Today I am going to review a Blog Directory based on Dew-NewPHPLinks script. I should review this script in detail some other time. Some stats about BlogDirectory.vg before I dive in some features I liked (probably they come out of the box with the script being used).

Google Pagerank 2, close to 200 pages indexed in Google, that means many pages are still waiting to be indexed. More than 1000 links to the domain.

What I like in this directory (I won’t be reviewing it if I didn’t like it)

1. They let users write reviews about each entry. That can get a lot of UGC if they manage to make it popular with bloggers and release a widget that will show a random review from this directory on the blog.

2. It’s free, there isn’t any paid option either. No reciprocals required.

3. Easy account creation process. I normally hate to register in directories but these guys have made it so easy, I wouldn’t mind ‘quickly registering’ while I also submit my blog at the same time. I hope other directory owners will also adopt this concept.

4. Featured Site; I really like this one, they keep showing a different featured site (sometimes with a review) while I browse the directory. It’s not exactly a stumbleupon experience but it’s slick.

5. Category based search, I have rarely seen this one. Once the directory has 1000s of links, this would come handy.

6. Clean (not empty) template and not many advertisements on the directory, though it would be great if the advertisements could be blended better with the site’s background and font color.

7. Create My Category For Me – Another supercool feature, just like they solved the registration problem, they have also made a better “suggest a category” seen in other directories.

Directory uses a redirect for links just like many social bookmarking sites. This might confuse many bloggers to think the directory is not passing pagerank. In my opinion, it’s better to provide a direct link but directory owner might want to keep track of clicks on each link using this method.

Things that could make this directory better:

1. Redirecting blogdirectory.vg/directory to www.blogdirectory.vg/directory (or vice versa) would ensure PR is not split and google doesn’t see duplicate content. It’s surprising how many directory owners are making this mistake.
2. Meta tags look like they are for Dew-NewPHPLinks and not for a business blog directory.
3. About page is an advertisement for directory script and doesn’t say much about directory’s vision.
4. SEO-Friendly URLs are missing. By now everyone agrees on the importance of SEO friendly URLs, I wonder why a directory script will miss out on this feature.
5. Custom titles and meta tags for categories are also missing. It’s very common for directory owners to miss the custom meta tags for categories but the titles are normally taken care of by directory script. This one falls short.

Overall, I like the directory and will look forward to finding more such directories.