The reason behind HealthDirectoryMoz

Hi and Thanks for stopping by !

It’s been a while since HealthDirectoryMoz has been live and I thought this would be the right time to take some time to tell the world out there, my reason behind starting this venture.

Back in January 2008, when I told a few of my SEO friends that I was starting a health directory, their immediate reaction was: “a Directory? Oh no! Why oh why?”

Now for all those of you, who know about search engine optimization ( seo ), you already know that many directories have lost majority of the linking benefit they used to give a few years ago. So, in a way their concern was legitimate.

Well the main reason for this health directory is purely personal rather than commercial.

A spinal cord tumor left me paralyzed shoulder down in 2003 ( T4 paraplegia with complete cord transection.) I had to bid goodbye to my career as mechanical engineer as life changed upside down in matter of a single day.

The endless stream of secondary complications ensured that I spent days and months together finding health related information on the internet.

As I was trying to resurrect my life after disability, another blow struck. This time more brutal than my own injury. Mom was diagnosed with grade III breast cancer.

It’s these health challenges that led me into becoming aware of the importance of “quality” health information on the web. Many times I’d wish there was an honest, trustworthy, and useful database where all the health related sites could be found neatly organized.

Health is a passion for me. The rock solid constant in my life.

Interestingly, in nearly two years of my health research on the net, I never landed on any quality health directories like Dmoz Health or Yahoo Health.

Of course I was not a search engine marketer back then and I didn’t even know about these goldmines of quality health resources. It was saddening for me to realize that these wouldn’t be found much in actual search results just because these are not aggressively marketed and only a handful of the webmaster community uses it.

It’s this void that I’d be attempting to fill. A Quality directory that can be actually found in search results as a quality health hub. The task is enormous but it would be worthwhile journey for sure.

I do NOT intend to monetize HealthDirectoryMoz using any conventional means like Google adsense, banner ads, review fees or affiliate marketing. I want all the listings to be free from any commercial considerations / interests so as to maintain the highest quality standard.

I intend to meet the running costs through some sponsors who believe in corporate social responsibility and who share my passion and vision for creating the best health websites hub on the internet.

So, this is about the background why did I even start a directory in first place and my passion behind it.

In the next post, I’ll write in detail about the vision of HealthDirectoryMoz and how I am trying to actually create tangible value proposition through it.