Tag: discovery

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Launched: Hyperlink Node Directory

This started out as a thinking out loud type post a few weeks ago.  At that time I couldn’t really think of a straight forward use for it but my instincts told me it could be useful or somebody would figure out a use for it eventually.  Anyway I spent the week before Christmas 2018 getting things set up.

Wat?

Okay, a hyperlink node and “clump of links” are synonymous. If I call your link page a hyperlink node it suddenly sounds legit. 🙂

The Hyperlinks node directory is an index of individual collections of web links, by type.  Therefore it indexes: blogrolls and following pages, directories, search engines, linkblogs, link pages, niche directories, webrings and other significant collections.  Comments are enabled for each listing, if you have a thought on a listing, please share it.  These collections often map out odd little corners of the web.

Utility

Thinking on it some more, I think it has value for: 1. discovery, finding new sites and blogs to follow by seeing what other people have taken the time to link to, 2. eventually I think it might be useful for indexing communities, 3. establishing, at least one, central index of decentralized search and the hyperlinking guerrilla war against the search monopoly silos, 4. an aid to reestablishing “surfing the web”.  There may be more that I have not thought of.

The big utility for me is having a place to list these when I stumble across them, so they can be shared, rather than just bookmarking them (or worse forgetting to bookmark them).

Challenge #1: Build Your Own

My first challenge to you is build your own node: Easiest would be an old fashion link page or a blogroll/following page; or maybe a linkblog or a linkblog-directory hybrid; or even a directory.  Whatever you feel like, build it and show people websites you like.  Examples and ideas are in the directory.  You can do this.

Challenge #2: List It Here

You might already have a linkblog, link page or big blogroll, if so you can either add the URL to the directory or you can send me the URL via the contact form (hopefully it works) at the bottom of this post and I will review it for inclusion.  It dose not even have to be your own, if you run across something drop me the URL and I’ll look at it.

Or if you build something for Challenge 1, come back and list it.

The idea is to have a lot more of these all across the indieweb so web surfers can find human reviewed recommendations. Like Word of Mouth recommendations from people you trust.

I hope this is in some way useful.  Thanks!

Be sure to include the URL to your node in the form below:

 

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I ran across a web directory devoted to Neocities websites: Neocities Districts.  It’s a very attractive human edited directory. “Districts” are a nice nod to the nostalgia for old Geocities districts.

Neocities has a great internal search function to find sites powered by Duckduckgo.  But there is value in a directory like this one, in that you have a human editor sorting the wheat from the chaff.  Something no search engine crawler can really do.  If you want to find some interesting Neocities sites I suggest using Neocities Districts first.

I’ve added Neocities Districts to our Specialized Searching Category.

H/T: Web-Site-Ring.

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These are notebook type thoughts.  I’m developing my thoughts.

I have been thinking of a directory of directories and how that would work.  There is no value in just listing a bunch of spammy directories built only for SEO purposes.  And I have already listed the good traditional directories in Indieseek.

However, what if I got away from what I normally consider a “directory” and started thinking about hyperlink nodes – collections of hyperlinks?

  • Good Directories – fellow travelers with what Kicks Condor and I are trying to do.
  • Good Indie Search Engines – with their own index.
  • Blogrolls and Following Pages – extensive ones.
  • Link Pages – extensive ones.
  • Niche Directories – many are built using pages on a blog but I keep running into them.
  • Webrings – functioning ones.  (Maybe ??)
  • Other – You know them if you look close, but they may not be obvious.

The first two bullet points, I have or can easily cover here on Indieseek, but the later points from Blogrolls down I don’t think have ever been mapped out.  It’s a bit like cataloging the forgotten notebooks of the web.

The bulleted list above would probably make a good set of top level categories.

Value

The second question is: does this have any value?  And for that I’m not sure.  I could see somebody using the Blogroll category to find blogs that other individuals are following. Each blogroll is a word of mouth recommendation.  And that’s the thing, these relatively small hyperlink nodes, mostly all have humans making them and that has a value – somehow.  This gets down to the grass roots of the Web.  The Web, by definition, is about hyperlinks and linking – by humans for use by humans, not algorithms.

I don’t think it will ever be huge. but may over time end up being larger than I anticipate.  Which is why I’m leaning toward using a directory script vs. trying to do this on the wiki.  Easier to maintain on a purpose built script.

I don’t think it will get used a lot by the public.  I don’t think the public will understand it.  I don’t really care about either of those.  Some people collect rocks, I collect links. *Sigh*  At the minimum this would be a place to keep bookmarks of these hyperlink nodes.

Seems like this could be a good place to store these links publicly since I keep finding them.

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#web directory #indieweb #discovery #decentralizedsearch

This is Indieseek.  Here’s the Home Page and here is the directory.  The whole site should be responsive to work on phone, tablet and computer screens.  I’ve already written a features post which lists many features but really it’s best to just explore and find stuff.

The site is a fusion of a WordPress blog and WSNLinks, a very powerful directory script.  The reason I went this route was because WordPress can be equipped with Indieweb.org plugins which lets other sites communicate with Indieseek and lets Indieseek communicate with them.  A directory script, on it’s own, just cannot do that.  Hopefully I will write enough compelling posts to keep the whole site from sliding into obscurity.

This is a small starter effort to address how websites get discovered, especially new blogs and websites.  For a decade we’ve all been syndicating out to Facebook and Twitter to get traffic, because that bypasses Google.  Well, Facebook and Twitter are slowly closing down syndication from blogs, which leaves us all, once again, at the mercy of Google.  I don’t think the Web should rely on just Google and Bing for website discovery.  We are fools to put all our eggs in just two baskets.

I have no illusions that one, old school directory is going to take on Google, but you can read my essay on decentralized search for more insight into what I’m thinking.

Right now this is a tiny directory.  I’ve filled it with a starter set of links (Brad’s bookmarks, mainly)  🙂  so you have something to explore but also to do two things: 1. show that there are websites and pages out there that don’t always rank well in the search engines but are worth seeing, 2. List resources to encourage people to build their own non-corporate blogs and websites.

Now I have a favor to ask:  Please submit your blogs, photoblogs, podcasts, microcasts, static sites.  Especially, please add, the personal blogs (those blogs that are about everything) because those are the hardest for me to try and describe on my own.  There is a Help page with simple instructions.

Beyond that, bookmark us, use us as we grow, tell your friends, spread the word, tip your server, be kind to those less fortunate and flip the bird to our monopolist Corporate Overlords.

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