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NBCi, previously known as Snap, is a big portal that wascreatedby combining several well known sites together. Among otherthings, it offers entertainment and news to its visitors. Butwere not really interested about those things, are we? Whatinterests us is that NBCi gets lots of visitors and has its ownindependent directory which is used every time these visitorswant to do a search. This means that you can use NBCi to boostthe traffic of your site, but first you must understand how theNBCi directory system works.The NBCi system is pretty unique when compared to some othermajor directories, such as Yahoo and the Open DirectoryProject.The two others have a simple system for reviewing sites - yousubmit a site, a human visits it and either includes it in thedirectory or rejects the submission. With NBCi, things aredifferent.The LiveDirectory - what it is and how it works================================When users submit their sites to NBCi, they are placed in theNBCi LiveDirectory. The LiveDirectory is arranged intocategories, just as the regular NBCi directory, but there aretwo major differences. The first difference is thatLiveDirectory results are only shown to users when no matchesinthe regular directory can be found, or when all matches in theregular directory have already been shown. This means that theLiveDirectory gets used less than the regular directory, andsites listed in the LiveDirectory generally get less trafficthanthose in the regular directory.By now, youre probably asking yourself Well, how the heck amIgoing to get to the regular directory if all new submissionsareplaced in the LiveDirectory?. Its actually pretty simple andisconnected to the second major difference between theLiveDirectory and the regular directory. The thing is,submissions to the LiveDirectory are not really reviewed byhumans. The LiveDirectory is pretty much like a search engine,the only difference is that it is organized into categories.There is very little control as to what gets into theLiveDirectory - just about everything can get in, if its notsomething completely sick or entirely worthless (this lack ofcontrol does not however mean that widespread abuse wouldnt benoticed). After youre in the LiveDirectory, you get ranked andare placed in the LiveDirectory results.What about the part of getting into the regular directory? Holdon, were getting there.. You see, the LiveDirectory resultsserve as a springboard to the regular directory. Every time auser clicks at a LiveDirectory site result, the NBCi databasetakes note. When a LiveDirectory site has received enoughclicks, it attracts the attention of the NBCi staff who thensend a human to review the site. If the site is deemed goodenough, it is promoted to the regular directory and the ownerisnotified. NBCi figures that this kind of a system eases theirworkload - a Yahoo-style outfit has to review all sitessubmitted to it, while NBCi lets the users to do the initialscreening by tracking their clicks, and only sends humanreviewers to the best of the LiveDirectory sites.How to get past LiveDirectory to the regular directory====================================You have two choices. The first is to pay the $99 review fee(goes up to $199 in at the end of February, 2001). If you dontwant to pay, you must go through the LiveDirectory.Unfortunately, the free way has its problems. If your sitedoesnt get enough clicks, it will get buried under theenormousheap of regular directory & LiveDirectory results and youllnever get someone to review your site, not to mention gettingany traffic. To avoid these problems, youre going to have toachieve two things.The most important thing is to select keywords you can obtaina decent rank under. Theres no sense in trying to go for themost popular keywords that already produce hundreds of matcheswithin the main directory. As I said before, the LiveDirectorylistings only come up if no matches are found in the maindirectory, all matches that have been found are exhausted or ifthe user specifically requests to see LiveDirectory results. Ifyou target too popular keywords, youll be buried under theresults from the main directory and will not attract too manyclicks. I recommend that you try to find keywords that arerelevant and used fairly often, but dont result in many maindirectory sites turning up.After finding the right keywords, youll have to get your siteclose to the top of the LiveDirectory results from thebeginning. As the NBCi LiveDirectory does not spider, youllhave to make sure that the description and title you entercontain a nice amount of keywords. I recommend placing thekeyword you feel is most important in your title once or twice,and 2-4 times in your description. You should also attempt tosqueeze a few of your less important keywords into yourdescription, and if possible, one or two in your title wouldnthurt either. By making sure that your title and descriptioncontain several instances of your most important keyword,youreincreasing your chances of getting a high LiveDirectory rankingfrom the get-go.OK, you just read the above and are thinking "Boy, Im gonnamakemy NBCi title and description look like a META keywords tag andgrab em top rankings easily!".. Im sorry to say, but thatalonewont cut it. As I have described above, user clickthroughsdetermine whether your site will get into the main directory ornot. Do you think that an unattractive list of keywords as yourdescription and title will get you many clicks? Didnt thinkso.As youre going to need to attract people to click on your sitewhen it shows up in the results, youre going to want to make acompromise between a keyword-stuffed description and adescription that attracts people to click. As clicks counttowards getting your site to the main directory and also boostyour ranking in the LiveDirectory, you should focus on gettingthe clicks. If you can add a heavy amount of keywords to yourtitle and description without sacrificing too much of itsattractiveness, then do it. But always remember to thinkWould I click, if I was searching and this result came up?.With these words, I hope that you now have some insight onhow the NBCi system works (some of the more experienced mighthave noticed that the system is actually pretty similar toDirectHits) and are able to get from the LiveDirectory to theregular directory.

About the Author

Lauri Harpf runs the A Promotion Guide website, where heoffers free information about search engines, directoriesand other promotion methods. His site can be found athttp://www.apromotionguide.com/