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cyprushotels
My site www.cyprushotels.net that has been listed in the dmoz directory for last 3 years has been recently deleted. Who do I contact to find out the reasons for its deletion?
John_Caius
Member
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2003
- Messages
- 584
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cyprushotels
Thank you John for the reply! However, I am not an affiliate of another site. The hotels booking content belongs to my company sine I am using a third party hotel booking engine on another server that provides me with the software, that is the hotels booking engine. Any chance, if I explain to editors to understand my point?
>> I am using a third party hotel booking engine on another server <<
If 50, "different", "unique", sites all use the same booking mechanism to book the same hotels for the same holidays then we are not going to list all of the "unique" "front ends" (a.k.a. "lead generators", "doorways", "mirrors", "affiliates", call it what you will) as that adds absolutely no value to the directory whatsoever.
Imagine a high street with what looks like 50 different "unique" restuarants in it. However, once you go through the door of any one of them, they all have a long corridor that all lead to the same order counter in exactly one branch of McDonalds. Does that offer the consumer choice? No it does not. In this case the one main way to order to order your MuckBurger would be listed, and the rest of the submissions dumped.
The same sort of parallel arises with hotel sites, gambling sites, healthcare products, real estate, dentists, and most any place where lots of people have multiple sites all selling essentially the same product.
If 50, "different", "unique", sites all use the same booking mechanism to book the same hotels for the same holidays then we are not going to list all of the "unique" "front ends" (a.k.a. "lead generators", "doorways", "mirrors", "affiliates", call it what you will) as that adds absolutely no value to the directory whatsoever.
Imagine a high street with what looks like 50 different "unique" restuarants in it. However, once you go through the door of any one of them, they all have a long corridor that all lead to the same order counter in exactly one branch of McDonalds. Does that offer the consumer choice? No it does not. In this case the one main way to order to order your MuckBurger would be listed, and the rest of the submissions dumped.
The same sort of parallel arises with hotel sites, gambling sites, healthcare products, real estate, dentists, and most any place where lots of people have multiple sites all selling essentially the same product.
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cyprushotels
I agree with your points. Please note however that we have inputed all hotels info, prices and availability in this third party booking engine, and the content belongs to us. Since we can not afford to purchase our own hotel booking engine we are using this third party hotel booking engine. Shall we be penalized for being poor?
ettore
Member
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2003
- Messages
- 173
If you are the owner of hotel XY and build up a site about your own hotel, but can't afford to purchase your own hotel booking engine and use a third party one, we may list the site if it provides useful and unique content (i.e., prices information, services description, pictures of the rooms, etc.).
If you build up a hotel directory and use a third party booking engine for the hotels listed (be it or not because you can't afford to purchase your own hotel booking engine), you aren't providing any unique content on your site: just a list of hotels with some info taken from the owners (or owner's sites) and a link to a third party booking.
That is, we prefer to list the Aeneas Hotel official site , even if their online booking is done via fastbooking.com, instead of listing http://www.cyprushotels.net/ where you have a dedicated page for Aeneas Hotel, whose content we consider just a duplicate of the former official site.
The work you put in searching, taking agreements, and inputing all hotels info -- both on your site and on the third party booking engine -- is admirable from a commercial point of view, but does not constitute unique and relevant content by ODP standards.
If you build up a hotel directory and use a third party booking engine for the hotels listed (be it or not because you can't afford to purchase your own hotel booking engine), you aren't providing any unique content on your site: just a list of hotels with some info taken from the owners (or owner's sites) and a link to a third party booking.
That is, we prefer to list the Aeneas Hotel official site , even if their online booking is done via fastbooking.com, instead of listing http://www.cyprushotels.net/ where you have a dedicated page for Aeneas Hotel, whose content we consider just a duplicate of the former official site.
The work you put in searching, taking agreements, and inputing all hotels info -- both on your site and on the third party booking engine -- is admirable from a commercial point of view, but does not constitute unique and relevant content by ODP standards.
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cyprushotels
I believe the term “unique and relevant content” is suffering a huge abuse. Off course we are using unique content in our site as many Cyprus hotels that do not have their own website are listed under our directory. However, my question is, why are similar sites using the same concept and are identical to our site are listed in the dmoz directory. I can in private list quite a few of these sites. I mean if you are going to adopt a policy make that policy valid for everyone and do not make exceptions, only then you will be credible. I also believe that our site offers to its visitors many advantages:
1. All Cyprus hotels information is gather in one site, so that people do not have to keep searching the web for relevant information.
