Online-education.net Site Status Please

Hey Yall,
Just wanted to check the status of:
http://www.online-education.net

Submitted to category:
http://www.dmoz.org/Reference/Education/Distance_Learning/Directories/

Site was visited my an editor about 2 weeks ago according to traffic stats, not sure whats going on. Maybe its still waiting.

Thanks!

Rejected, apparently due to insufficient unique content.

<note type="facts_of_life">As the ODP grows, it gets harder and harder to build a _directory_ site with "unique content." The bar keeps gets higher -- new sites must have substantial more content than it used to take to get accepted; old sites that don't keep up tend to get removed whenever they're re-reviewed. (This last is a slow process, since editors often concentrate on new sites, so many currently listed directory sites couldn't currently receive new listings, and might even be removed if reconsidered.)

You offer neglible information about the schools and all of the "request information" links are affiliate links, not contact details for the schools themselves. As such you don't offer any unique information and will not be listed.

[oops, had my reply window open too long and hutcheson beat me to it]

This website offer unique content:
http://www.online-education.net/link_articles.html

It also is in the same field as many other website that offer the same type of content. Examples (that are included in category I submitted to):
http://www.online-colleges-courses-degrees-classes.org/

http://www.worldwidelearn.com
(this website is one huge affiliate pages if you want to look where those links to colleges are going)

http://www.collegedegree.com/
(as well as this one, very very similar to online-education.net, I would say this site is very very similar to mine in set up. Look at college links. They are affiliate links as well i.e. Wisconsin: http://www.quinst.com/clk/...)

I am not seeing any reason for rejection. I understand ODP focus on unique content, and I too wish to keep it that way as well. Please take the above into account.

The articles aren't unique content as there are just a handful of them and they are just links to other sites (the same with the news).

We're not comparing your site to others like it. We're just talking just about yours here. If there are others like it, they will get dealt with eventually but that's beyond the scope of this thread. Your site lacks enough unique content to list. Period.

Then explain to me the inconsistancies of ODP inclusion quidelines. You say my site doesn't offer enough unique content. Fine, no problem, I understand thank you very much for your help. But your answer as for the other website doesn't answer my question. Why list sites, with the same content but reject mine.
Is this a do as I say not as I do type thing.
What it looks like is there are no quidelines for sites such as these. So what's one editors cherry pie is another's bad apple.
I would say your decision actually hinders ODP. I offer good information and resources. It is something valuable for people to search for. All information is correct, there is AMPLE amount of content, and I offer respectable information from a respectable website. What is the problem??
The METHODS of ODP are not consistent with the supposed means. In scientific method this would cause us to reject the null hypothosis, that inclusion quidelines are very on the fly. Answer: Inclusion-Relativity. Kinda like moral relativity in today's society.

But please take my thanks for your help on the site. I don't mean to raise a stink. I wish to voice some concerns, which can be warranted here. Another way to get rid of a lot of SPAM submission. Come up with some concrete quidelines folks. My site is fine, I know it. But its all relative once again.

As I said, if there are others exactly like it already listed, they will get dealt with eventually but arguing about the listing of your competitors' sites is beyond the scope of this thread...and this forum.

I will tell you that there's a big difference between a site that offers little content, all of that being affiliate links, and a site that offers a large amount of content, only part of which is affiliate links.

Motsa,
Ok I just realized your reasoning. Thank you. I am interested in how the ODP will address things like this. Site owners are not going to be happy that there sites get lost in the listing in the next dump. Asking them to change there sites to conform to quidelines is kinda "Big Brother" don't you think. Yall are probably talking about this in current editor meetings, I bet.

But thats just what every linklist usually does, so why is it wrong!?!

Example: If I put a page with "my favourite links" on my homepage, I choose which ones I want to publish. If my page is growing bigger, I may ask others for help with maintaining my page (lets call them "editors" to stay in the context). To tell those editors what I want them to do, I release some kind of "guidelines". No democracy but only me making decisions.

In the ODP its more democratic: Lots of editors contribute their ideas, and the ideas which get the majority are put into the guidelines. Its in the nature of this system that those guidelines change according to the froup of editors currently present. I am with the ODP for quite a short time compared to some other editors, but can remember several discussions which dramatically changed the rules.

But - sorry to say for you - they never changed in the "lets list a type of sites which was excluded before" direction. Due to heavy submission-load and extremely growing categories, the editors normally decide to push the quality of the directory, not the quantity. And quality necessarily means selection of the listed sites.

>Site owners are not going to be happy that there sites get lost in the listing in the next dump.

Possibly. This is absolutely no concern to the ODP.

>Asking them to change there sites to conform to quidelines is kinda "Big Brother" don't you think.

But asking the ODP to change ITS site to conform to their self-centered expectations is perfectly OK?

I think...rather not.

So: the ODP doesn't in fact ask ANYBODY to change ANY sites. It simply builds a directory based on whatever, in the collective experience and judgment of the editors, is useful to the surfer AT THAT TIME. It builds on what is available, not what it wishes were available.

"No site is guaranteed a listing, nor is any listing guaranteed to be permanent."

>Yall are probably talking about this in current editor meetings, I bet.

In view of the fact that "aggregated advertising" sites (AKA "affiliate banner farms", one of the most ubiquitous forms of spam we face) usually masquerade as directories, yes, there are always discussions of how best to deal with them.

Thanks editors for your comments and answers. Very educational and has made me more aware of ODP goals and expectations.
As a bigger picture, sites these days are sometimes written with ODP in the picture. So I can say that positive results of this directory is making sites fit with what would be acceptable for inclusion into ODP? SEO folks do take this in account when they optimize and submit to the directory. I know I do now more than before. Any indication when there might be specific quidelines posted for affiliate sites? I ask for the knowlegde of myself and all those reading this post. Or is it too be left in the open in a more general way.

>Any indication when there might be specific quidelines posted for affiliate sites?

The editor's guidelines. And they're very simple.

"Do. Not. List."

They do not have unique shopping content, and in the presence of the website of the REAL retailer, they do not add shopping value. They do not have unique directory content, and in the presence of the ODP they do not add navigation value.

Now a site that could be created and published and used without affiliate links, doesn't immediately get banned if it adds sufficiently inconspicuous links. But I have never seen a site that started out as an affiliate site successfully converted to a listable site. Doesn't mean it couldn't happen in the right hands: it just means the right hands almost certainly don't build affiliate sites first.

Information regarding affiliate sites and the ODP policies on this issue can be found at: http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#affiliate Please feel free to browse through the rest of the guidelines available as you see fit, it is a good and comprehensive way to learn all about how dmoz works. Please do remember as well, that the ODP has grown and changed since its beginnings, and as time has passed changes have been made to improve the quality of the directory as a whole. This is why these guidelines are in place.

ODP goals really have nothing at all to do with SEO, you'll have to inquire in other non-ODP related forums to learn to increase your pagerank and/or search engine standings.

Best of luck.