About the Directory
The goal Rich County is to promote local web development and community awareness by providing a lightweight directory and calendar.
My goal was to list every site I can find for an area. I created the Add Link page so that people could add links that I missed. I decided to remove the page a few years back.
Why I Made the Directory
Back in 1999 people questioned whether or not the Internet would continue to be an open market with thousands of independent voices or if it would become a regressive force dominated by a few large multinational firms.
I prefer the former ideal to the latter. I decided that the best way to express my opinion would be to create directories. I believe that local communities are a vital element of a robust society; so, I began developing free community directories and portals. My business plan was to fund the directories by running affiliate ads for local merchants.
NOTE: I live in Salt Lake City. I am not a member of the LDS Church. I was told by local business leaders to leave; So, I headed North and began developing sites in Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington. I gave away all my first sites except for Missoula.WS. I returned to Salt Lake for the 2002 Olympics.
The sites themselves are marginal. The goal was to create lightweight self-funded directories. Webmasters could drop links to the directory to support local business.
The Existential Crisis
A few years ago a huge multinational firm named "Google" decided that it wanted to dominate the local market. To create its monopoly Google issued an unethical edict that it would web sites if they linked to or were listed in local directories.
Following Google's edict, webmasters began pulling links to my directories and I received requests from pannicking webmasters begging that I pull my links.
NOTE, Google has since created a "disavow" function. If you are listed in a directory; you can use the Google Disavow Tool to denounce the directory.
I am not upset that Google pulled my project from their search engine. They can do whatever they want with their property. The great evil Google performed was that it convinced webmasters to pull links to all local directories. Google is an evil and unethical monopoly.