This is a post about an article directory script called Article Friendly. You could just click on the link & see what I’m writing about. Or if you want to see how we got to write this post, then read on:

Here is the whole story:

About a year ago I went looking for my next online project. I was looking for a web based income stream with the following characteristics:

  • Had the potential to generate a significant income
  • It had the ability to build a very big site.
  • It would allow me to generate lots of good quality back-links
  • Would build back-links to itself
  • Was content based (Google clearly favours content)
  • Other people would be able to contribute to the website
  • It would give me some insight into what others were promoting across a broad range of markets
  • Would be suitable for AdSense
  • Was a good fit to a number of other sites I ran

After a while I narrowed the choice down to three options; a forum, a web directory and an article directory.

The article directory won out and was built first. Later on we added a web directory. There are plans for the first forum soon.

The article directory has lived up to expectations. It started off bolted on to the side of one of my other sites then it was split off to run as a separate entity. It’s only been on its own for a few months, so had to start again in terms of the search engines.

The directory has not been promoted much, so under its own steam has reached PR3. As the back-links grow organically, the PR will rise.

Getting article submissions has proven to be easy, in fact at one stage the volume of submissions grew to be larger than I could handle.

Income occurs naturally using a mixture of AdSense and affiliate programs. With so much content (just over 20,000 articles as I write) the incoming traffic is all organic search engine generated and free.

The script I chose was the Article Dashboard script and this was selected because:

  • It was free – back then keeping costs down was a real priority.
  • The user forum is active, knowledgeable and very helpful
  • A number of submission services were setup to automatically submit articles to the directory. Makes it real easy to get a directory up and running.
  • There were a good number of sites already using the script. This ensures that the script was a worker and that if I chose to sell the directory, the potential buyer would more than likely be already comfortable with the script.

The Articledashboard script does have a lot of very good features but there are some drawbacks with the script.

  • The code is encrypted so changing anything but the templates is not possible.
  • The article submission process is cumbersome and time consuming if you have a lot of articles to approve
  • The script has quite a few HTML errors which can’t be corrected
  • Documentation is not that flash.
  • The sign-up process doesn’t always work for new authors which means you lose a few potential customers.
  • Development has all but stopped so add-ons are built by others who have installed the site and have the skills to do so. But because the main code is encrypted the add-on ability is limited.

The other day I was looking for a language translation package for my article directory. I found a script called Article Friendly which is built and supported by a few people whom I paid to help me with hosting problems on the current article directory script.

Here’s what it does:

Article Friendly is a feature packed and an easy to use php/mysql script.

  • Fast, Friendly front end. Authors can sign-up quickly and edit/delete their article, change their password or edit their author profile. This frees you for more important things.
  • Star Rating System on all articles. Let your visitors know which articles are hot! Each article starts up rated as five empty stars and adds stars as the article is reviewed, read or downloaded. When they gain a new star is controlled by you.
  • Included Language Translation System. Offer more readers the opportunity to read your site’s articles in their language. Gets your pages indexed by the major search engines in not only English, but in German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese and Japanese!
  • RSS Feeds for every individual category and subcategory. Instead of your users having only one rss feed, they can have multiple feeds in any category. This is really handy for niche sites that only want specific content.
  • Fast, dependable email confirmation system. New Authors must join, then click a confirmation link in your site’s email before being allowed to post their articles!
  • **INCLUDED FREE** 2 integrated custom scripts for accepting free Article Marketer articles. With Article Marketer, you can get thousands of good quality articles in a week or so, and you’ll get more everyday. With AF’s included article marketer scripts, you won’t have to spend all your time approving those articles as they are all auto magically approved.
  • Multipart emails. Send banners/Ads with your confirmation emails, and admin side author emails! Send to all authors, or just one, as plain text or html.
  • Template based for easy customizations, but you aren’t limited to just a few template files. You can customize any page in Article Friendly.
  • Self Contained Links Directory. Allows your users to post an link to their site and offers a reciprocal link to your site. Links can be approved, edited or deleted in your admin sections.
  • Anti-email harvesting “Contact Us” Form. Stops those email harvesting bots dead in their track and reduces spam from your site, and scripts trying to use your site to mass email through your contact us form!
  • Most pages pre-filled in, so all you have to do is edit them the way you wish, or just change the spots for your site name and leave the pages as they are.
  • Login system to keep your admin files safe.
  • Approve All Articles By Keyword. You decide what keywords to approve article to which categories, then mass approve to your chosen categories.
  • You can have multiple admins/editors for article editing/approving. Multiple editors can make your article directory a breeze to run, and all your editors can work at the same time without damaging your database.
  • On-board Duplicate Content Finder. Search your database for dupe content for questionable articles that may have been “borrowed” or several top search engines all at once, and all from within your admin section.
  • Script auto emails you when a new author signs up! Keeps you informed of new sign-ups and if the sign-up was a spammer or a legitimate author. Please it allows you to keep an additional record of your live authors.
  • Duplicate Article Deleter. Removes the dupes, but keeps the original. This will keep Google from penalizing your site for dupe content.
  • Short Article Deleter. Set the minimum number of words, and then clear out the short ones!
    Add/remove/edit categories including subcategories!
  • Admin can enter articles, and create new user accounts thru the admin backend.
  • Add/edit/delete users, articles, countries and more thru the admin section.
  • SEO Friendly
  • Site Shows Most Recent Articles for rich keyword pages. Helps get the high Page Ranks from Google, and top ranking in all the search engines.
  • Full Source Code. Access all the pages any change every html, php or javacript to work any way you wish!
  • Edit and customize your site the way you want it. You Aren’t stuck with the same site as everyone else!

What I really like is that its unencrypted PHP so I can make changes as I need. Its also better laid out for search engines than the original script. Lots more flexibility to squeeze every last cent out of the adsense and affiliate links I run.

Pretty neat, and best of all the Article Friendly script is cheaper than the translation package I was going to buy. So this one is a no brainer for me, I’m going to just upgrade to this script.

In my case I started off with a free script then will end up buying something with better functionality. I will have to set it up all over again. If an Article directory is for you – save yourself a lot of work and get this one, let the team set it up for you. It will end up being a lot cheaper and save you a lot of time in the long run.

If you are giving any thought to getting your own Article directory then I recommend checking this out. You will not be disappointed. Heres that link again Article Friendly

Filed under: Adsense • Articles • Opportunities

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!

Possibly related posts