What PowerSeek options will you use?

PowerSeek comes with many options available to the directory owner, which are explained in detail at FocalMedia's website on the features list and also in the manual.

Some of things to think about are the various options and whether they are a good idea to implement for your particular directory.  Every option used involves extra templates, so it is a good idea to choose them wisely from both the initial design time standpoint and also the maintenance factor.  If you choose all options available you could have over 45 different HTML templates sets and almost 200 separate files to design/integrate into your site's look/feel.  This does not include if you wanted specific category templates etc.  You can see how this could get quite involved for someone new to designing/implementing the look/feel of their site into PowerSeek templates.  There are some shortcuts for basic site designs and also the use of PowerSeek "includes" (which work like server-side includes) which can greatly reduce the time needed and make it easier to maintain.

Building a directory which is both useful and easy to maintain takes careful planning - don't jump into it blindly or you will regret it later!

Some of the options available are discussed below.  Think about how they may work for your particular website before implementing them.

Premium Submissions
I would definitely use this option and even consider charging a small fee for every listing besides what you may "seed" your directory with in the beginning. See "Don't launch Prematurely".  I know many don't agree with this, but quite simply if I'm going to spend my time adding listings that are useful to the visitors and better the site, I am going to add the sites that I believe are the best ones out there for the topic. If you don't charge you will be deluged with submissions - many which are useless sites trying to get "links". 
Note: We can customize both templates and the PowerSeek files to accept more than two types of add url forms.

Modify Links
Think about this carefully.  It's a great option for the "right" directory, but it's better to not use it at all on others.  This is often abused by webmasters who list a site, use the internal search feature after they are listed, and then go back and want to modify their listing to stuff it with "keywords" until they are in the top position for the term.  The person that was in the top position wants to regain that, so they want to do the same.  It ends up creating a vicious cycle, lot's of work on your part, and also creates a spammy looking keyword stuffed directory, which is perceived as low quality by the users and by search engines.  I normally suggest not using this feature or only allowing changes once per year, for a small fee, or changes only if they contact via a contact form on the site.

Ratings
This is the same as above.  The only people that normally rate a site is those who have submitted it.  If people do not rate sites and there are many listings without ratings, then it looks like your directory isn't used much.

Listing Reviews
This is the same as ratings in my opinion.  If you have a very active group of site visitors it's fine, but otherwise if there are many listings without reviews - it makes it look like your directory isn't used much or is stale.

Banner Rotator
I have to admit I have never used this much as my business model and those I have built sites for have revolved around selling advertising on a monthly basis.  I'm sure it would come in handy for managing these if they were images, but most advertising I have worked with is text based advertisements.  Would be a nice feature if it handled rotating text or "banner includes" which consisted of HTML/Text snippets.

There are many other features of PowerSeek such as "What's New" etcetera, but I personally like to draw attention away from the fact I'm using a script to generate my site.  PowerSeek is very customizable and has many uses if you use your imagination.  It can be used as a very nice directory script, but don't overlook using it for items such as glossaries/term definitions or posting entire articles/pages of text etc.

You may want to read some more on directory tips.  I will be updating these as time permits, but wanted to cover some of the bases and questions I am often asked.

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