I have been trying to get my site www.starwardcruises.com listed for over a year. No success. I've been trying under recreation-travel-speciality travel-cruises-travel agents. There is no editor for this category. I tried emailing the editor at the next higher level but received no answer. I do link to an off-site data base but this is only as a service to the user; many cruise sites use the same service.
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Due to the fact that the Open Directory Project's Editor Guidelines specifically forbid adding sites, whose main content consists of affiliate links, your site was not added to the directory.
Sites are only added to the directory if they include unique content. With affiliate sites, since they all sell or distribute the same content - i.e. travel services - it means that since they don't provide unique content they aren't listed. If you add a lot of unique content to your site in addition to affiliate links, then it is possible for your site to be listed.
What are affiliates, you ask. Affiliate's basically are third-party marketers of content. In your case, your site doesn't provide any unique content of its own. Instead it markets the services provided by http://www.onlineagency.com , which in turn is marketing the services of various cruise lines, etc.
The reason we don't allow sites that consist of only affiliate content, is that they provide little value to the end-user. Imagine a category where 95 out of the 100 travel agents listed were all affiliates of onlineagency.com. They all offer the same prices, same packages, etc. It becomes frustrating for the user because all s/he sees is the same content, and at the same time it makes it much more difficult for that person to find trult unique content.
Sites are only added to the directory if they include unique content. With affiliate sites, since they all sell or distribute the same content - i.e. travel services - it means that since they don't provide unique content they aren't listed. If you add a lot of unique content to your site in addition to affiliate links, then it is possible for your site to be listed.
What are affiliates, you ask. Affiliate's basically are third-party marketers of content. In your case, your site doesn't provide any unique content of its own. Instead it markets the services provided by http://www.onlineagency.com , which in turn is marketing the services of various cruise lines, etc.
The reason we don't allow sites that consist of only affiliate content, is that they provide little value to the end-user. Imagine a category where 95 out of the 100 travel agents listed were all affiliates of onlineagency.com. They all offer the same prices, same packages, etc. It becomes frustrating for the user because all s/he sees is the same content, and at the same time it makes it much more difficult for that person to find trult unique content.
Thank you for the prompt reply. I certainly respect your opinion. I would like to point out a few things though.
The "affiliate" service I use can be customized to the user's needs. We customize to a great degree, uploading our own specials derived from within our own shop or via our consortium. Therefore our content can vary greatly from that of others using the same service.
After reading your post, I selected at random three currently listed agencies from the same area I was interested in being listed under. Whoops! Two of the three were using the same affiliate service with about the same unique content than I have on my site. The third site was using a competing service very similar to what I use. In other words, all three were basically affiliate sites under your definition. Am I missing something here?
The "affiliate" service I use can be customized to the user's needs. We customize to a great degree, uploading our own specials derived from within our own shop or via our consortium. Therefore our content can vary greatly from that of others using the same service.
After reading your post, I selected at random three currently listed agencies from the same area I was interested in being listed under. Whoops! Two of the three were using the same affiliate service with about the same unique content than I have on my site. The third site was using a competing service very similar to what I use. In other words, all three were basically affiliate sites under your definition. Am I missing something here?
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