Advertising content

I have a high quality content site with articles I have personally written, and use AdSense banners to support it and basically pay the hosting.

Do DMOZ editors "look down" on adsense or affiliate ads in general?

Clearly, if a site is nothing but a banner farm with pop-ups flying all over the place, you would do well and be right to reject it. But how about the sensible use of something like Adsense?

I would appreciate some general comments on this topic.

Ads are noise, that's all. We're looking for informational content and nothing else.

Can the site's information be heard through the noise? Is your unique voice and value heard by a casual surfer who is not a shopper and has no interest in being a shopper?

Or ... is it indistinguishable from a zillion other voices shouting in a zillion different idiolects, "your life will be better with WIDGETS! somewhere out there there is a WIDGET just for you, and this site will help you find it!"

It's hard to explain, but editors can usually tell the difference between a purebred terrier and an elegantly-coiffed dead skunk -- by the smell. And we see -- in this and other forums -- lots of people complaining that they spent loads of time coiffing their skunk, and other pets without even a herbal shampoo get past the gate guards. It's not the hairdo, it's the gestank!

haha! well, mine is certainly a thoroughbred racing horse...95% of pages being articles on an informational/reference topic (ie. NOT shopping!) written in my own fair hand.

But I am worried about the "quiff" I have given the horse in the shape of adsense ads.

as you say, it comes down to signal v. noise. Mine is very high on signal so I shouldn't worry. I hope...

I have found many quality sites that are overlooked, period, for small amounts of ad content.
Often editors will spend so little time reviewing your site that they don't look past the ADS. Any good webmaster knows to put the ADS first to make money. Then content second.
Editors here are looking for sites that are obviously UNIQUE content but dont spend lots of time investigating a the site.

A perfect example of all this is any site that requires FREE registration before getting to the content. Editors at DMOZ are notorious for never even signing up before rejecting the site-Obviously not getting to the content.

So it is very important to put the CONTENT first. You will lose money but a listing in the DMOZ directory is probabaly more important than any others. Don't let the editors tell you it is not important to be listed in DMOZ. The dmoz directory FEEDS hundreds of directories getting your a LINK, that increases your google pagerank, on HUNDREDS of sites.

gayboi said:

Any good webmaster knows to put the ADS first to make money. Then content second.

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:thumb1: Webmasters that build their website in this way are not good webmasters, IMHO they are stupid webmasters. They only show us that their intend is just to make money not to bring content to their visitors. Nothing wrong with such a site, we just won't list it.

What pvgool says. There's a very specific staff edict: if the PRIMARY purpose of the site is to present ads for some OTHER business, it should not be listed.

'The primary purpose of "every good webmaster" is to present ads'? What you call "every good webmaster" we call "spammers". And I freely admit that in the world today most websites are by spammers. But there are still the other kinds of site.

If you don't think the ultimate goal for webmasters is to make income, or at least break even, then obviously you have missed what the internet has become.

You are considering them spammers ???????????

if the PRIMARY purpose of the site is to present ads for some OTHER business, it should not be listed.

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This mentality would then put websites like "Yahoo" in your spamming category since almost all their ads are served by Overture. Better remove yahoo--those bad spammers.

When I said put content second I meant to actually put it on the page SECOND(not the quality of the CONTENT second -once again the editors twisted my words to make it fit better with thier point). People are visting your site for "the content" It is up to the webmaster to catch the EYE with a well placed ad Distracting the USER from the content long enough to click and pay for the website.

It is a given fact that ADS are what pay for almost all the content on the web today. A close second would be non profit sites who get grant money to create great websites. Then finally you have the hobbiest website where somebody just loves the content they decided to make into a website. Good luck finding these tho they are often so small they get dwarved by the huge companies that have nothing to do with the subject. Too bad because often those that create a site out of their likes create some of the best sites on The subject.

I freely grant that most websites (just like most e-mails) are ad-driven spam.

The ODP looks for the other ones -- and it's probably the best single source on the web for finding them. That didn't happen by accident.

gayboi said:

If you don't think the ultimate goal for webmasters is to make income, or at least break even, then obviously you have missed what the internet has become.

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We don't have anything against real commercial websites. We will more than probably list them. That is real companies selling real stuff.
But we will not list sites that sell stuff from other companies (they are called affiliates).
We also don't mind informational sites having some advertisements but if we have to wade through tons of advertisements before reaching the real content we won't list the site.

I'm new to this forum, as you can see by this being my first post, but this thread caught my eye. I'm curious as to what makes a website for "real companies selling real stuff" any more of a real commercial website than "sites that sell stuff from other companies (they are called affiliates)."

I'm not trying to be confrontational here, I'm just trying to understand why one would be considered any more real than another. Whether a website provides useful content and sells its own products or a site provides useful content and links to other merchants, isn't the useful content the key in either case? This is assuming the content is actually valuable, and the product links are not intrusive (the content can be heard through the noise, so to speak).

There are plenty of people who run successful businesses based on affiliate income who I'm sure would consider themselves to be running a commercial business.

No need to be confrontational. I think the key semantic difference is in the expression "useful content." After all, marketroidish shill is useful to someone.

When we're getting very specific and technical, I prefer to use "information" or "knowledge" rather than "content." (This is not my idea: skrenta claimed the ODP was intended to "index the sum of human knowledge.") That way, it's easier to see the difference between "advertising" or "promotional" content (which the ODP does not consider listing) and "information" (which, if unique, can be listed.)

A site isn't rejected for presence of advertising (although obviously anyone who sees no value in anything but advertising will always think so); a site is merely accepted only if it has that which is NOT advertising, but actual information.

So even discussing what happens to a site with advertising is irrelevant at the ODP. Who even cares? All _we_ care about is what happens to sites with information.

A site isn't rejected for presence of advertising

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If I can presume to add.....

However, if there is so much advertising that an editor cannot find the real content within a reasonable amount of time (an editor's attention span is often less than a minute) then the site is doomed in terms of being listed.

There's a very specific staff edict: if the PRIMARY purpose of the site is to present ads for some OTHER business, it should not be listed.

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How does this apply to comparison shopping sites? They are all either affiliates or presenting ppc ads for other businesses. Every comparison shopping listing is basically an ad in some form.

Pretty much true.

They do however potentially provide useful content if and ONLY if they can be shown to present unbiased results to the consumer.

In the case of comparison sites, useful content would be content that helps rather than misleads the consumer.

So a site which

- uses a wide range of shopping sites for source data
- ranks products fairly (e.g. cheapest first - rather than 'site which gives comparison site web master most affiliate income first) - preferably including info on shipping costs too
- clearly indicates which listings the webmaster is getting affiliate income for

Could be considered for a listing.

Whereas a site which has one or more of the following characteristics:
- has a fairly limited database
- doesn't include all info relevant to the consumer
- doesn't rank fairly on price
- tries to hide/cloak any PPC/affiliate relationships of webmaster

Would not be.

HTH
Andy

PS This is the main reason most affiliate sites are rejected in 'recommendation' type categories. They recommend poor quality products to the consumer and don't consider enough different products. This probably happens because the companies that make poor products, know their products are rubbish and thus pay higher affiliate referral fees.

This gets even worse if best product in a category is free. (This is mainly relevant to computer software.) An affiliate driven site will never get income from recommending free software. Yet if free software is the best, and they aren't recommending it.. then they aren't being fair to their site visitors. And we won't list sites that don't offer an objective view