We have a new entrant in the dodgy directory stakes: NZ Business Guide. I was asked to authorise a new listing and our account had somehow been “backdated 2 years”. That’s curious – the domain was registered for the very first time in April 2012.
I asked the woman who phoned who the company was owned by and she didn’t know. I asked who had interviewed her and she only knew her as “Natasha”. I suggested that perhaps she should do some homework before she took a job – to ensure the company would be able to pay her, if nothing else.
So, here’s what I know about the NZ Business Guide
- The domain was registered in April 2012 for a single year, the owners possibly don’t intend to have the site up for the full 2 years that they are billing their customers for. Take a peek at the whois info for NZ Business Guide
- The “way back machine” which archives copies of websites hasn’t even found the site yet: http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.nzbusinessguide.co.nz
- Google knows next to nothing about the site and they have no inbound links: https://www.google.co.nz/webhp?q=info:www.nzbusinessguide.co.nz
- The site uses a stock wordpress template (probably free) which are readily available on the internet – they were too lazy to even edit the template.
- It looks like they’ve planning on adding a classifieds site in the near future. Towards the end of may they installed the ClassiPress plugin, added a logo and moved on: classifieds.nzbusinessguide.co.nz
What I don’t know is
- Who is Danny Kariam – I was left “on hold” while the operator asked around the office to try and find out who he is. As the website registrant I had expected him to be either the owner or the IT guy. Apparently not. Its not often Google comes up short on people’s names but apparently this guy is unique!
- Who is Kurt Weber? The address suggests a link with Kurt Weber Tiling but there are no exact matches.
I have no idea of this directory will “take off” and provide value to customers who sign up but on the basis of their current “SEO” or search engine optimisation efforts I’d suggest putting off a decision for a few months to see how they shape up.