12 sites to add owned by one company

My company owns 12 websites. Each site sells completely different products and has completely different information content. Each site is independantly hosted in its own domain, entirley seperate and unique url's, shopping carts, trading names etc. only connection is ownership of each domain. We now have a seperate portal, one page at a separate domain, with seperate url that provides consumers who respond to magazine advertising with one location to find a list of all our sites. There are no mirrors, redirect's etc.
Does this mean that the only url we can get listed is the new portal page or can we still ask for our websites to be listed individually. ???

john murray said:

My company owns 12 websites. Each site sells completely different products and has completely different information content. Each site is independantly hosted in its own domain, entirley seperate and unique url's, shopping carts, trading names etc. only connection is ownership of each domain. We now have a seperate portal, one page at a separate domain, with seperate url that provides consumers who respond to magazine advertising with one location to find a list of all our sites. There are no mirrors, redirect's etc.
Does this mean that the only url we can get listed is the new portal page or can we still ask for our websites to be listed individually. ???

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If each site has a different domain name, has different content, has a different name, and is in no way operating as 1 business then yes I don't see any problem with listing each url seperately.

I'm afraid I disagree with firestorm, although it depends on the individual businesses, and I may have misinterpreted your question. I can imagine 12 different businesses selling sufficiently different products so that no two of them should be placed in the same category, but I doubt very much that that's what you have.

As an example, a site (even in the same domain) selling apples and plus-size women's clothing could be listed twice. Sites, with the same business ownership, selling apples and oranges, would be listed once under fruit. (We really don't care who "owns" the domain, except as an indication of who owns the business.)

If you are the owner of the domains, they could all be listed (although the question of why you want to have the portal site is open in my mind). If you are the owner of the businesses, or if they have the same owner, then only one would be listed, unless they could be separately listed even if they were in the same domain.

It could be possible I missunderstood. I apologize if wasn't exactly sure what it was you were explaining. arubin seems to know what your talking about so take his answer instead .

Actually the answer is, "it depends."

While firestorm is not wrong, his comments may not apply to your situation. Without knowing the sites in question (and this is not to suggest you post the urls), there is no way of knowing if it applies to the products you are selling.

Having a main "hub" in a parent category might be more appropriate then segmenting individual product lines in direct sub-categories. No way of knowing without specifics. It will depend on how closely related the products are and how the directory is organized to accomidate the topic/sub-topics.

If the hub is for "office supplies" and your product specific URLs are pens, note paper, staples, paperclips, etc., then it would not apply to your situation.

My company owns 12 websites.

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We know of 18 (21 now and counting) so far, and I'm not at all sure we've found them all yet.

For more info, try paragraph 3 of this internal forum post (Editors only I'm afraid).

< waves to John >

I appreciate the quick responses. Impressive.

We have 12 sites (actually 14 but one no longer trades and one is being deleted shortly) web sites that trade products. We have 5 other sites that offered information only but only 2 of those are of any real relevance now. I obviously wont post the sites in this forum. All the trading sites are in the same main section within which there are many subsections getting closer to the individual product groups we offer. Some of the sites would belong in the same subsections. The subsections in general would be windows, bathrooms, kitchens(consists of 4 sites with different products and names ie kitchen units, appliances, sinks, worktops), rugs, flooring, office furniture, lighting. The one page portal is only advertised in magazines. It is too expensive to promote all the web sites individually and it also allows us to send customers to one page where they can view all our sites.
Basically I need to know if only listing the portal (also independant host and url) is correct or could as we prefer be allowed to enter all the sites individually. They alll have their own unique domain names and brand names but the orders land in one office staffed by 50 overworked highlanders.

Multiple related sites from the same company will not be listed. As you describe them the sites are very closely related. Based on this information my guess is that only the portal may be suggested. All other suggestion will very probably be seen as spam and we will handle as described in the DMOZ guidelines.

just one more question

firstly i must stress that we have not deliberately tried to spam dmoz, we simply misunderstood how our sites would be viewed. the sites were built and suggested over a period of five years as they were developed and we only recently introduced a portal. i understand the response but i am aware that one site can be entered in more than one location if it is considered relevant in more than one section. sections exist for each of our site specialities so are the sites therefore not deserving of seperate listings ?? i have to say that until now i thought there wasnt anyone at home in dmoz but i must say i now have a different view and much more respect for the setup.

i understand the response but i am aware that one site can be entered in more than one location if it is considered relevant in more than one section.

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That is an excellent beginning towards understanding the "rules of the listing game" but, like all beginnings, it is not quite complete.

Yes, a site can be entered in more than one section, however, we have some pretty strict rules about where and when that can occur.

Let's look at these:

Company A makes and sells windows. It is entitled to be considered for a listing in the appropriate subject area for windows. That is a topical listing. It has a large factory and showroom in anytown, USA, so it is also eligible for consideration in the appropriate subcatgory for the Anytown locality within regional. Regional listings are based upon where the company is located and do not factor in market area. The site owner is a native of Athens, so the site is also painstakenly translated into Greek, thus it is also eligible for consideration in the appropriate Greek Language subategory under World.

Company A now goes into the door business. If they set up a second site that deals with doors, that site is fundamentally ineligible for listing, because it is a related site. Rather than listing the door site, we would change the topical listing to reflect a subcategory that covers both windows and doors and put the first site there. If the site owner is too hardheaded to put any door content on the first site, we would leave it where it sits, and still not list the door site. The same line of reasoning would apply if they added a flooring site, a roofing site, and or a plumbing site. Hopefuoly, at some point, the owner adds a good portal site that guides and directs visitors to all of the construction and maintenance related sites they have -- and that is the site we would ultimately want to list.

But the owner of Company A is a well rounded individual, and also adds a site that deals with classical music. This we would consider for a second listing, because there is no logical stretch between classical music and windows, until such time as the owner develops a window that plays classical music, then the listing editor goes and jumps off of a cliff.

Good answer thanks very much

Spectregunner I really appreciate your answer and now thoroughly understand the issues. Thanks for taking the time. I now see the light.

Regards

John Murray