Report Hijacks, Dead Links, Inappropriate DMOZ Content, and other issues here ONLY

Ivan Bajlo said:

http://dmoz.org/World/Hrvatski/Dom/

Za dom
http://www.za-dom.com/ - is now Villa Karla and belongs to
​

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They seem to be back now so ignore this one.

#2918 is done. Thanks
#2920 is done. Thanks

Regional/Europe/Greece/Prefectures/Halkidiki/Travel_and_Tourism/Lodging/

Halkidiki Hotels - Provides information on hotels and accommodation in Halkidiki. With extensive search options:

It doesnt provide information on hotels and accommodation at all. Most of the links are pointing to the homepage and when registered you find out that you are the only one who registered. They never update it and I wonder if this site is used by somebody. The only thing is that it shows up in the top of search engines and visitors than will find out it offers them nothing.

The second link (Camping guide) also doesnt work.

I wonder your opinion.

Kind regards

Re 2923

Removed second link.

The first link contains information on hundreds of hotels - including links to their websites. My first search was for hotels within 500m of the beach (there were 310). My second was for hotels within 500m of the beach and 75km of Thessaloniki (there were 10). I was able to get phone numbers, addresses, facility information, rates, and web addresses for the hotels.

i posted #2891 to #2895 for various reasons, wrong category, dead link, and redirected, I think nobody look into that.
Although I applied to become editor in that category, I will have to wait, and the outcome may or may not be an approval, so will an editor look into my reports please? before it's buried.
Thanks.

cheers!

#2891 to #2895 have been dealt with.

www.greekhotel.com
This website is listed in the category
Top: Regional: Europe: Greece: Travel and Tourism: Travel Guides as

Greekislands.com - Destination guide with links and contact information for hotels and apartments, travel agencies, and local businesses.
 http://www.greekhotel.com/

These people have used “greekislands.com” instead of “greekhotel.com”, which would be what one would expect. This happened as they have two domains www.greekislands.com and www.greekhotels.com both of them directing to the same page. As I am not that aware of technical issues, but as the first one (www.greekislands.com) is redirecting to the second one they might they be considered mirror sites (?)

Moreover they have listed at the category
Top: Regional: Europe: Greece: Prefectures: Cyclades: Santorini: Maps and Views
the following:

Greekislands.com: Santorini Map - Find an interactive map of the island.
(-- http://www.greekislands.com/maps/santorini/)
If you click on it then you will be directed to a 404 ERROR PAGE redirecting to their 6 pages.

But this not the only alarming fact:
They have added many of their hotels pages in the dmoz directory. In other words, they have listed in other sub categories of ODP their sub-pages, which resemble to official hotel's site, under the name of they hotel. By adding their subpages as hotels in dmoz, they have managed to have 86 submissions.
For more information see through the dmoz-search their 86 submissions:
http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/sear...tures/Cyclades/Mykonos/Guides_and_Directories

Example:
CATEGORY: Regional: Europe: Greece: Prefectures: Cyclades: Mykonos: Travel and Tourism: Lodging: Hotels

Princess of Mykonos - Information, rates and facilities of this B Class hotel located in Agios Stefanos.
http://www.greekhotel.com/cyclades/myconos/agiosstefanos/princess/home.htm
The official site of the hotel is: http://www.princessofmykonos.gr/

Talking to an editor about the whole situation of deeplinking of this website he was rather soft, telling me actually that “if an editor wants to link to a part of the site they can do it because it adds to the category.” So did the dmoz editors found it that informative to add 86 sub pages of this site to dmoz? And if unique content is that important for a site to get into ODP, one cannot claim that this is the can be the case with hotels.
Travel agents and sites with hotel-list do nothing more than presenting again in their own page, the official information of a hotel (which can be found in the hotel’s site or brochure)

This website is nothing different than all the other sites with hotels you will find in Greece. It has lists with hotels all over Greece. The only difference is that they have made their pages appear more like official-hotel pages.
What have been the criteria to accept so many listings/submissions from one and only website?
For instance in dmoz you have listed in the category “Top: Regional: Europe: Greece: Prefectures: Cyclades: Mykonos: Guides and Directories”
the site http://www.mykonos-life.com/
that has also a list of hotels. It has for instance a page only on Princess of Mykonos Hotel (see above), {http://www.mykonos-life.com/Hotels/Mykonos-Hotels-Agios-Stefanos-Hotels/Princess-of-Mykonos.html}
but there is no reason to list this page in the logding Mykonos hotels category as a unique submission.
And its not the only site that has a page for Princess of Mykonos hotel- I can present around 10 sites listed in dmoz that have a page for this hotel (as well as others), but are listed to the appropriate category only one time.

How can this be justified? Having read the guidelines carefully, I would like to quote that
“However, editors should be very judicious when adding deeplinks of a particular URL….”
“Travel sites aggressively employ these tactics in an attempt to obtain multiple listings.” – which I strongly believe is the case…!!

If you consider there is a reasonable explanation on that, please inform, as I am one of the hundredths trying to get my site listed in dmoz, reading over and over again the guidelines, searching carefully for the appropriate category, and being (extra)- patient to see by website approved. What should people like me assume when they bump into a website with multiple unjustified submissions??

I explained all the issues via PM here. Since I am not getting through I'll just cover some of this again for those reading this.

The only new problem listed here is the 404 maps page which is no longer listed.

All other have been addressed already.

