CityStar Wiki:Current events

November 20, 2015

The CityStar websites, registered trademark and other IP assets have been acquired by BizIQ, based in Phoenix, Arizona. BizIQ is a resource for business optimization, and the addition of CityStar to its offerings will contribute the online marketing opportunities that BizIQ’s many clients enjoy.

The new CityStar contact information is:
Phone: (480) 685-9433

Office address:
BizIQ
3627 East Indian School Road, Suite 205
Phoenix, AZ 85018

http://www.ebiziq.com

June 21, 2014

Over the course of the past 3 months, more than 62,000 edits to CityStar's databases have been completed, improving almost every city site in the CityStar directory network. For example, linked sites' descriptions and anchor text have been rewritten and improved, excessive keywords removed, links to domains that have expired and sites that have gone offline have been removed, and screen shots updated. This project is a continuation of CityStar's ongoing quality initiative.

November 13, 2013

Today CityStar Group, Inc. filed its first patent applications at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to cover its search engine's unique features and functionality. The company's proprietary software is utilized exclusively by CityStar's 303 local city directory websites and the International Business Directory at www.citystar.com.

The system was created by CityStar between March 9, 1997 and April 15, 1997, and was first demonstrated publicly on October 13, 1999 on CityStar's home page. During its development, several distinctive functions were added, such as wildcard database entries, the ability to search for several keywords or phrases simultaneously by inserting commas between each, and the ability to display relatively large screenshots of each website in its search results.

In subsequent years following the script's creation, many clever embellishments were added through formatting of search engine results page (SERP) templates, adding specialized fields to the system's databases, inserting external filenames in certain fields, and so forth. However, the search program itself has stood the text of time, and remains unchanged. The company has tested it and it has proven to be extremely fast, scaleable, adaptable and accurate.

During the years 2002 through 2007, as CityStar expanded beyond its initial service area in Colorado, additional software was developed to streamline the management of the network of sites. As a result, the network is very simple to maintain and update, although it's larger and more popular than ever. The CityStar search engine is currently utilized by millions of visitors to the sites each year.

August 6, 2013

CityStar was recently ranked as a top 5,000 website in the U.S. by Alexa, the Web information company. Over the past several weeks the site has steadily gained higher Alexa rankings, and as of today, August 6, 2013, its rank in the U.S. is 4,854 out of tens of millions of ranked sites.

December 18, 2012

CityStar's International Business Directory recorded a phenomenal spike in traffic to the 302 city directory sites yesterday, a one-day increase of more than 47%.

CityStar.com has updated and reduced the file sizes of many client home page screenshots used on our sites, reducing our page load times by up to 27%. This is an important factor in Google's pagerank. You can find a site's screenshot and CityStar listing, if any, here:

citystar.com/search_by_url.html

November 20, 2012

CityStar's new blog at blog.citystar.us was launched yesterday, November 19, 2012. This will replace the blog at MerchantCircle, and as a result of implementation of new software by Textpattern CMS, it is much faster-loading, cleaner and utilizes a better design than the MerchantCircle blog.

CityStar has created a new full color brochure, and will utilize it as the centerpiece of its Winter 2012-2013 direct mail campaign.

CityStar has launched a new Pinterest page at pinterest.com/citystar.

CityStar's Alexa traffic rankings are approaching all-time record levels.

August 15, 2012

CityStar's development team has created a substantially faster search engine for its local city directory sites, and will be rolling it out on Monday, August 20, 2012. This is the latest development in CityStar's speed initiative, part of its ongoing commitment to faster loading pages and better quality.

The new code enables CityStar to reduce the size of its database of websites by 28%, resulting in faster database queries. It also enables international business listings to easily be found in 4,900 cities instead of just the 303 most popular locations for which CityStar operates local subdomain sites.

The search engine database and script improvement concepts by Artie Romero were programmed by John Bokma, and the implementation scripts were written by Tim Romero.

CityStar's TV and radio commercials are currently being updated to match its new branding, and to include information on its recent international expansion.

