Advice appreciated: 2 departments - one domain

Some advice would really be appreciated from the experts.

This is the problem. Our company has two entirely different business activities and departments. Our primary activity is Data Recovery that we have practiced since the company was registered in april of 2004, the second is internet marketing of lcd-tft screens for industrial applications. The second activity begun about 10 yrs ago.

First the good news:


The Webteam that designed the LCD site were very efficient in submitting our LCD site <url removed> to DMOZ and we were listed in the correct directory without delay. big thanks so far . .
-

now for the bad news:


The most importaint site, our data recovery division, has a similar URL <url removed>

Note the .htm and .html difference please.

Our lcd site, has about 2400 pages, the data recovery site, abour 200 pages or so. Its a most serious company with no spam content whatsoever.
We first tried for listing in the data recovery section abour 4 yrs ago as i recall, after a year there was no listing so a new submission was attempted. Still no listing. another year passed and we sent a short, polite mail to the editor explaining the situation, no reply, no listing.

We have followed the published rules and NOT repeatedly re-submitted but as you can understand it is a dissapointment to be banned for no valid reason.

Does anyone have any advice please?

these are the two entry pages in plain text:
ww w.domain.se/index.htm
ww w.domain.se/index.html
maybe the similarity could be the problem.

thanks, Sandro

The basic ODP premise is 'one business-one listing' UNLESS an editor can see an overwhelming reason for doing otherwise (usual disclaimer below).

You have one business with two departments and one website. It should be possible to access both departments from the main screen of one so that the .htm/.html confusion is irrelevant.

The guidelines would recommended a listing in one category with the description reflecting its entire operation. I would expect a listing in a category reflecting the manufacture of screens being the bulk of the website and the description to say 'Includes ... and details of its Data Recovery services' in the description.

I would advise not trying to suggest your site again but to request an update to the existing listing to include the Data recovery department.

regards

disclaimer - 1 listing = for each language that the entire site is in editors will consider 1 suggestion in topic (in this case Business) and 1 suggestion under regional in the location of the address of the firm).

As the TOS for the forum doesn't allow for discussion of specific sites, I removed the URLs and changed the domain name to a dummy URL at the bottom of the page.

Sites are usually listed once in the most relevant topical category, and sometimes also once in the relevant geographical location (in the Regional part of the directory). Sites with content in more than one distinct topic might get more listings - it's always a case-by-case question and up to the reviewing editor. However, you are quite right that if the different content is only acessed by adding either index.htm or index.html to the root URL, it would be very easy to miss. In general, I doubt that a reviewing editor would realise that two pages from the same domain titled /index.htm and /index.html were different sites. Most of us strip the index.htm(l) part of the URL provided the root works on its own; it's standard procedure to make the listings as stable as possible.

You might get more initiated responses from people who are more experienced in the area - this is just my immediate reaction.

Big thanks to Eric and Nea, for most rapid feedback.

The site refered to, (unfortunatly the link was removed (board rules)) would have said more than 1000 words. The two divisions are entirely dissimilar, the primary activity just over 23 years with the LCD division 'only' 10 years.

I was unaware that an international company with a site in 15 languages was obliged or assumed by DMOZ to have only one primary activity.
Does Ph*lip* make lighthting tubes and lamps OR P-pills OR agricultural fertilizers or Audio devices or build professional TV studios ?? ( and probably other stuff i never heard about

I'm sure you both agree that none of my "instant" examples for the well known company above are similar and that a listing in a few categories ( if they existed) would be both logical and reasonable.

We only request TWO listings, not one per language, nor even geographical ( we are Swedens 12 ranking site according to Alexa) but the absence of the Data Recovery listing is causing significant loss of income since, as you both know well, DMOZ is a primary source for several well known search engines. In Swedish we say "If your not seen, then you don't exist" On The Internet, those words are very true.

Would removing our LCD listing be the only solution, that seems really absurd, but it may be the only option ?

Thanks again, I appreciate that you both took the time and effort to advise,

/Sandro

I was unaware that an international company with a site in 15 languages was obliged or assumed by DMOZ to have only one primary activity.

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I believe you've misread nea's post. Having both an index.htm and an index.html is poor web site design and is likely to confuse both your potential customers and editors into thinking you only have one activity. Not sure what your designers were thinking.

The challenge that editors face in this kind of situation (confusing URLs aside) is what is different?

Within a given industry, fortunes are won and lost on differences that are important only to those in that industry.

Red cars are vastly different than blue cars.

High heel shoes are vastly different than sandals.

Microprocessors are vastly different than microcontrollers.

And not to suggest that these types of differences are not important -- when building a directory we have to think about our surfers, not about industry segments.

So, for us:
a car is usually a car, regardless of the color.
a shoe is a shoe is a shoe.
they are all chips.

Certainly, those are not all-inclusive statements, but they should give an idea of how we often approach things.

In a perfect world a given company's main site will link to every other site the comapny owns. When that does not happen, we often wonder why and begin to look very carefully. We tend to have a very well developed sense of smell, and I can tell you firsthand that I have both sent and received e-mails that begin: site xyz smells funny, will you take a look?

So what am I telling you?

My personal advice is:
1. get your URL problem fixed. It is significant and it is hurting your company.
2. make sure that the entire company is accessable from the main website.
3. if the differences are tryly significant, suggest the second site, but reference the main site in your description.

As a directory we want 1 suggestion per website to the most appropriate topical category that says 'we do A, B and C'. The editor looks at the site and decides on its contents whether it deserves to be considered for more than 1 listing. Ideally the firm would have a website that makes it clear to all their visitors and their own employees all of their activities [ie did you look at the bottom of both your site pages? ].

If every firm suggested to a separate category for A, B and C, then, believe it or not, many people would end up suggesting each page of their site to an appropriate category.

The advise I gave to update the description with the missing information, will lead an editor to rereview the site and determine whether an addition to the description or a second listing will be appropriate. If they make that suggestion for a second listing, then it will end up in an appropriate category for another editor to review. If the second editor agrees, you will have achieved your aim.

If you have a site in 15 multiple languages (complete and not 'babel'ed), then you can submit the site to the appropriate world language categories both topical and regional.

regards

In Swedish we say "If your not seen, then you don't exist" On The Internet, those words are very true.

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Based on that philosophy 90% of the world both on and off the net don't exist