http://www.cremedelacreme-hotels.com

hi,

We seem to have a problem getting our site listed. http://www.cremedelacreme-hotels.com is a site about luxury hotels and contains links to the hotels, a worldwide search, online booking, and hotel news and special offers.

I have looked all around the ODP and I can find 2 categories that I think it belongs in.

Recreation/Travel/Lodging/Directories/ - is the best, and I think this is confirmed by the bulk of existing 'residents' being of a very similar capacity to creme de la creme.

Recreation/Travel/Lodging/Hotels/ - is the other cat, but its not got an AddURL.

As I write this I have resubmitted last week, and I am waiting for a result from this.

Can anyone tell me what might be the problem?

Re: Luxury Hotels submission problem.

>> Recreation/Travel/Lodging/Hotels/ - is the other cat, but its not got an AddURL. <<

'AddURL' is turned off on a number of categories. This is normally because either the category is under reorganisation, being disbanded, attracts a large amount of inappropriate spam, or the editors involved feel that the category has appropriate subcategories for submission.

>> Recreation/Travel/Lodging/Directories/ - is the best, <<

Comparing the two, this does seem the most likely category, but I try and avoid travel sites myself so I can't really comment...

Another category to consider _may_ be Recreation/Travel/Publication/Reviews , but whether or not the content is a 'true review', I can't say...

Hopefully someone which enjoys editing in Recreation/ will be able to help you a bit more than I can, but I hope it's answered your query about the AddURL feature.

Re: Luxury Hotels submission problem.

Thanks for your info.

I hope someone may be able to answer my question.

Re: Luxury Hotels submission problem.

>>>Thanks for your info.

I hope someone may be able to answer my question. <<<

Thanks for your submittal.

I hope someone may be able to find time to answer your question.

Re: Luxury Hotels submission problem.

This may not be applicable to your site, but one very important consideration in submitting Hotel sites:

If you are NOT providing your own online booking system (merely providing an affiliate link to one of several systems that are already listed) then submitting your site to an "Online Booking" category, or even mentioning online booking in your suggested description, will put you in the "affiliate booking spam" category.

Our general assumption is that your description is at least what you think is most significant about the site, and what we should look at (or look for). When we find that "most significant content" is really "affiliate links to some other site," we may justifiably adjudge that the site really doesn't contain much significant content. And reject it without further investigation.

Worse yet, "hotel reservation" sites get looked at especially closely, because of the massive, malicious, mendacious, submittals that we've experienced. In short, we have to assume that all "hotel reservation" sites submitted are affiliate spam.

This results in extended delays in site reviews -- because, if we can't see how the site is doing its affiliate links, we _know_ that, most of the time, this just means that the spammers have come up with another, more deceptive technique of hiding their affiliate links. So the vast majority of the time, there are only two actions taken on "hotel reservation" sites: 1) reject for cause 2) delay for further investigation.

In fact, even if you run your own reservation system, it might be better not to mention it in your suggested description. (Remember that this regrettable situation -- overworked editors and the culture of suspicion -- has risen through the actions of unscrupulous webmasters; and aim your curses appropriately.

Re: Luxury Hotels submission problem.

And also if you have a similar/sibling site such as
http://www.luxury-hotel-reviews.co.uk/
http://www.cremedelacreme-hotels.com
then these ahve to be checked out too for unique content/overlap. All takes time

Re: Luxury Hotels submission problem.

I'm not an editor on the ODP, nor am I a competitor to the site in question. I do edit for another directory and have info on this site and thought I'd pass it on. The http://www.cremedelacreme-hotels.com/ and the http://www.luxury-hotel-reviews.co.uk/ both use http://www.ase.net/ which uses http://www.placestostay.com/ which is a part of http://www.worldres.com/ as their online reservation server.

How much original content this site has is subjective. An ODP editor will have to make that determination.

Re: Luxury Hotels submission problem.

Hey I remember Old Crone from Go!

Perhaps the moral is, as it always has been, that if you want to get an affiliate site into a directory, then do not draw attention to your submission by complaining in public.

Complaining in public gets lots of people examining the inards of the site and its coding. A normal submission will only get one editor (perhaps inexperienced in the ways of affiliate sites) looking at it.

It always amazes me that the loudest complainants are those with perhaps the least to complain about. That having been said, this is a nice site, but would have been more likely to have been accepted into DMOZ if it had not been aired here.

Ironic!

Re: Luxury Hotels submission problem.

Which brings to light my suspicions that stretch and the reaper are one and the same.

If not, then they are at least in cahoots.

Re: Luxury Hotels submission problem.

I know nothing of the reaper. If you wish to identify me, I am from www.s2o.co.uk, and my name is duncan (duncan at s2o.co.uk if you really want to test me.) - and I am definately not 'in cahoots' with this reaper fellow. I am merely learning about ODP and its rules, and behaviours.


Second its in my interest to get my clients into the directory, thats all, and I am using resource-zone to ensure I can get them listed in the most appropriate category. I hope to be able to do this by talking to the editors here.

If my sites are rejected then I would like to know why in order to make life easier for both parties (you and I), and ensure that I understand the legitimate reason for the non listing or removal. In the case of logoringo I understand, but cremedelacreme I dont.

They use ase.net to enable booking on some hotels, on others they use their own system, and on others users are referred direct to the hotel.

In my original post I point out that its about luxury hotel reviews, all the information on the hotels is written by creme and is copyright to them. How can this be an affiliate/reseller when the majority of content and focus of the site provides easy access to accurate and original content on a specific subject?

Thanks

Re: Luxury Hotels submission problem.

sorry for the blast.

can anyone help me with why the cremedelacreme-hotels.com site is not being listed?

I have sent an email to the editor and had no reply.

Re: Luxury Hotels submission problem.

Your site is still awaiting review in http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Travel/Lodging/Directories/ along with around 60 other sites. It was deleted from the unreviewed queue of a category in Feb of this year due to lack of content. But if you have extended the content to ensure that the site has unique, "content-rich" content then it hsould just be a matter of time until the site is reviewed.