May 19, 2012

CityStar's main search engines and directories, citystar.com and www2.citystar.com are now sporting a new design. The main features:

   * New green logo and star motif
   * All display ads have been removed.  Listings are the only content.
   * New branding as International Business Directory
   * CSS and Javascript are utilized effectively.
   * The new design is mobile device friendly: iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Android phone users will find it easier to use.
   * The new site is substantially faster loading.
   * The new design features more consistent style and navigation.
   * The sites are now hosted on substantially faster, more secure and reliable Web servers.

The new design was created by Ricky Romero of Redwood City CA, and implemented by Louisville Web Group in Louisville, Kentucky and the CityStar Group, Inc. technical crew in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The new server technology was supplied by DigiPark, LLC of Colorado Springs, where John M. Powell created a very secure and reliable configuration for CityStar's sites. The new hardware has proven to be amazingly fast.

The new design, over a year in the making, replaces a design created by Ricky Romero in 2002 while he was a Web designer at CityStar. The new branding of "International Business Directory" has replaced CityStar's former branding as the "National Website Directory."

February 28, 2012

CityStar TV commercials started airing today in New York City, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Ft Worth, Seattle and Sacramento, CA. 400 spots will run during the next 33 days, which works out to about one every 74 minutes from 8:00 am until 11:00 pm 7 days a week in all cities. Broadcast stations include:

   * WKOB 42 New York
   * WYGA 16 Atlanta
   * KUVM 34 Houston
   * KODF 26 Dallas/Fort Worth
   * K31GL 31 Dallas/Fort Worth
   * KATA 50 Dallas/Fort Worth
   * KUSE 46 Seattle
   * KBTV 8 Sacramento

If your website is not yet featured in CityStar, this is a good time to add it.

November 2, 2011

CityStar® is working behind the scenes to create a total site redesign, as well as all new branding. Top designers are involved in the new look, which will be more compatible with mobile devices such as Android, iPhone, iPad etc. An important part of the redesign will be the elimination of all display advertising. There will be no skyscraper or tile ads in the new CityStar, only listings. The new CSS coding will also be much faster loading, which is expected to further improve CityStar's rankings in the major search engines.

December 22, 2010

CityStar® has opened a new office in the Denver metro area at 2 West Dry Creek Circle, suite 100, Littleton CO 80120. The Denver phone number is 720.989.1251. Our main office is still located at 2 North Cascade Avenue, suite 1100, Colorado Springs CO 80903. Complete contact information is here.

November 24, 2010

In addition to radio and TV ad campaigns that were previously announced covering the Seattle, Dallas/Fort Worth and Knoxville, Tennessee markets, CityStar® has now launched 60-second radio ads in Orlando FL, Chattanooga TN, and two stations covering Reno, Sparks and Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Several of these stations also broadcast worldwide through streaming audio and iTunes.

The CityStar® Associates Program has now recruited almost 180 Associates and trainees. Plans are being finalized to offer Associates a number of special conferences, with prominent marketing professionals providing specialized sales training and answering Associates' questions.

July 7, 2010

The expansion of CityStar's network continues. This month CityStar's Associates, trainees and affiliates number more than 100 for the first time. Since November, 2009 the CityStar Associates program has placed 88.9 million banner and tile ads on popular tech-oriented websites.

CityStar started development of 12 more city sites in 11 countries, taking the network to a total of 300 cities. The new sites cover:

• Paris, France
• Berlin, Germany
• Madrid, Spain
• Rome, Italy
• Athens, Greece
• Tel Aviv, Israel
• Cairo, Egypt
• Mexico City, Mexico
• Bogota, Colombia
• Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Buenos Aires, Argentina

In May, 2010, the Flat Rate Listing was reintroduced as a result of popular demand. In June a new product, the Video Listing, was introduced. In conjunction with this, a YouTube channel for CityStar was launched. The channel is being advertised on YouTube with promoted videos. As of July 5, 2010, CityStar's YouTube channels already have more than 1.5 million video views.

Commercials began running on radio stations in several markets, including the Seattle metro area, Dallas/Fort Worth and Knoxville, Tennessee. In addition to CityStar's current radio advertising, the company is starting a new TV ad campaign. The first flight will begin airing in Louisville, Kentucky on Monday, July 12 on RTV (Formerly RTN, Retro Television Network), running 200 times per month. This on-the-air digital station is available to over 1.5 million viewers in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Here is some information on RTV.

