Can submission knock out other sites?

First I would like to say thank you to all of the volunteers who do the editing, and respond to inquiries such as mine.

I recently made a personal website that discusses the type of work I do. In this website I linked to a company website indicating that I was an employee there. I found the companies listing in the directory, and submitted my personal website to the same category. I thought my content was significantly different than the companies content, as my personal site focuses on a specialty different than my employer.

A few days later I found from my website analytics that editor.dmoz.com had accessed my site 3 times, and dmoz.com 1 time over the 3 days. I thought this is very fast editorial service.

I visited the category where I submitted my site, in anticipation of finding my site, however, it was not there. What I was shocked to find is that the site of my employer did not show up in the category anymore.

Now I am feeling really bad that I may have caused my employer's site to become de-listed. I am not sure exactly if I was the cause, but it was sure weird timing. Too coincidental.

I did not get any e-mail reply from the editor. I am wondering, will my employer get a notice from the editor indicating that his site was de-listed? If so, will it have an explanation for the reason? i.e., my site was submitted and it was linked to his.

I would rather my employer did not know that I caused his site to be delisted, as it was a contentious issue just to get his agreement to publish a personal site. I am not looking forward to owning up to that. But I have no proof that I was the cause.

I would really like to have his site re-listed, and don't really need to have mine included as it already has first page ranking in google for the area that differentiates me from my employer.

Anyone have any ideas if:
1. My submission could cause the delisting of my employer's site?
2. My employer (delisted site) will find out the reason for delisting?
3. There is anyway to reinstate my employer's site?

Thank you for your advice.

It's quite common for a listed website to be re-evaluated - for all sorts of reasons. If the site is dysfunctional, no longer listable or better listed in a different category, a good editor will take the appropriate action.

You can check if a website is listed by using our search for domain.tld without any http or www prefixes (eg google.com). Our search uses the most recent RDF database dump, not the live directory so it could be a week or so out of date.

1. My submission could cause the delisting of my employer's site?

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Not directly, no, but an editor might notice the connection and re-evaluate it.

2. My employer (delisted site) will find out the reason for delisting?

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No.

3. There is anyway to reinstate my employer's site?

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We've no such mechanism. He could re-suggest it and somebody will check it out in time.

Remember, an editor had to be working in a category to notice your suggestion at all. But, working in the category involves ... reviewing sites, adding and removing listings. Nobody, not the editors themselves, can know whether the editor looked at the suggestions first, or first reviewed the sites already in the category. So there could not ever be any proof that your suggestion was involved (or that it wasn't involved.)

But, that aside, I believe this is the right way of thinking about the (possible) cause and effect:

What gets sites listed, or delisted, is not suggestions. What gets sites listed, or delisted, is the fact that an editor looked at the site itself (not at a site suggestion) and determined that the site itself did (or did not) qualify for a listing.

So whatever happened, is no way your fault. It's the editor's action. Nobody ever has a right to ask why an editor did a right thing. That's what we want the volunteers to do, whether on their own initiative or with a hint from someone else. (Whatever suggestive power a suggestion has, it's not a command. It's merely a suggestion.)

But suppose removing the site was INCORRECT--the editor shouldn't have done it? In that case, suggesting it again would be a right thing for you (or any other surfer) to do.

Thank you both for your replies.

It seems that you both concur that my employer would not know that having his sites delisted (there were actually 2 of his sites delisted) is, I would conclude very likely, related to my submission. So I won't lose my job unless he reads this forum

I would say it is in a sense quite convenient that there could not ever be any proof that my suggestion was involved (or that it wasn't involved.)

One of my employers sites (Site A) was listed in 2 categories.
World: Japanese: 地域: アジア: 日本: 東京: 区: 渋谷区: 健康: 病院・クリニック (Site A)
One week ago this category appeared to have 70 listings. Now it has 69 listings and my employer's site (Site A) is gone.

The site was also listed in this category.
Regional: Asia: Japan: Health
One week ago this category had 27 listings. Now it has 24 listings. 2 of the removed listings were employer's (Site A) and employer's (Site B)(see next paragraph). Third site removed was competitor's site.

Employer's second site (Site B) was also listed in this category.
Regional: Asia: Japan: Health
Same as above. From 27 listings to 24, with both employer's sites removed, and one competitor.

Now, why would this all seem highly likely to be caused by my submission? I submitted my personal site to the category that had 3 sites removed. Regional: Asia: Japan: Health
Within this broad category the 3 removed sites could likely be grouped under a subcategory. If there were a subcategory, it is likely that 3 competitive sites that were not removed would also be in the subategory. If the editor were doing a review of the category, changing(delisting) only three entries, 2 directly related to my submission, seems highly coincidental.

What is even more hard to accept as coincidental is that in a category of 70 entries, only one entry is modified (delisted) (Site A), directly related to my submission in another category.

Had there been large changes in both of the categories I would find it much easier to believe hutcheson's explanation.

