Listing disappeared?

Listing disappeared?

My site is www.accommodations-around-the-world.com and I was listed in this category:

Top: Regional: North America: Canada: Ontario: Localities: B: Burlington: Travel and Tourism

But now it seems to have been taken out? Have I been penalized? And if so for what?

Many of my customers ask me if their ad on my site can be submitted to their locality since they do not have a web site of their own (their ad on my site becomes their web site).

As far as unique content, most of my competition is listed in DMOZ and all have similar content. I offer destination guides which most bed and breakfast directories do not offer.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Paul

>But now it seems to have been taken out? Have I been penalized? And if so for what?

We don't give status reports on sites any more. But we can't "penalize" sites. (We just list them or not. Listing is not a reward to the site, nor is not listing a penalty. It's all about the surfer.) It does seem pretty evident that THAT site doesn't have a LOCAL significance, and if it's listed at all, it should be somewhere else. (Of course that MAY be what is happening.)

>Many of my customers ask me if their ad on my site can be submitted to their locality since they do not have a web site of their own (their ad on my site becomes their web site).

That approach is not absolutely forbidden. If the content is significant enough to be a "mini-site" -- several pages that are something more than frames for database fields -- it might be considered. Maybe one of our regional editors will comment. Definitely thanks for asking before starting to suggest them all!

>As far as unique content, most of my competition is listed in DMOZ and all have similar content. I offer destination guides which most bed and breakfast directories do not offer.

I think this is probably wrong. You'd be amazed how many lodging directories are known to be NOT listed -- millions, in fact.

Also, if your destination guides are more INFORMATION-rich than all but the best specific city guides, and contain information that nobody else contains, that would certainly be a critical consideration. Equally critical would be: could a surfer find that unique information quickly? Say, in 30 seconds or less? (Information guides get short shrift because there are so many of them -- they have to give good value for short time! But this may simply be a matter of user-friendly navigation if you have the content. If not, it is a VERY high barrier to entry, and as crowded as the field is, that's a good thing.)

Thanks

Thanks for the information. I will wait to see if a local editor will comment.

Paul

It's not unheard of for someone's mini-site at an accomodations portal to be listed at the locality level but it would need to be much more than what amounts to a business card for the place and it would have to be the best Internet presence that that the lodging provider has (i.e. they have no web site of their own and no other portal "ad" offers as much information), e.g. http://www.accommodations-around-the-world.com/nova-scotia/halifax-bed-breakfasts-2-12.html wouldn't be listable but, hey, they have their own site so that is what we have listed.