Australian Cycling Directory Retired

[AUbicycles]

Not directly related to the Australian Cycling Forum, rather on BNA the 23 year old Australian Cycling Directory has now been retired.

It contained over 2,000 hand curated listings with all the Australian and New Zealand bike shops, mobile repair, bike hire, cycling clubs, Bicycle User Groups, Associations and Organisations, cycle coaches and professional services, importers and distributers, international cycling tours and brands.


For those interested, a little background info.

In recent years the demands for new listings or listing updates from brands and entities continued. And... it was not a fee based service. This meant a much better quality and more comprehensive directory as there was no entry hurdle for genuine submission - unlike many services. As it was manually compiled and qualified and updated, it was also time consuming.

Many years ago I had some value in maintaining a good overview of the Australian market and worked for various international cycling brands wanting to build their business in Australia.

From the visitor stats with tens of thousands of people clicking through each month, there is certainly a value for them. Of course the business and organisations listed get website visitors (customers) and the backlinks from BNA (which helps their website relevance in search engines). However there were regular, incomprehensible complaints from brands who did not keep their info updated but were also comfortable to complain "why is my business info not up to date?" and demand for it to be promptly fixed. And far too many complaints from general visitors "How come you don't know that Bob's bike shop closed down last week?". (The answer... Bob never told me).

Of course an online directory however it not a particularly modern concept. The quality however means there is still a lot of traffic and small details such as noting when a business closed or that it has a new name or address, along with a link meant that it did a nice job of filling a knowledge gap.

However my ongoing time investment has no relationship to value and for a while, the days have been numbered. Under the covers there are a few small stories to tell... another day perhaps.


Cheers
Christopher