Listing not rightly removed domain

Hello everyone. This is my first post to the board and I am happy to be in the company with all you people. We found out about this board and when we found out that it's moderated by ODP editors we became very happy since we have the problem which we need help with.
The site is http://www.celebrities.net.cn and it has been removed from /Arts/Celebrities category. We felt that there's nothing wrong with it in the first place. Some of the conten in related to biografies was used from other sites, but the rest of the site had a nice design, a lot of assembled pictures etc. Anyway, that's history. After we found out that our site is removed, we did what was asked and removed the biographies in question. At the same time, we redesigned our site (the idea is to have 20 most popular celebrities for last year posted with bios, pics, discography etc - the data about most popular ones is taken from google's yearly report) and we requested a new review but we didn't get listed. We feel that since our domain is marked (any URL on it will get a terrible banned notice on the top in red) we are not able to list it and that is continuind for too long. We hope that someone will take a look and finally place us back where we belong. Thanks in advance.

The reason the listing was removed was lack of unique content. I just now looked at several randomly selected parts of the site, and what I found in each case was available on numerous other sites. I'm guessing that's why it isn't listed.

Hello brmehlman and thanks for reply. First of all the content that you are referring are I am almost sure - biographies. How different thy could be actually? It's important that they are not word by word copies of the other content. The ones that we know more about we wrote ourself, the others were combined using the data we found on the other sites. But I think we are missing the point here. There are other sections related to each celeb listed on the site. The site design and idea are very unique indeed. I think there's no discussion on that... And we really invested a lot of love & work in it. I wouldn't really spend a second of my time on something that I know is not worth it. As for our site, I am sure it does belong to dmoz listing as it was before. I beleive in dmoz and your help.

I took a very short look at your site, picking just one of the celebrities there. The biography that you have has been word-for-word copied from another source, and there are many examples of it on the web. The images that you have are the same images that every other site covering that celebrity has. One of the images even has the watermark from the copyright holder, strongly suggesting that it has been used without permission. The only other item you have for each celebrity is a discography/filmography which, by their very nature, must be identical to thousands of others on the web.

You may well believe that your site design and idea are unique, but a look at a random sample of sites in Arts/Celebrities/Image_Galleries/ will soon show you that there are thousands of sites out there that look the same as yours, with the same content, laid out in the same way. I'm sorry that you've spent a lot of time and effort on your site, only to have us reject it, but if you look around I'm afraid you'll realise that your site really isn't unique.

but a look at a random sample of sites in Arts/Celebrities/Image_Galleries/ will soon show you that there are thousands of sites out there that look the same as yours, with the same content, laid out in the same way

Click to expand...

You said it yourself. I really don't see why OUR site had to be removed since as you said a lot of sites are following the same rule - I really don't see why our site was an exception? The other sites were not removed although they used the very same content (that content is often published by the official celebrity sites and is after that a base for what other sites use.) I would understand not listing us in the first place with that reason but removing JUST our site is a bit suspicious.
Anyway I am willing to do whatever is needed to return my site where it was and where I think it does belong. I am almost 100% sure that I saw some of other celeb sites copying content from us, not the other way. Please tell me what to do.

So let me see if I can get this right. First you say:

"The ones that we know more about we wrote ourself, the others were combined using the data we found on the other sites."

and then in this last post you admit that stuff was copied and think you should still be listed... maybe it's just me being dense on a Monday morning...

But here's the nub of the matter:

Anyway I am willing to do whatever is needed to return my site where it was and where I think it does belong.

Good <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />
Get rid of all content which is copied from other sites. Be original. If you copyright your writings and others use it without your permission, sue them for breach of copyright.

With the internet the size it is right now, and with a subject with as much general interest as celebrities, it's very difficult to be the biggest, the best or the most original.

One more comment: Editors list sites on the ODP based on their judgement of usefulness to the surfer, not to the web designer. If there are 50 sites all with the same content, they will pick one at random and list that (if they can find one they perceive as better, they will use that). That's not a slight to the other sites or anything, it's just narrowing down the amount of noise which we present to the surfer.

Hope this clarifies a little.

Hello,

I didn't want to reply on few posts that came in the meantime, since it seemed that we are not going anywhere. Instead of continuing the discussion, I went back to my site and made all the changes that you guys pointed out. And now, after almost 10 days of my last post I just finished making changes and fixing all the stuff that was 'problematic'...
So here it is - there are no more content copied from other sites. All the content in question is removed. All the bio's rewritten and I can say they are pretty unique at the moment. Of course, as I really invested a lot of my time in this site, I will continue to do so, and also try to post even more content in the future. I hope that I will get a quick response about listing my site again as I had with removing it. I really think that if not before, than definitely now my site belong to the category from which it was deleted some time ago.

&gt;&gt; there are no more content copied from other sites &lt;&lt;

I just went for a look at the site, and the first celebrity I looked at had a bio that was word for word copied from another site. If you have people writing stuff for you, they're either copying it from elsewhere, or they're supplying the same content to other sites. You really should be checking the sources of all of the material you have published right now.

Based on that mini-review, I would deny the site if I came across it in the queue in its current state.

I picked a random one as well, and found 283 sites containing word-for-word the same bio.

Either you are trying to fool us, or some of your employees or content providers are trying to fool you.

Either way, a listing is unlikely.

&gt;&gt;&gt;We feel that since our domain is marked (any URL on it will get a terrible banned notice on the top in red) we are not able to list it and that is continuind for too long.&lt;&lt;&lt;

Am wondering what makes you think it is banned with a notice in red?

&gt;We feel that since our domain is marked (any URL on it will get a terrible banned notice on the top in red) we are not able to list it and that is continuind for too long.

OK, that's one opinion. The editor may have a different one. But this forum is specifically for not discussing that kind of differences of opinions.