Free Internet Web Directories are not a new thing; they have for a long time constituted a simple way for webmasters to increase their site’s search engine rankings.

Certain directories, however, are to be avoided; particularly the ones who ask for reciprocal links …

A number of Zlionauts, wanting to improve their ranking, have linked their Zlio Shops to Web Directories that demand reciprocal links in exchange. When getting out of hand, however, it can turn your Zlio Shop into something like that:

This, of course, strongly disturbs your Zlio Shop’s performance and tends to make your visitors flee the site. Furthermore, the practice of placing advertisement links on your Zlio Shop is forbidden, as mentioned in Zlio’s terms of use.

In order to avoid such situations, Zlio has decided to limit the creation of external links to five per Zlio Shop. Therefore it will from now on be possible to add external links only to your Shop’s footer, and only with a limit of five.

Every Zlio Shop not respecting these terms will be deleted without prior notice.

Nevertheless, to link one’s Shop to free Web Directories is always possible, and actually recommended. There are many quality Directories out there, although some of them may be hard to find.

Here is some advice on how to link your Shop to Web Directories:

1. In a text file, prepare all the important information relating to your Shop (title , description, keywords) in a way that will allow you to easily cut and paste this information into the required fields within the directories.

2. We suggest you avoid directories demanding a reciprocal link to your Shop. This type of partnership will not aid your shop in any way, and will simply jam your pages with unuseful logos and banners. The creation of direct links to such directories is in any case limited to five links.

3. Before submitting a store to a web directory, you should verify that it points directly to your Shop’s URL, and not to a redirection site, such as www.directory.net/redirect.php?site=shop.zlio.net. Only links pointing directly to your site will be picked up by the Search Engines.

4. Using a “directory of directories” allows you to compile an impressive list of quality directories which you can link your Zlio Shop to. An example for such a site is http://www.web-directories.ws

5. Look for directories that specialize in the topic of your Zlio Shop. For example, if your Shop specializes in home decor, type “home decor directory” into your Search Engine in order to find directories specializing in this topic.

6. Always keep an updated list of your web directory submissions, in order to avoid signing up twice with the same directory.

Uh oh! Due to some technical difficulties, voting for the Wedding Season Contest opened up only yesterday.

For those of you who were wondering what the problem was, don’t worry!

To give everyone a fair chance at winning that digital camera and printer, the contest dates will be extended:

• Voting is now open until June 23
• The winner will now be announced on June 24

Now get out there and vote!

While we are very excited about the level of response to Your Questions Answered in Video, it seems as though many of you are sending in technical questions. If you’re having difficulty or don’t understand a particular function on the Zlio site, please contact us directly at tech support using the contact form we’ve provided for you.

Questions regarding the business aspect of Zlio.com will be answered by Jeremie in video as planned (the clip is on it’s way!), but we ask you to please send your technical questions to tech support! You’ll note that you have the option to report a bug or suggest an idea if you feel there’s something we’re missing. 

Sending your complaints and questions directly to tech support allows us to get to them faster, and hopefully help you!

Between Februrary 22 and March 5, 2008 Zlio’s Customer Service experienced several technical difficulties.  

If you sent us an email between these days you probably did not get a response because our server had a problem transmitting reply emails.

Rest assured, the problem has since been rectified and the Zlio Team will be in touch with you as soon as possible.

We apologize for this inconvenience and thank you for your understanding,

  

The Zlio Team  

Dear all,Please note that Google Adsense ads won’t be displayed on your stores until January 6 due to system maintenance.Thanks for your patience and understanding!

Please remember to include your shop URL with your inquiry.

We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

Dear Zlio Shop owners,For the past week, you have probably noticed that our system has been operating slower than normal, and that some of the functions in your Zlio shop have not been functioning properly. All of these issues will be resolved with the current addition of 5 new servers that we have added in order to improve the performace of Zlio.Things should return to normal within a few days.The entire Zlio Team is sorry for this temporary inconvenience, and we thank you for your patience and understanding.The Zlio Team