Directory Critic

I received an email this morning about a serious security flaw in phpLD 2.x. The flaw allows webmasters to submit html tags in the description and name fields. The problem is easily fixed using php’s strip_tags() function. Here is the fix, courtesy of After 5 Web Design:

1. Open:
   submit.php
2. Find:
   $data[‘LAST_CHECKED’] = gmdate(‘Y-m-d H:i:s’);
   $data[‘DATE_ADDED’] = gmdate(‘Y-m-d H:i:s’);
   $data[‘DATE_MODIFIED’] = gmdate(‘Y-m-d H:i:s’);
3. Add:
   $data[‘DESCRIPTION’] = strip_tags($data[‘DESCRIPTION’]);
   $data[‘TITLE’] = strip_tags($data[‘TITLE’]);
   $data[‘OWNER_NAME’] = strip_tags($data[‘OWNER_NAME’]);

Simple. Now that this is out in the open, you should expect spammers to try and expolit it. So I suggest you patch this up as soon as possible. I know Tim from After 5 Web Design has notified the phpLD team, and a patch should be out soon.

Over the past week or two I have been getting a few emails from visitors who are having trouble with the directory tracking system. In all cases, it has been the same error – sites are not saved and do not appear in the drop down menu next time they visit. Just to let you know, I am working on a solution for this. The problem is, I cannot replicate the error on any of my computers or my friends computers so it’s proving difficult.

I will post up here when I have the problem sorted.

PR updates are this site as christmas is to retail stores – a busy time! When directories get the good PR they were aiming for, they switch to paid. At the moment I just logged into admin, I have about 30 reports to process. Most of these will be free-to-paid updates. I have also received about 20 emails in the past few days from directory owners who were nice enough to inform me of the changes to their directory.

Please don’t email about PR updates, i will be running the PR update script tomorrow. I usually like to hold off until all Google’s servers are showing the updated PR.

I have also had a flood of new directories submitted so keep an eye on the new directories page. Last night I approved about 30 or so and declined about 10. I have another 25 to approve tonight. This should take the list total to about 2120. Next target, 2500!

I recieved a number of emails over the past few days about the ratings system being down. I have since fixed this problem, and all is working well. The fault was with the new backend I installed for the ratings system on Monday. Thanks for your patience.

For the past few weeks I’ve been looking for a way to show our visitors just how up-to-date we keep the lists here at Directory Critic. So now we have opened up our list logs so you can see exactly what additions, deletions and updates are being made to all the lists on this site.

New – List Logs

You can access this page of the home page of the site, there is a small link in the bottom right hand corner of the site statistics table. You can see from the logs that we’re making about 30-50 changes to the list every day. This includes new directory additions, directory details updates, deletion of directories and switches from free to paid etc.

I just approved a bunch of new directories which takes the web directory list to 2000! This is a huge milestone for this. A huge thanks goes out to Manish who has been helping me with the list for about the past 8 months!

In other news, I have added a directory list logs page which shows the last 500 additions or changes made to our lists. Basically I wanted a way to demonstrate just how up-to-date the lists are and how many changes I am making on a daily basis.

I am after some ideas for more SEO tools. I currently have the backlink and indexed pages checker up but I want to make a whole section for it. What would you like to see there and what would be useful to you? Any suggestions please leave in the comments, thanks.

Today Directory Critic received with 1000th verified webmaster rating! It’s great to see that so many webmasters and directory owners are using the ratings system! More directory owners are putting our buttons on their submit page and putting links to their rating page in their confirmation emails. This is getting them ratings and pushing them to the top of the directory lists.

With the 1000 verified ratings, there’s probably about another 800 or so which were unverified or broke the rules of the system. We’re watching the system daily, so don’t try to cheat it…we’ll catch you 😉

The lists will break the 2000 mark this week…another milestone for this site!

Over the next few weeks I’m going to be adding some link and SEO tools to Directory Critic. The first tool I’ve added is the backlink and indexed pages checker. This is a simple tool that shows you how many pages your site has indexed and how many incoming links it has in the 3 major search engines.

Enjoy!

Ryan from Niche Listings contacted me yesterday to let me know that he is selling his directory. Niche Listings is one of the leading directories I have listed on Directory Critic. The auction is taking place in this thread over at DigitalPoint. If you’re in the market for a well established and profitable directory I suggest you sheck this one out.

In other news, I am in the process of moving house and have only just been able to get back online. I’m connected to the internet at a whopping 46.2kbps while I wait for ADSL2+ to get installed. It’s killing me! So, I have just finished the 120 directory updates I had waiting and will try to get through the 50 or so new directory suggestions within the next day or two. I’m way behind, but should be back in the swing of things by the weekend!

I was pleased to see that Directory Critic copped a good review by the team at Site Review Blog. It seems whoever wrote the review has been using this site and had some good experiences. I like the comment about “modern design”, lol, I can’t design to save my life! Well, I guess it’s functional and works.

In other news, this week the lists will hit the 1800 mark! w00t w00t! I think it will pass the 2k mark by the end of next month.