Particularly, in the guidelines you find in the page you make your submissions, it is mentioned “Always opt for the official name of the site.”
These people have used “greekislands.com” instead of “greekhotel.com”,

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They use both on the same page, so either is correct (although admittedly a little odd (few sites do this, so we don't have a 'standard' way of choosing)

but as the first one (www.greekislands.com) is redirecting to the second one they might they be considered mirror sites (?)

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We'd normally call this a vanity url, or redirect, but it does fall within what we generically call mirrors, yes.

As I explained, if you know of a listing such as http://www.greekhotel.com/cyclades/myconos/agiosstefanos/princess/home.htm where there is now a site that belongs to the actual property, please use the 'update listing' feature in the affected category.

You are still misrepresenting they have 86 submissions, which is not the case, they have (had) 86 listings which are not the same thing. Again editors can deeplink, site suggestors are explicitly asked not to.
from my previous message:

That is not correct. They did not list their site, rather editors working in the Greece category chose to link the pages of that directory where they could not find an official site for the hotel.

Editors have permissions to do that, but we request that those that suggest sites do not try to suggest each section of the site - if an editor wants to link to a part of the site they can do it because it adds to the category.

Reality check here, many of those listings were done 5 years ago now, both when directories were more commonly used to advertise online, and before it was easy and cheap to set up an individual site. Those that have created a site for the hotel in the meantime should ask to update the url, but many do not, and we cannot recheck each of the 6,000,000 listings manually just in case - we concentrate on the more real problems of changed content/dead links, rather than one version vs another (both contain basically the same content from a user perspective).

Where someone points out a specific case of a url that now has a more authotitative url we'll try to change it - a hotels own site is always more authoritative than their advertisement somewhere else.

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gimmster said:

I explained all the issues via PM here. Since I am not getting through I'll just cover some of this again for those reading this.

Click to expand...

having already read yours, i just wanted an alternative opinion.
Since i don't believe i get any, nevermind, i appreciate your time to explain those to me- though i still tend not to understand exactly why the listings have been so many

Probably because at some point an editor determined that, in the absence of official sites for the hotels, those sites offered the closest thing.

Stolen Domain and Corporate Identity

I am trying to figure out how to reach whoever deals with this. So far, no success. We had our domain name and corporate identity stolen. The site is listed in DMOZ under the old domain name and being used fraudulently. The abuse link in DMOZ gives me an error message. Would appreciate help in this. We have a new site with the same content so the two sites look like the same company when one has no business only the site.

As I read the other messages I see you use the actual URL's so:

The old domain name is <bettinanetwork.com> It is being used with marketing which is not theirs and promoting themselves as though they are the Bettina Network, inc. when they are not. They have Google adwords and "partnerships" which claim to know nothing about how they got on the site.

We set up a new domain name and site with our old content trying to salvage something <bettina-network.com> It is a group of folks claiming to be us and misusing our copyrights and trademarks. It is an amazing experience.

Thanks,

Persistent,

bettinanetwork.com is not listed anywhere in dmoz.org that I can see. Which category do you see it in?

nea said:

Persistent,

bettinanetwork.com is not listed anywhere in dmoz.org that I can see. Which category do you see it in?

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The category is "bed and breakfast"

Sorry, we need the full path starting at http://www.dmoz.org

The expired (and now hijacked) URL was listed in Regional: North America: United_States: Travel and Tourism: Lodging: Bed and Breakfast until it was removed in september last year.

Website Closed

http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Pets/Cats_and_Dogs/Clothing_and_Accessories/Dogs/

Doggy Jazz and Jewels [EDIT]
404 / website closed

thanks, sugieb. #2936 fixed.

>I can present around 10 sites listed in dmoz that have a page for this hotel (as well as others), but are listed to the appropriate category only one time.

OK, so we're basically not going to include two listings for the same (hotel) business.

We've got one listed. That should satisfy our users who are looking for a hotel in that place. That's good. But two listings for the same hotel in the same category is bad -- that's spamming. All the other hotels would have a LEGITIMATE right to complain about favoritism.

See, we're focussing our information-linking activities on information not already freely available. You're welcome to help with that. But we're just flat not interested in 10 sites replicating information we already have: what a colossal waste of time that would be -- for us, AND for our surfers!

duplicate

dmoz.org/World/Français/Régional/Asie/Viêt_Nam/Voyages_et_tourisme

# Voyage Indochine - Propose des circuits à moto ou en jeep 4x4 au Vietnam, au Laos et au Cambodge, des treckings et du kayaking. Programmes détaillés, photos descriptions des itinéraires et tours proposés.
# Voyage Vietnam - Propose des circuits à moto ou en jeep 4x4, des treckings et du kayaking Programmes détaillés, photos descriptions des itinéraires et tours proposés. Egalement pour le Cambodge, le Laos et la Chine.

Both sites offer the same contents?

http://dmoz.org/World/Français/Régional/Asie/Viêt_Nam/Voyages_et_tourisme

www.voyageviet.com/ - Voyage Indochine - Propose des circuits à moto ou en jeep 4x4 au Vietnam, au Laos et au Cambodge, des treckings et du kayaking. Programmes détaillés, photos descriptions des itinéraires et tours proposés.

www.voyagevietnam.net/fra/6.php - Voyage Vietnam - Propose des circuits à moto ou en jeep 4x4, des treckings et du kayaking Programmes détaillés, photos descriptions des itinéraires et tours proposés. Egalement pour le Cambodge, le Laos et la Chine.

The descriptions are a bit too identical (I´m not so good at French), but it seems to be two different sites at a quick glance.