Forum Moderators: open
Case:
We are a logo design firm that provide logo designs to businesses and web development companies. We deal with a
lot of start-up companies that not only need an image but some need a website. We never intended on offering web
design services, however with more our clients asking for it, we decided to start offering it as a service.
We approached an established local web development firm that has sub-contracted logos to us, and worked out a
service agreement with them. We have included some of there work on our site as and they have included work of
ours on their site.
Our site has been removed from Dmoz due to this affiliation?
What can be done to resolve this?
The primary purpose of this forum is to exchange ideas and information about the directories, and so we ask that that you refrain from questions such as "Is my site okay to submit?" or "Why doesn't LookSmart like my site?"
And please remember: No whining is allowed.
We are not the ODP help desk. Any specific questions about sites should be taken up through proper ODP channels. We are not affiliated with them, and we have no power to fix them when they go down or change their policies.
As you probably already know, the appropriate place to ask the question is with a meta editor at the ODP public forum. No-one else is in a better position to tell you. Hope that helps. :)
at the ODP public forum
Well you can consider this thread as a warning for other
graphic designers and web developers contemplating a
union of service.
affilliate not to sit in the same chair and use the same desk
if are targeting different markets, why not? 100% of site A
visitors come from internet marketing and 100% site B's visitors
come from local marketing.
We would direct people from one site to another to view
the work, but regarding usability, it's better we don't have
the users travel to another site to view a service we can provide them.
And users know that if the company is sub-contracting the
work, they are paying more....
Sounds like the other forum might be able to shed some light on what the issue was.
...if the same or very similar portfolio appears on two different sites its understandable that they might think it is really one company with 2 sites.
Yes, it is understandable. But, if the editor is taking the time to weed out superfluous junk (tip of the hat to you for your effort :)), they should likewise be conscientious enough to check out the ownership of the domain.
It's the quality of the index that suffers whenever a good site is mistakenly weeded out. Every dmoz editor should have dnsstuff.com or something similar in their bookmarks.
Hey, everybody makes mistakes, I know... Just a friendly suggestion. :)
they should likewise be conscientious enough to check out the ownership of the domain.
Bingo!
It took so long to get the link from DMOZ; and it was
removed so quickly. I am aware that quality ranking can
still be achieved without a dmoz link, but it burns inside
thinking we got penalized for no legitimate reason.
the ODP does not need to provide any reasons for their judgments
I did post at RZ, but they did not give me a direct answer,
the acutally recommended me to post here! it's tru!
it burns inside thinking we got penalized for no legitimate reason
It should burn if that were the case, but it is not.
Site B's business is ALL LOCAL. Site A's presence in DMOZ is more important than site B.
Somehow, both sites are now de-listed!
In certain industries there's a ton of sites that operate by drop-shipping from various vendors as an alternative to doing their own stocking and shipping, so it's technically another company that's providing the goods, a lot of which is duplicated across many sites (from a lot of the same suppliers) - but the presentation and mix is different.
That's not so unusual, department stores buy wholesale and sell a lot of what others do also, like brands of sheets and bedding, cookware, dinnerware, clothing, etc., but they're still different stores. Macy's and Gimbel's will always be separate stores.
There is an issue with independent distributors of certain lines of products, like in the case of some that do custom printed announcements and invitations that are sold online and in person by people locally. I'd been approached by a company like that to work on their site and after checking into it wondered where the line was drawn between that and affiliate marketing for submission purposes.
It's a viable topic for discussion because it helps everyone and saves everyone time if we can know what's acceptable or not. So having doubts whether that site was eligible and being hesitant to submit, I asked.
Discussion from a while back about distributorships:
[webmasterworld.com...]
We've had this problem before and we suggested to DMOZ's editors to delete site B that is giving site A problems. This was done but Site B got re-listed and now were back to square one.Site B's business is ALL LOCAL. Site A's presence in DMOZ is more important than site B.
I'm off for cocktails.
:) Y
Lewis Carroll
No comments from me on this particular case, for said reason. I only wanted to point out that A) an editor who removes or rejects a site must fill out a form explaining why every time, so there are no frivolous deletions; and B) when a site is rejected for a reason that a submitter can fix, such as being broken or being too under-construction or somesuch, or by accident, such as an editor thinking it was broken because it didn't work for his browser, that the editors at RZ are uniformly specific and helpful, so it is, in fact, a very informative place to go if you have read the ODP terms of service and the site you were trying to submit does not fall into one of the categories of sites we ask people not to send to us.
that the editors at RZ are uniformly specific and helpfulROFLMAO until my appendix fell out. Yes, and those same editors are the movie stars of the internet.;)
When a site is rejected for a reason that the submitter CAN'T fix--such as it being a type of site the ODP does not list, being a mirror of another site, etcetera--THAT'S when nothing is said beyond "Sorry, it was rejected, please read the guidelines." I do understand how this lack of specificity can be frustrating to submitters, but the fact of the matter is, if someone has a site which is not appropriate for this particular directory, then rather than spending even five minutes of their time arguing with ODP editors trying to crowbar the site in anyway, it's better for everyone involved if they spend their time and energy on other, productive promotion techniques.
Yes, that's true. If someone has a site listed in the ODP that violates its terms of service, calling an editor's attention to it in *any* way may cause its deletion.
However, a site which does not fall into the category of sites not listed by the ODP (which includes being considered a mirror of another site by ODP guidelines) is *definitely* not going to be rejected or removed due to anybody asking about its status. In fact, somebody was on there the other week rather rudely CHALLENGING editors to remove his site from the directory, and it still didn't happen. Sites that are valuable to our users don't get removed over forum silliness. I haven't even deleted the sites of webmasters who sent me nasty personal mail about their desires to stuff the listings with more keywords. Didn't make the changes or answer the mail, mind you; but neither did I punish the sites. It's the content that matters. (-:
