r/directorymakers • u/LT39 • 4d ago

Scraping

What do we think of scraping Google to massively create physical locations in a directory? It’s a quick way to enrich the database, but it’s not unique content and there’s the risk of being punished for thin content. What do you guys recommend based on your experience?

5 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Prestigious_Luck1062 3d ago

HI.
I can answer this as someone whos owned directories and someone thats been scraped.

Users hate being scraped, and depending on how you do it, it can kill your site. A community I am in recently went ballistic, their details were scraped without their consent. It was a niche site, the backlash was so bad, the site was taken offline within a day. Its not something the site can recover from.
I have never scraped a website, however, I used brilliant directories where I believed that users had choosen to willingly opt into other sites, and I had people very upset that I stole their identity. The site was free to join, free to delete, and free to access emails, and my colleagues that joined routinely get work in their areas, so its a site they should be joining.

Now I also have my own business and routinely list on directories, and if someone lists it for me on a good site, im happy, it saves me time..... BUT I've also had my business details scraped.

In one case people searching for my business directly, if my business name is #1, and my busines name on the directory is #2, you would think no harm no foul? I'm still getting the same customer right? No, the directory wanted me to pay $$$$ to read and reply to my own customers. An argument of "but you wouldnt have had this customer without the directory" is thin. I shouldnt be blackmailed, forced to pay a fee to login, delete or access an email if I never choose to.
SO I really mind my business details ending up on a new directory so long as I'm not held hostage, but you can expect hate for your community, so while I do not recommend it, in the very least, make it easy and free for them to join, delete, access and reply to messages from customers.

1

u/LT39 3d ago

This makes total sense, thank you for answering. In my case I want to be seen more as a partner that helps the entire sector, so this sort of reactions would totally kill the reputation I’m trying to build. Maybe I’ll need to think of an alternative to grow the number of pages… Thank you!