webmaster a foot in the door. Search engines trust our content because of our quality control. However, the ultimately decide what a website is all about when they do the crawl.

> Value: I would like to say that this directory is worth the money but> sadly I can't.

Maybe with this additional information you will change your opinion?

> GoGuides doesn't have the name nor the prestige that Yahoo! or> business.com or even BOTW has to make it worth that US$39.99/US$69.95.

Hey now, I have had more then a few face-to-face chats with the owners of BOTW at the Google complex and other places. Honest and fine people they are and I think they would even disagree with that assessment.

> Even the amount of traffic generated by GoGuides will be small.

Speculation at best to bad you make it sound like fact.

> I like this directory but I don't think it can be an authority site

GoGuides is an authority site. How do I know that? Just do a search for GoGuides at Google and see what happens- notice the extra links? I had a Google engineer look me straight in the eye and tell me that Google discovered that when people searched for the word goguides that goguides.org was the website they were looking for and that being an authority site was a factor in that determination.

> More has to be done to make it useful for it's visitors

I agree with that. Matter of fact we are working on some ideas to improve the end users experience. Happy visitors make a returning visitors right!

> It's a paid (premium) directory but it has a lot of advertisements

I still disagree with that. We only have two ads per topic that is less than what the search engines subject their users to when searching. Just two ads………

> other advertisements to draw attention away from my listing.

In the topics you are only competing with other relevant listings not outside ads.

> GoGuides should also make it easier for others to submit listings.

That is why we have easy submit option. One click from the front page and only the minimum information required to process the order. To make it any easier would require us to put the form on the front page, and we are not going to do.

> Hiding the Express Option in the categories is not ethnical

That is how they submit to a specific topic. Go deep into any topic and click the Express Submit button, notice it tells you where you are submitting the website in the directory on the Express Submit form?

> "Directory rating" is questionable.

True rankings are subjective to the reviewing editors’ opinion. However, there are guidelines to follow and only staff has the power to rank a listing so I it makes for an honest system.

> How does the editor rate the sites?

We do not allow editors to rank listings anymore only staff.

> The next complain I have is the extremely long Terms of Service,

GoGuides is a corporation with liabilities just like any other corporation. The terms are not made to be pleasant they are made to protect the company. Have you looked at googles terms lately?

With that said, I would also like to point out that our office number is clearly posted in public view. That way if somebody has a problem all they have to do is pick up the phone. We also offer 24-hour email support, which is something most directories do not offer. That alone makes us unique.

If you have additional questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind Regards,
Robert Barger

You might want to take a look at our other reviews as well:
- Detailed Review on Alive Directory
- Detailed Review on Aviva Directory
-Detailed Review on SevenSeek Directory