2. Very few sites in the Internet offer facilities such as online bookings with instant confirmation, for hotels in Cyprus . A lot of our clients do not want to sent requests to hotels and wait for ever till they find out whether the hotel has availability and what prices the hotel has. From that aspect we are actually assisting Internet users even if this is considered a commercial aspect.
Based on the above I would request that your review our case and re-list our site back to dmoz directory.
Thank you
1. All Cyprus hotels information is gather in one site, so that people do not have to keep searching the web for relevant information.
2. Very few sites in the Internet offer facilities such as online bookings with instant confirmation, for hotels in Cyprus . A lot of our clients do not want to sent requests to hotels and wait for ever till they find out whether the hotel has availability and what prices the hotel has. From that aspect we are actually assisting Internet users even if this is considered a commercial aspect.
Based on the above I would request that your review our case and re-list our site back to dmoz directory.
Thank you
ettore
Member
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2003
- Messages
- 173
1. Your site will not be re-listed in its current status, for the reasons stated above. The fact that other sites may fall into the same "non-unique content" situation is not a reason for having all hotel directories listed. OTOH, it may be a reason for de-listing other similar sites, after careful review.
2. If you can provide the URLs and categories of similar sites using the same concept, please feel free to do so via editor feedback to any meta editor or editall. Please understand that we cannot guarantee an immediate action, and we also won't discuss on a case-by case basis each site you will point us at, explaining whether it is listable or not and why -- the general rule having been clearly explained in the above posts.
2. If you can provide the URLs and categories of similar sites using the same concept, please feel free to do so via editor feedback to any meta editor or editall. Please understand that we cannot guarantee an immediate action, and we also won't discuss on a case-by case basis each site you will point us at, explaining whether it is listable or not and why -- the general rule having been clearly explained in the above posts.
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Pomos
Ettore, your opinions, feedback and guidance are well appreciated! My participation in this discussion is not to convince dmzo editors to re-list my site (lesser extent 
) but rather to a larger extend aid to clear some misconceptions and possibly assist a little the editors in their so difficult task of managing the dmoz directory.
It is quite clear to me that the term " unique content" is abuses badly, as each editor is using his own judgmental critique to decide whether or not a site meets the "unique content" criteria.
I hate and I do not believe for a moment that editors are just going out of their way due to malice or other personal motives to hurt website owners by de-listing their sites from the dmoz directory; they are just human beings that grew up with the values of fairness, justice and democracy and they want to pass these values to their children and grandchildren.
The dmoz management team though has to give them enough guidance and educational support to do their job properly. For example this can be achieved by giving the proper definition of different terms and guidelines together with examples, which I am sure is done to a certain extent.
My dear editor, giz, above has given me his own reasons why my site should not be listed stating the example below:
"Imagine a high street with what looks like 50 different "unique" restuarants in it. However, once you go through the door of any one of them, they all have a long corridor that all lead to the same order counter in exactly one branch of McDonalds. Does that offer the consumer choice? No it does not. In this case the one main way to order to order your MuckBurger would be listed, and the rest of the submissions dumped."
Let me state an analogous example: When someone wants to buy a certain type of soap, would that person visit each soap manufacturer individually or would that person rather visit his local supermarket where he can find all soaps in the shelf and buy the soap of his/her choice? It is far more convenient and easy for the consumer to do the latter, isn't. Well the case of hotels directory sites is not much different is it? The internet was invented to make our lives easier by allowing us to have access to information in an easy, fast and convenient way and I believe directories and portals just meet these requirements and assist users that way.
A question that I have and perhaps some other webmasters have is "how to build a hotels directory site or for that matter any directory site where that is real estate, furniture and so on so that it meets the " unique content" criteria.
Your answer will be well appreciated as it will guide and assist many of us!
Cyp
) but rather to a larger extend aid to clear some misconceptions and possibly assist a little the editors in their so difficult task of managing the dmoz directory. It is quite clear to me that the term " unique content" is abuses badly, as each editor is using his own judgmental critique to decide whether or not a site meets the "unique content" criteria.
I hate and I do not believe for a moment that editors are just going out of their way due to malice or other personal motives to hurt website owners by de-listing their sites from the dmoz directory; they are just human beings that grew up with the values of fairness, justice and democracy and they want to pass these values to their children and grandchildren.
