http://www.bedandbreakfastscotland.co.uk

Hi,

I originally submitted this site around 6 months ago and have since tried to resubmit a few times to no avail.

The category is:
http://dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Travel_and_Tourism/Accommodation/Bed_and_Breakfast/

I would appreciate it if an editor would give me some information as to the status of this site as I feel 6 months is a very long time.

Does it really have more ODP submittals than bed-and-breakfast listings, as my sampling seems to indicate?

Rejected, multiple times, ostensibly and plausibly for "lack of content."

Could you tell me how many b&b's we require listed on our site before being considered?

Hmm, I think there are a few problems with "how your site works" which has caused editor problems.

I've sent you a private message regarding this matter as this isn't really the forum for "Site Reviews". I've also added your site back to the unreviewed queue of that category with a brief summary of my findings.

>Could you tell me how many b&b's we require listed on our site before being considered?

Not really. But you should consider that the Open Directory is itself a directory, listing B&Bs, among other things. To be considered, a directory site needs to have unique content (that is, beyond what the OD contains.) That is a standard that just keeps getting higher and higher, and the reality is that nearly all directories just starting out now will find themselves falling further and further behind. You should not be surprised if your site is one of them.

If there is a site search problem, when it's fixed you could ask for a re-review: but even ten times the content I found would probably not have made the site a useful addition to the Open Directory.

Sure we are starting out, we only have around 100 b&b's listed, but if we had a 1000 your telling me that even that isnt enough, come on.

If you look at the category in question you will find at least 2 directories with fewer b&b's than ours, infact 1 directory only has 7, do you think that is a worthwhile addition to ODP.

As for a problem with searching, there isn't, I went over this with Beebware.

Well, for me there is a problem with the search. It doesn't work with my browser (Netscape 4.75) which says there are javascript errors. Also using the search by map I can't get to the listings. <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" alt="" />

Yours, Robert

&gt;Sure we are starting out, we only have around 100 b&amp;b's listed, but if we had a 1000 your telling me that even that isnt enough, come on.

How many places of accomodation are there in Glasgow?

I see, um, .... one. The ODP lists, um, 47. And if you had ten, that wouldn't be enough. That seems pretty simple.

That's only one sample. I didn't look at every town in Scotland. No editor will. We'd look at enough places (picked at random) to get a feel for the total size. (If that matched what the site claimed, we might use the site's own number.) Next time, I'd pick different localities, not all the same size.

On the other hand, if the site had on the same order of magnitude as the ODP did, and there was some evidence that it was growing faster, or focused on a particular niche that the ODP had so far neglected, then it might be worth considering.

Aside: many visitors, including editors, will find the site name deceptive, as it does not in fact exclusively list b&amp;b's, or apparently even focus on them. That is not the first impression that most people would have wanted to convey. And it leads the editor to worry about the probability of a bait-and-switch setup.

Finally, hotel directories are, of all the kinds of spam we see, one of the most maliciously deceptive. This isn't saying your site is one of the 99.5+%: just a reminder of the reality: you are floating with the pond scum, and you're going to have to be prepared to deal with fungicides. Anything that indicates a pattern of deception is going to get you classified with the cyanobacteria