CityStar is currently in negotiations to buy airtime on more stations and networks. An HD version of the TV commercial is available on YouTube.

Here is a 60-second radio ad (5MB WAV file). The radio campaign will continue to be expanded to more cities. So far, the radio ad campaign has increased CityStar's website traffic to record levels, and other metrics such as Alexa's rankings have improved. See server reports and Alexa metrics.

Recently, 2700 pages of the main CityStar site at www.citystar.com were recompiled, leading to a dramatic increase in search engine traffic. The inside page redesign includes a Google search widget on every category page, and this has significantly increased corporate revenues.

November 27, 2009

CityStar® Group, Inc. is currently working on a large scale relaunch of its network. The primary components of this effort include:

• The institution of an official Associates Program
• A large-scale advertising campaign
• New Public Relations initiatives
• An enduser contest with thousands of dollars in prizes
• Strategic alliance with DexOne
• Strategic alliance with Dunn & Bradstreet's PowerProfiles
• Product improvements such as faster search

Associates Program

CityStar's Business Development Director is working closely with CityStar® CEO Artie Romero and a team of designers, developers and media specialists to create training materials, testing and certification systems for CityStar's first official Associates Program.

The goal of this program is to recruit and train hundreds of local CityStar® Associates in cities nationwide. A CityStar® Associate is an independent contractor who has been trained and licensed by CityStar® Group, Inc. to help business owners and other website managers boost traffic to their websites, primarily by assisting them in acquiring well-written and well-positioned Listings in the National Website Directory and relevant local CityStar® sites.

Associates are trained, coached and mentored on an ongoing basis, and are well paid for their efforts. New recruits enter basic Associate training. Upon completion of the first round of instruction, they are tested, and if successful, are awarded CityStar® Associate status. At that point they may start earning commissions, and may proceed to the CityStar® Academy, an advanced training curriculum which, when completed, gives Associates the added credential of Internet Marketing Specialist (IMS).

Ultimately, by reaching certain production goals and by contributing to the community of CityStar® Associates, an individual may achieve Owner Associate status. An Owner Associate selects a local CityStar® website, and earns commissions on all Listings placed in that site, no matter who sold those listings. Owner Associates receive several other benefits:

• Spokesperson for CityStar® in their city, media interviews (optional)
• Paid commissions on all listings in their local CityStar® site
• Receives email submitted from their local CityStar® site (optional)
• Local phone number posted on all pages (optional)
• May initiate media cross-promotions, co-brand local site
• Invited to CityStar® incentive meetings, accommodations paid by CityStar®

Large-scale Advertising Campaign

CityStar® has committed to supporting the expansion of its directory network with a series of massive marketing and public relations campaigns. To help take the CityStar® network to the next level of traffic and to promote the brand, CityStar® is currently airing 60-second radio commercials and and 30-second television commercials in cities throughout the U.S. The current TV, radio commercials may be downloaded here:

CityStar® Marketing and Media Resources

Public Relations

CityStar® continuously distributes press releases about its expansion efforts, strategic alliances, and other business news, and makes executives such as Artie Romero available for interviews. CityStar® has engaged an on-screen personality to record promotional videos, professionally produced in HD, for YouTube and other outlets. We will update these wiki pages as these public relations campaigns progress.

Product and Infrastructure Improvements

CityStar® currently has local phone numbers in several large U.S. cities, and more local phone numbers will soon be added. Virtual office locations are also being established throughout the U.S.

CityStar's developers are currently constructing a new ecommerce system for use by our clients and Associates. Search engine improvements are currently being completed. A redesign initiative is underway.

This wiki is part of CityStar's infrastructure improvements. Our strategy is to provide detailed information to clients and Associates in a format that is easier to use, more interconnected and more scaleable than a typical FAQ page.

Through these developments, CityStar® intends to expand its network to dominate the city directory space in the U.S. in the near term, and eventually, worldwide.