The dmoz management team though has to give them enough guidance and educational support to do their job properly. For example this can be achieved by giving the proper definition of different terms and guidelines together with examples, which I am sure is done to a certain extent.
My dear editor, giz, above has given me his own reasons why my site should not be listed stating the example below:
"Imagine a high street with what looks like 50 different "unique" restuarants in it. However, once you go through the door of any one of them, they all have a long corridor that all lead to the same order counter in exactly one branch of McDonalds. Does that offer the consumer choice? No it does not. In this case the one main way to order to order your MuckBurger would be listed, and the rest of the submissions dumped."
Let me state an analogous example: When someone wants to buy a certain type of soap, would that person visit each soap manufacturer individually or would that person rather visit his local supermarket where he can find all soaps in the shelf and buy the soap of his/her choice? It is far more convenient and easy for the consumer to do the latter, isn't. Well the case of hotels directory sites is not much different is it? The internet was invented to make our lives easier by allowing us to have access to information in an easy, fast and convenient way and I believe directories and portals just meet these requirements and assist users that way.
A question that I have and perhaps some other webmasters have is "how to build a hotels directory site or for that matter any directory site where that is real estate, furniture and so on so that it meets the " unique content" criteria.
Your answer will be well appreciated as it will guide and assist many of us!
Cyp
totalxsive
Member
I don't think you are getting the point. While you may be able to buy soap from the store or the manufacturer, you are still buying it from different stores, which may have different prices, or bundle extras with the soap and so on.
Your web site, and others like it, are merely acting as signposts for the same store. No matter which of the sites you go to, you are likely to pay the same price for the exact same service. Why list all the signposts when we can just list the store itself?
Your web site, and others like it, are merely acting as signposts for the same store. No matter which of the sites you go to, you are likely to pay the same price for the exact same service. Why list all the signposts when we can just list the store itself?
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Pomos
But Neil this is exactly my point. You mention:
" No matter which of the sites you go to, you are likely to pay the same price for the exact same service . Why list all the signposts when we can just list the store itself? "
The difference between us and the hotel iteself is that we we offer live availability with instant booking confirmation, whereas if you communicate through email with the hotel itself you will have do wait a few hours or even days before you get a reply and even then if you need to ask additional questions that might take awhile. So obviously as a hotel directory our service is not the same as you mention above but much better. Out of the 150 hotels we represent only 4-5 hotels over the same service as we do. This is what makes us unique and you will actually doing internt surfers a favour by re-listing our site
" No matter which of the sites you go to, you are likely to pay the same price for the exact same service . Why list all the signposts when we can just list the store itself? "
The difference between us and the hotel iteself is that we we offer live availability with instant booking confirmation, whereas if you communicate through email with the hotel itself you will have do wait a few hours or even days before you get a reply and even then if you need to ask additional questions that might take awhile. So obviously as a hotel directory our service is not the same as you mention above but much better. Out of the 150 hotels we represent only 4-5 hotels over the same service as we do. This is what makes us unique and you will actually doing internt surfers a favour by re-listing our site
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Pomos
pnm you have stated"
"I don't think Neil is trying to compare your site to a hotel site, but rather to all the other sites that use the same booking engine."
pnm, there is no other website that uses the same booking engine for booking Cyprus hotels. We do have some affiliates that use our booking engine but we are the originators. You are welcome by any means to check our admin panel and see these affiliated sites are. Perhaps there are other booking engines that cover hotel bookings world wide but we are the only site that is covering a specific geographic target, "Cyprus". And do not forget that Cyprus is a small country having only around 400 hotels and we are representing over 150 of these hotels. By deleting our site from the dmoz directory you very well deprive the right of dmoz users to do their Cyprus hotel booking online with instant confirmation as not many other sites have the selection of Cyprus hotels we have. You are also depriving the right of some hotels that we represent that have absolutely no internet presence to fair internet competitiveness.
And hutcheson ,Your answer very much reminds me Einstein's saying "Everything is relative except the fact that everything is relative which is absolute " Let's just walk our talk ..which SOME site is the same as? A site that offers instant confirmation for Cyprus hotels bookings and has as large selection of Cyprus hotels as we do. Please email me in private if you like.
I am still waiting for an answer to question for ettore:
"how to build a hotels directory site or for that matter any directory site where that is real estate, furniture and so on so that it meets the " unique content" criteria.
