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GriZzly · 04-21-2006, 03:42 PM

I am setting up a local business directory, it is for an area which I will not mention. The area in question currently only has one major online directory holding the monopoly. I have estimated they make a clean £5million (about $9mil USD) in revenue from listings alone before revenue from advertising is counted.

Now, I am not looking for opinions on the viability of this business just a solution to a problem. How do I fill my directory out? I can trawl through the existing competing directory to get email addresses to contact potential customers but this is very time consuming going through each category and sub category for thousands upon thousands of businesses. I tried an email spider but unfortunately the nature of the site means that results are created 'on-the-fly' in .ASP so it is impossible to easily harvest email addresses. So how do I do it?

aspire2b · 04-21-2006, 05:38 PM

Hi Grizzly,

I've just sent you a PM on this

GriZzly · 04-22-2006, 01:33 AM

Thanks, got your PM and replied, you've been a great help.

adamg · 04-22-2006, 04:02 AM

Is it a city based directory?

GriZzly · 04-22-2006, 06:03 AM

It is an entire country, I will PM you.

NeeJam · 04-22-2006, 07:03 AM

Grizzly,
Would you consider offering a link exchange?

GriZzly · 04-22-2006, 07:43 AM

Yes definately, but only with relevant websites. I would only take part in a link exchange with websites that would be beneficial to my visitors. I will probably be quite strict with advertising on my site as well. I really want to keep this site classy...not just another ad farm.

adamg · 04-22-2006, 09:02 AM

pm'ed you grizzly.

NeeJam · 04-22-2006, 10:54 AM

Grizzly thanks for telling me that information, i am about to launch a site soon.

I've know a program you can use that will take the websites information and give you the information about the stats of other sites linking to them or not.

The program is called SEO Elite and i think it allows you to email all the webistes in one go and not make it spam. Its normally $197 but i think you can get a trial version for free.

F360 · 04-22-2006, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nik_b02

The program is called SEO Elite and i think it allows you to email all the webistes in one go and not make it spam.

This bit confuses me

Spam is defined as "Unsolicited email that the Recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent".
It seems to me, that if they didnt asked to be emailed a mass message, then it is spam

Could you explain a way why messaging all those websites 'in one go' would not be spam? Or do you create a customized email for each person you are sending it to?

Cheers!

NeeJam · 04-22-2006, 09:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by F360

This bit confuses me

Spam is defined as "Unsolicited email that the Recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent".
It seems to me, that if they didnt asked to be emailed a mass message, then it is spam

Could you explain a way why messaging all those websites 'in one go' would not be spam? Or do you create a customized email for each person you are sending it to?

Cheers!

i don't actually know. You make one email and it sends it to them all individually i read it in a seo ebook, and it doesnt become spam. So im told.

GriZzly · 04-23-2006, 01:34 AM

What I think this means is that while legally speaking it IS spam, but in terms of SPAM Filtering, it will not appear as spam and so will get through.