Now let me say that I had really not known about DMOZ until about a week ago when I decided to try and promote my new site. I don't know how important it is to be listed here, as I had never directly used it as a search method. Finding that it is all run by volunteers made it seem quite impressive, because it is such a huge undertaking.

However, personally I am inclined to believe that there is some editorial bias in the case presented above. The reason I believe so is that the sites that were removed, not just my employer's, but also a competitor, have had differences expressed in private with the stakeholders of the sites that remained. Seeing changes made in such a focused manner as described above, to me, seems highly suspicious.

I do not really mind not being listed. In all fairness, my own personal site does not compare to the ones that were removed in terms of depth of content. Employer's Site A has been listed for a long time, and has a depth of knowledge that clearly does not rival the remaining competitive sites, which tend to be: Hours, Location, Fees, Staff. Within the same category there are at least five yoga listings which to my untrained editorial eye don't seem to offer much difference in content at all. Yet they remained untouched during the latest category revision.

Well, I just wanted to present my view of the situation. It is not meant to sound like sour grapes. I guess all that I can do is re-submit my employer's sites and trust in the system that the editor's now find them worthy of a listing.

I am inclined to believe that there is some editorial bias in the case presented above.

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If you have evidence of editorial abuse, the appropriate way of reporting it is via the Abuse Reporting tool found on every category page.

Genuine reports are taken very seriously and investigated (in confidence) by one or more meta-editors or admins. Please include as much factual information as you can, of course, to ensure that the report is of value. For example, it is not enough to allege editorial abuse based solely on whether or not an individual site is listed, for all the reasons mentioned by jimnoble and hutcheson.

I am inclined to believe that there is some editorial bias in the case presented above.

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That's a silly thing to say when I've already told you what your problem is by PM. Did you not read it?

For the audience at large, I'll repeat it here.

jimnoble said:

You and your employer might want to re-read our submission guidelines which prohibit the suggestion of related URLs and outline the penalties that can be applied should they be ignored.

That a website is spread across multiple domain names doesn't make it eligible for multiple listings.

One of your urls remains listed.

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It may have been that your theory is right, and your suggestion triggered the line of analysis Jim described.

But if it did, then ... the same thing almost certainly would have happened (perhaps at some other time) because of some other hint.

But so long as one of the domain names involved in the website is listed, you can always make sure it links to all the other sections of the site (under whatever domain name), and of course vice versa--but that's just basic site navigation design.

Thank you everyone for your replies. Sorry to be bothering you with these things when you could be editing.

I appreciate your comments. I would just like to add a couple of points of clarification.

Although I mentioned it was my employer's sites that got knocked out, that is not meant to imply that I have any control over the urls or content of his sites. He owns them, runs them etc. In fact, I am not mentioned on either of the delisted sites, nor is my site linked to his delisted sites or vice versa.

I work part time with him in relation to the one site. The site I suggested was related to a private business I was doing, completely different than the job we do together.

I can say that I read the submission guidelines and honestly thought I complied with them when I independently suggested my own site (the only site I run or maintain), never managing the havoc I could bring down on my employer. What happened all still remains a mystery to me, and likely will always be.

Thanks again for your attempts to explain the situation.

usagi said:

What happened all still remains a mystery to me, and likely will always be.

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What happened is very easy to explain from what you have written yourself. Someone noticed that the company you refer to as your employer had more than one website listed about the same or related subjects. According to DMOZ guidelines in such a case we will only list one url. Other urls should not have been listed and were removed.

Thanks pvgool. Could I ask you for a clarification?

If someone had a website where they were selling antique violins, and another website where they focused on information about electric bass guitars, would it be possible for them to both list under that a musical instruments category, even if they were owned by the same person? My reading of the submission guidelines seemed to indicate that this is a possible scenario.

I believe both sites are significantly different offering unique, original content on different topics.

They were both removed from the category.

Additionally one was also removed from a separate foreign language category where it was the only site listed from this person. (1 site removed from 70, all commercial listings offering a similar service)

This is where I have the disconnect.

usagi said:

Thanks pvgool. Could I ask you for a clarification?

If someone had a website where they were selling antique violins, and another website where they focused on information about electric bass guitars, would it be possible for them to both list under that a musical instruments category, even if they were owned by the same person? My reading of the submission guidelines seemed to indicate that this is a possible scenario.

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It is not possible to answer such a question without reviewing the websites. And reviewing websites is not something done here on R-Z.

For now the only answer we can give you is a statement made on http://www.dmoz.org/add.html , something you acknowledged to have read when you suggested a website.

Editorial Discretion
Please recognize that making the ODP a useful resource requires us to exercise broad editorial discretion in determining the content and structure of the directory. That discretion extends (but is not limited) to what sites to include, where in the directory sites are placed, whether and when to include more than one link to a site, when deep linking is appropriate, and the content of the title and description of the site. In addition, a site's placement in the directory is subject to change or deletion at any time at our sole discretion.

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