And anyway, I thank all of you to your feedback in this discussion.
"I don't think Neil is trying to compare your site to a hotel site, but rather to all the other sites that use the same booking engine."
pnm, there is no other website that uses the same booking engine for booking Cyprus hotels. We do have some affiliates that use our booking engine but we are the originators. You are welcome by any means to check our admin panel and see these affiliated sites are. Perhaps there are other booking engines that cover hotel bookings world wide but we are the only site that is covering a specific geographic target, "Cyprus". And do not forget that Cyprus is a small country having only around 400 hotels and we are representing over 150 of these hotels. By deleting our site from the dmoz directory you very well deprive the right of dmoz users to do their Cyprus hotel booking online with instant confirmation as not many other sites have the selection of Cyprus hotels we have. You are also depriving the right of some hotels that we represent that have absolutely no internet presence to fair internet competitiveness.
And hutcheson ,Your answer very much reminds me Einstein's saying "Everything is relative except the fact that everything is relative which is absolute " Let's just walk our talk ..which SOME site is the same as? A site that offers instant confirmation for Cyprus hotels bookings and has as large selection of Cyprus hotels as we do. Please email me in private if you like.
I am still waiting for an answer to question for ettore:
"how to build a hotels directory site or for that matter any directory site where that is real estate, furniture and so on so that it meets the " unique content" criteria.
And anyway, I thank all of you to your feedback in this discussion.
>>"...a third party hotel booking engine on another server..."
>>"...there is no other website that uses the same booking engine..."
This could be causing some of the confusion. Please clarify.
It's almost impossible to imagine someone providing a "third-party booking engine" to only one client. And we are accustomed to every booking engine being surrounded by a veritable cloud of affiliates (and shrouded in all kinds of devious code to hide the booking engine.) When we see a so-called "hotel directory" we expect to find hidden links to an off-site booking engine: we look for them; 99% of the time we find them, at which point we sow the neighborhood with radioactive salts.
So that's what happened here.
Are you now saying that there is a class of booking engines that require their affiliates to provide their own database of hotels? -- and yet don't accept more than one affiliate at at time? this would be a whole new maze of twisty little passages, in our experience.
>>"...there is no other website that uses the same booking engine..."
This could be causing some of the confusion. Please clarify.
It's almost impossible to imagine someone providing a "third-party booking engine" to only one client. And we are accustomed to every booking engine being surrounded by a veritable cloud of affiliates (and shrouded in all kinds of devious code to hide the booking engine.) When we see a so-called "hotel directory" we expect to find hidden links to an off-site booking engine: we look for them; 99% of the time we find them, at which point we sow the neighborhood with radioactive salts.
So that's what happened here.
Are you now saying that there is a class of booking engines that require their affiliates to provide their own database of hotels? -- and yet don't accept more than one affiliate at at time? this would be a whole new maze of twisty little passages, in our experience.
Maybe the editors should take a closer look at http://www.roomsnet.com/. It doesn't have an affiliate program from what I can see. It appears that the site owner pays them to use their program. It seems to function like a web hosting service that offers specific programs to their customers like shopping cart capabilities. Granted, they do ask for a commission on each booking made but they do not appear to have pre-setup accommodations for anyone wanting to offer online booking. The site owner has to have his/her own hotel contacts and room allotments in order to use this system. I could be wrong but this service doesn't appear to be an affiliate type service. I would not be able to signup and use the same hotels on my site unless I were an agent for the same hotels and had room allotments assigned to me by each hotel. In other words, http://www.roomsnet.com/ does not have hotel room allotments, they only have the technology to provide webmasters with online booking capabilities. If I'm wrong, I'm sure Cypr can correct me.
donaldb
Member
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2002
- Messages
- 5,146
The whole thing almost has the feel of an MLM of some sort - it's a strange set-up. http://www.cyprushotels.net buys services from http://www.roomsnet.com/ and in turn markets and sells those services to their own network of affiliates.
