Over the past few weeks I have been redesigning the Chatterbot Collection. As a lot of you will know this is a large database of chat bots, with over a thousand English chat bots on file. It doesn’t stop there either, we also cover robots in films and TV, books, developers and other areas of related interest.

I thought it could do with some colour rather than the monotone which I had employed over the past three years or so. I’ve also teamed up with Amazon, so visitors can find some bargains in the Books, Movies and TV sections.  There is also an RSS feed of the most recent additions so you can easily keep up to date.

I plan to add a lot more descriptions over the coming weeks too, although I imagine this will take a great deal of time. I now feel more invigorated having enjoyed redesigning the site and will be keeping it updated more often than has been possible over the past couple of months.

And finally I have moved the site to it’s very own domain at :

http://www.chatterbotcollection.com

If you are a web-master and already link to us (thanks) I recommend that you start using the new domain and also that people update their bookmarks. However, I have set up a redirect from the old site to the new domain, so there is no need to rush as I have it covered and all old links will now end up at the new site.

Many thanks to the people who have supported and offered their input to this project. I hope visitors will enjoy the new site.

Kind regards, Roger (aka Freddy)

Note: Erwin, I hope I put this in the right board !

@Roger: Congrats mate! This is really fresh new design. Well done!!! I particulary like the ‘Search’ robot

Only one question: Why did you start on a new domain?  I actually would love to have the top 4 sites in this area on the top 4 positions in Google, and your decision makes that even more difficult, doesn’t it?

Erwin

Thanks for the update, Freddy. I really love the new “look and feel” of the collection. And not to worry about the placement of your post. You hit the nail on the head. Besides, if you had placed it in the wrong location, I would have just moved it.

@Erwin, thanks mate   Yes the robots are great aren’t they - I wish I could say I designed them, but I had to purchase them. I think they work really well with the site and I have some more to dot around too. I’m glad you like the search robot, that was just something that fell nicely into place.

But regarding the new domain, don’t worry too much. I did some research and found that I could use a ‘301’ redirect… this doesn’t result in loss of ranking but simply informs the engines that the page is permanently relocated.

Every URL on the old site has a mirror on the new site, so it really should make little difference. And I also submitted a sitemap to Google so they should be able to find us without any problems.

Try searching Google for the bot names on the front page… nearly all of them turn up on the first page.  And I just found that if I search for ‘Chatterbot Collection’ at Google :

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=chatterbot+collection

You will see the new domain is already on the first page (in position 5 here) and we already have the other four places !

@Dave, thanks my friend

Roger, what’s your Twitter handle ?!?

Thanks!

- Marcus Endicott
  http://twitter.com/mendicott

Thank you Roger,

I just fixed my broken link, which was still pointing to my old server:

http://www.chatterbotcollection.com/item_display.php?id=1191

Now it is working with my new server.

By The Way, I just checked, Roger, and you are already on page 2 of Google
with just the word, “Chatterbot” by itself.

@Marcus - you will already have it I know, but in case anyone else wants it (thanks to Marcus I have now joined the Twittersphere!) its :

http://twitter.com/#!/RogerDavie

Again thanks to Marcus I set things up so it tweets the collection’s RSS too.

@8PLA, I am glad the link is working.  We need to get some more information in there to encourage people to visit your site - drop me a line when you get time : .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

And wow that was fast ! I think the sitemap submitted to Google must be behind that.  Thanks for letting me know.

Just wanted to say thanks to Erwin for adding our banners to CBO

no worries Roger!

The next step is that we have to improve this page @the DMOZ:
http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Artificial_Intelligence/Natural_Language/Chatterbots/

It hasn’t been updated since 2003, but high valued by Google. As a result, that are still many website in the Google results list, higher than AI Dreams and/or Chatbots.org.

Any clue how to fix these pages?

I’ve submitted requests for updates at DMOZ a little over a week ago, and the “stock” message that I got when I made the submission was that it could take “up to several weeks” for the submission to be approved and the change reflected. At that time, I also applied to be an editor for that section of the directory, and have yet to hear back from them, one way or another. I’m trying to be patient, but…

@Dave: totally forgot you were working on this too. I personally believe we need to make use of as many people possible, we probably simply need a personal connection to someone in this organisation to get this page updated.

Well, if I ever get selected as an editor, then I think we’ll have the “inside connection” needed to keep on top of things.

I’d forgotten all about DMOZ, does anyone use it these days ?  I guess some people must. Sounds like the best approach is the one Dave has taken. Let me know if I can do anything.

Well now that you mention it…

I’ll send you an email with the details, as soon as I’m fully awake. (I just rolled out of bed, and need time to fully wake up)

I think after sorting through 300 chatbots so far out of over a 1000 I need something else to do

Interestingly enough, I just received an email from the staff at DMOZ, denying my application to be an editor. The given reason was that the sample URL’s that they requested I give were unacceptable due to the fact that I’m affiliated with them both. Well, given how involved I am in the AI community, I would be hard pressed indeed to come up with a single site that I’m not affiliated with, let alone a pair of them.