Had several sites listed, now almost all are gone

Hi-
Recruiter Networks operates job boards in 24 cities. Each of our individual sites has a name like SeattleRecruiter.com, NewYorkRecruiter.com, ChicagoRecruiter.com, etc. The majority of our sites were first listed about one year ago in the locality/employment category respective to each, but now nearly all are unlisted.

For example, SeattleRecruiter.com was listed in:

Top: Regional: North America: United States: Washington: Localities: S: Seattle: Business and Economy: Employment

Nearly all of our 24 sites were listed under the appropriate category at one point, now all of them are gone except HoustonRecruiter.com and SaltLakeCityRecruiter.com.

I resubmitted all of our URLs today, but was hoping to find out why they were removed so I can fix (or not duplicate) whatever the problem was.

Thanks in advance for your time, I look forward to your reply.

Regards,

Jubal
http://www.RecruiterNetworks.com

I'm not going to do an indepth review of your sites here, but the bottom line is that the way sites are listed in the Regional branch of the directory is by physical locations.

Those that have multiple locations are listed at the lowest level that contains those locations.

So locations in San Diego and San Francisco - California (State Level)
San Diego, San Francisco, and New York - United States (Country Level)

Your site is listed in United States .

Now I know you're going to say 'They are not the same site', but for our purposes they are.
You have a company.
It has a site.
How that site is built is your responsibility as is the navigation of said site.

made up example:
site sydney.com (listable address)

sub domains
eat.sydney.com
drink.sydney.com
sleep.sydney.com

or

sydney.com/eat
sydney.com/srink
sydney.com/sleep

or

sydney.com/eat.html
sydney.com/drink.html
sydney.com/sleep.html

or

eatsydney.net
drinksydney.com
sleepsydney.com.au

are all effectivly deeplinks of the site and need to contain a lot of unique content to be listed seperatly from the main url of the site (sydney.com). If the webmaster/designer/company choose to deliberately break the navigation from the main site, thats their decision. It won't make it into 2 or more sites from our perspective.

I'm hoping this explains why sites are listed where they are, and what constitutes a site.

Deeplinking is used at the individual editors discretion as to whether it adds new and/or unique content to the category, but it is the exception, and not the rule.

Thanks for the prompt reply, it makes perfect sense. I have a couple of questions though.

1) Why were all of the individual sites listed before?

2) Thousands of location-specific jobs and resumes seem like unique content to me. Do I have any options here or am I stuck with the single national listing?

Computerwork.com uses the same business model as us. Their main site, computerwork.com is listed, as are several of their regional subdomains.

Do a search for computerwork.com (link below):

http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=computerwork.com&all=yes&cs=&cat=Regional%2FNorth_America%2FUnited_States%2FPennsylvania%2FBusiness_and_Economy%2FEmployment

You'll see the listings for:

http://www.computerwork.com

http://pennsylvania.computerwork.com/

http://california.computerwork.com/

etc...

Are they doing something different than we are to get listed?

Thanks.

The guidelines are up to individual editors to interpret - not every editor will act in the same way with an individual site submission. However in these kinds of cases, where a particular network of sites is removed and the core site listed once (usually quite high up e.g. as in this case), the situation is usually dealt with by senior, experienced editors who necessarily have access to all categories.

Obviously each case can only be dealt with as and when it comes to light and I am sure that senior editors will also take a look at the other case you highlighted.

Hope that helps.

What about craigslist? If you conduct a search for "craigslist", you'll notice that all of their individual local sites are listed. In my opinion, if they are all listed, our individual sites should be too. Using the guidelines that we're following, "craigslist.org" should be listed, but "boston.craigslist.org" (etc.) should not.

I love what the ODP stands for, but a service with as much pull as DMOZ shouldn't allow these double standards.

Thanks!

jubalince said:

Computerwork.com uses the same business model as us. Their main site, computerwork.com is listed, as are several of their regional subdomains.

Click to expand...

In late November 2003, I requested the computerwork.com cities be marked for removal. I missed (at least some of) the states. Sorry about that.

Aside from that, hutcheson noted (below) where you should make abuse reports.

Please report other sites that seem to be listed in violation of our policies in the abuse threads. We want to know about things like that, and will re-review them. But this thread is about your site only.

Thanks arubin and hutcheson, much appreciated.

My regional sites were removed, but my competitors are still listed. Why?

I've posted this question before in the site submission category, and was told to repost it in the abuse category, where I was told to post it here again. I'm just trying to figure out why my network of regional sites was removed, but similar networks remain (craigslist, etc.). Seems like a double standard, especially when my sites were providing great content to the sections they were listed in, and were delisted due to a technicality.

== Original Post ==

My network of sites were once listed in DMOZ, and have since been removed. The reason I was given is that they are a network of sites (I operate local job boards in 24 cities).

Our business model is very similar to craigslist, computerwork, and computerjobs (among others). These three networks seem to still have the majority of their sites listed. I use craigslist, and I think it's one of the best resources on the web, but if my site is being delisted due to its regional structure, it only seems fitting (and legal) to enforce the same guidelines toward our competitors.

I suggest either delisting all sites with this structure, or better yet, abandoning this rule and letting regionally distributed sites be listed in the appropriate categories. Either way, the playing field has to be level for all businesses, not geared toward the success of a few.

Thanks!

Please don't start a new thread - we lose the flow and history and it causes confusion - http://resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=8024

As it is your current post is meaningless, since it's too vague, I have to go and look at the other thread. Keep life simple and keep the posts together please.

You also have this thread in the abuse forum http://resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17306

bobrat said:

As it is your current post is meaningless, since it's too vague, I have to go and look at the other thread. Keep life simple and keep the posts together please.

You also have this thread in the abuse forum http://resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17306

Click to expand...

Sorry I started a new thread, the response I got in the abuse forum gave me the impression that's what I should do.

Can I please get some feedback on this? Thanks!

Why aren't you happy with just recruiternetworks.com getting a listing? It seems to exist to point to the other sites, after all. In fact, all of your content seems to be pulled from the other sites you wish were listed and say you've resubmitted.

kctipton said:

Why aren't you happy with just recruiternetworks.com getting a listing? It seems to exist to point to the other sites, after all. In fact, all of your content seems to be pulled from the other sites you wish were listed and say you've resubmitted.

Click to expand...

I am happy having recruiternetworks.com listed, but that's not my point. My point is that all of my local sites were listed, but have been removed due to a rule that some of my largest competitors aren't being forced to to comply with. I just want to know why there's a double standard.

There's no "double standard" in allowing some sites more listings than other sites. The SINGLE standard for EDITORS says that in "exceptional cases" sites can be deeplinked. Your post suggests that is exactly what is happening: the "largest" sites are getting deeplinked.

The SINGLE standard for SUBMITTERS is: do NOT submit "related" sites, which would include, for instance, multiple sites on the same general subject (classified ads for jobs) from the same entity (you). Your post suggests this is NOT happening.

And yes, editors are allowed to add some listings that submitters would not have been allowed to submit. You can ask for such sites to be reviewed to see if they are in compliance with the editors' guidelines -- you did that. The response was there was no obvious evidence that they weren't OK.

That's as far as we can go here. You can file a formal abuse report (not the forums here, the official ODP abuse system). We guarantee that a disinterested meta-editor will look at it soon and carefully (as in days, not months). But "big site gets more deeplinks than little site" sounds like good editorial judgment, not abuse. You'll need something more specific, and more inconsistant with good judgment, than that.

Thanks for the reply Hutcheson, much appreciated.