Reminds me of web hosting resellers. I'm convinced that there is one big black box sitting in the middle of Arizona or New Mexico and it is the one host server for all web sites in the world and everyone else is just a reseller. Same thing for online travel services. There is one giant travel agent selling the services to everyone else in the world
Reminds me of web hosting resellers. I'm convinced that there is one big black box sitting in the middle of Arizona or New Mexico and it is the one host server for all web sites in the world and everyone else is just a reseller. Same thing for online travel services. There is one giant travel agent selling the services to everyone else in the world
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Pomos
Old crone, you could not have clarified this situation in a better way! This is exactly what we are doing. We are using www.roomsnet.com to provide us with the booking engine software, which software resides on their own server and in turn we set up our hotels, with prices and availability and we pay roomsnet a fee. The fee we pay can not be considered by any means as an affiliating fee but rather as a licensing fee for using their software, pretty much like an oracle or a cold fusion annual licensing fee. You are absolutely correct as to the explanation you have given, old crone.
And Hutcheson I hope the explanation given by old crone answers your questions:
1.a third party hotel booking engine on another server ( yes the booking engine is on another server and this is done in order to protect the interests of roomsnet so that the software is not copied or steal )
2.There is no other website that uses the same booking engine (my company has the exclusive rights for using their software for the setup and promotion of hotels in Cyprus. Please note that other companies might use their software for promoting hotels in other countries or hotels in a mix of countries.
To donaldb I am saying that no, we have nothing to do with mlm schemes and we are not associated with any giant travel industry resellers. It is one thing to pay a fee for using someone's software and another to promote one's services and get paid a commission.
Under the light of these new evidence and explanations, I ask the dmoz editors to break away from the "editors' group support syndrome" take a courageous step forward and do the right thing, re-list my site back in the dmoz directory. Perhaps it was a mistake to delete the site from the dmoz directory and it is understandable, as this makes the "human directory" more human. But mistakes can be corrected once they are spotted.
If there is no intention of re-listing my site back in the dmoz directory at least let me walk out of this forum thread with a positive learning experience as I am afraid I have not learned anything, how to improve my sites so that they can be acceptable for being listed in the dmoz directory. For the third time I am asking ""how to build a hotels directory site or for that matter any directory site where that is real estate, furniture and so on so that it meets the " unique content" criteria?"
And Hutcheson I hope the explanation given by old crone answers your questions:
1.a third party hotel booking engine on another server ( yes the booking engine is on another server and this is done in order to protect the interests of roomsnet so that the software is not copied or steal )
2.There is no other website that uses the same booking engine (my company has the exclusive rights for using their software for the setup and promotion of hotels in Cyprus. Please note that other companies might use their software for promoting hotels in other countries or hotels in a mix of countries.
To donaldb I am saying that no, we have nothing to do with mlm schemes and we are not associated with any giant travel industry resellers. It is one thing to pay a fee for using someone's software and another to promote one's services and get paid a commission.
Under the light of these new evidence and explanations, I ask the dmoz editors to break away from the "editors' group support syndrome" take a courageous step forward and do the right thing, re-list my site back in the dmoz directory. Perhaps it was a mistake to delete the site from the dmoz directory and it is understandable, as this makes the "human directory" more human. But mistakes can be corrected once they are spotted.
If there is no intention of re-listing my site back in the dmoz directory at least let me walk out of this forum thread with a positive learning experience as I am afraid I have not learned anything, how to improve my sites so that they can be acceptable for being listed in the dmoz directory. For the third time I am asking ""how to build a hotels directory site or for that matter any directory site where that is real estate, furniture and so on so that it meets the " unique content" criteria?"
donaldb
Member
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2002
- Messages
- 5,146
I think that the biggest problem really is that the content is not unique. The main purpose of the site is to sell me a hotel reservation. The process may be unigue, but that's really immaterial. It's the content I'm interested in. When I read about the hotels I see the exact same description that I'm seeing on every other web site that is trying to get me to book at that hotel.
For example when I look at the description for the Aeneas Hotel, I see "The Aeneas Hotel is a unique low rise, five star Resort Hotel built around what is probably the largest swimming pool of Europe and is conveniently located just across the street from the beautiful golden sands and clear waters of Nissi Bay." Well that's interesting, but not unique. A search in Google brings up the same description 153 times.
So other than your booking process which uses roomsnet, what makes your site different that the other 153 sites that offer this hotel?
For example when I look at the description for the Aeneas Hotel, I see "The Aeneas Hotel is a unique low rise, five star Resort Hotel built around what is probably the largest swimming pool of Europe and is conveniently located just across the street from the beautiful golden sands and clear waters of Nissi Bay." Well that's interesting, but not unique. A search in Google brings up the same description 153 times.
So other than your booking process which uses roomsnet, what makes your site different that the other 153 sites that offer this hotel?