What is a Search Directory?

The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce you to community driven advertising using search directories.

A search directory is an early form of a web directory or link directory. It is an online list, or catalog of websites, or web pages. A Web Directory lists entries on people, products or businesses and their contact information.

A brief history of the start of Internet search.

The World Wide Web Virtual Library was the first index of content on the World Wide Web and still operates as a directory of e-texts and information sources on the web. It was started by Tim Berners-Lee[1] creator of HTML and the World Wide Web itself, in 1991 at CERN in Geneva. Unlike commercial index sites, it is run by a loose confederation of volunteers, who compile pages of key links for particular areas in which they are expert. It is sometimes informally referred to as the "WWWVL", the "Virtual Library" or just "the VL".

Prior to September 1993, the World Wide Web was entirely indexed by hand.

An interface of technology and culture.

Circa 2011 Google was developing their own version of Latent Semantic Analysis [LSA] to slow rapid increase of duplicate content. Today the rapid growth of "smart" ads using LSA are saturating online searches with paid ads and remarketing campaigns. LSA put a lot of people out of work back in the day. It's now used to profile users' behavior from data gathered along their search paths.

Human vs Machine

The Web Ad Tutor précis starts with the choice to opt in to ads instead of the opt out methods associated with sneaky LSA campaigns.