Recently, we've felt the need to update the site to look sleeker, cleaner and generally more organized. A lot of the category index pages were becoming bloated, and some had over one thousand links and more in each category.
Managing such a huge directory can become challenging in this way, so we decided to break up the category indices by a factor of twenty-five.
Not only does this keep page sizes small, and download times quick, it makes for an overall better experience on the surfer.
We've also added a link to the search page. You can only search the directory from one page, and we keep it this way to prevent automated abuse. Since the search is integrated, keeping our system resource available is part of our directory implementation strategy. The best part about our search is that users can narrow results by state, and perform it performs a like search instead of a "=" this helps bring up more results, and they are highlighted on the page that's returned.
We've also changes the look and feel, adding thumbnails to the main listing pages, and the city and state to the title element of each listing page. We feel this helps people at a glance know if the business they're checking out is right for them if being local is a factor. Different colors, and a new logo complete some of the changes, of which not all are covered here.
Look for an option being offered soon on the search page, which will be a full-text search and promises to be a great tool for keeping up with increasing directory competition.
