I decided to buy php link directory at a time when I was getting tired of my Smarter Search pay per click search engine, but hadn’t found Sphider yet. I needed a change. I decided I was not completely ready to delete the search engine just yet, so instead I bought the .net and .org versions of my website and installed the php link directory on one of them. I’m not sure what version I had, but my site looked different than the demos I’m seeing on the php link directory site today. My site ended up looking like a pretty basic search engine with the only exception being the fact that I had cool little graphical thumbnails displaying a miniature version of the website in the listing. I liked it in a ho hum kind of way. It was new, it was different, but it just didn’t do it for me. I ended up deleting the script after a couple months and forwarding both domain names to my primary dot com site.
It looks like there is now article integration into the script. If I had that functionality, I don’t remember it at all. That’s pretty decent to combine those two, but I still feel very unenthusiastic about the whole functionality of the script. You’ve got your categorized links, and when one is clicked, you get the display similar to that of a search engine. Okay, why not just use a search engine. I think people are so used to searching for sites via a search engine that it’s tough to sell them the link farm idea. So it has articles now, which is great, but why not find a stand alone article directory site with more features instead of it being a feature of a link directory script. I’m pretty happy with my Article Friendly site which I’ve added on to my search engine, so there’s just no competition there.
I will say that having the ability to rate a site is pretty cool. Another thing that’s decent is for a commercial script, the price is really cheap. It’s only $30 if you don’t mind leaving the link back to the site. The price with the link removed is $80 which still isn’t that bad. I always pay to remove the copyright or the link back because I’m not trying to further along the brand of the company I’m purchasing from, I’m trying to create my own.
I don’t mean to be so harsh on this script because if you’re into link directories, I think php link directory is the way to go. I just have a hard time getting excited when I’m personally not impressed with the whole idea. They must be doing something right over there since they boast of having about 100,000 sites running php link directory. With a huge community like that, you’re going to have more support, theme, and mod options, which enables the hack (like me) to find the perfect look and setup the site just how you want it.