I see commercial sites at Zeal

[Thanasus]

I did a few granular searches at zeal and see numerous commercial sites. While the sites offer bountiful information as well, I thought the hardline principal at zeal was "If it sells something, then it doesn't get listed".

If a commercial site is extrememly useful or contains a great deal of ancillary content does it get to be added? If so, how do I add such a site? Perhaps I misunderstand how Zeal works!

[martinibuster]

These are the (generally paid) Looksmart entries. These have been entered by the Looksmart employee editors.

You, as a zeal volunteer, can't add a commercial site, you'll get negative points if you try (ouch!).

[Thanasus]

Ahh.. yes, when I look at the contributer profile it tells me its an admin acount from looksmart

[ScottM]

The guidelines are pretty clear that no purely commercial content may be added by a Zealot. The commercial entries are always done by Looksmart Editors.

That being said, MSN is an incredible way to offset Google traffic.

[skibum]

Interestingly, many of those "hand picked" commercial sites that don't have the URL tracking code in the MSN listings seem to be immune to the ranking algo and routinely top the SERPS.

[rfgdxm1]

I am with Zeal. Are these listed as paid or unpaid listings? Zeal shows the entire Looksmart database, including the paid listings. Looksmart editors at times have been known to add commercial sites as unpaid listings for business reasons. Such as possibly to basically give a discount for a someone paying for a listing by also listing some of their other sites.

Also, how did you check? When an paid listing quits paying, it is left in the Looksmart database. As a member of Zeal, I can see these because I have full access to the Looksmart database the public doesn't see because these are unpublished.