Site rejected, but identical competitor ok?

I submitted my provincial website (which is a part of my nationwide site) to this category:
Top: Regional: North America: Canada: Nova Scotia: Business and Economy: Real Estate

There is a competitors site there already, 'MLS Online: Nova Scotia' which offers an identical service and is part of a nationwide site too.

My site was rejected though, here is my site: 'Nova Scotia Real Estate Listings' <url removed>

I understand editors have the descrition to reject sites, especially subpages, but when competitors with similar pages have their sites there it seems unfair.

Is this just an oversight on the editor for not viewing sites in the category and being consistant?

Should I resubmit as long as the identical competitors site is there? There's no editor for the category, if i went up 2 levels there is for Nova Scotia, should I ask them to reconsider or is it inappropriate to send feedback to the nearest category editor?

Hard to compete this way, thanks
paullind

paullind said:

My site was rejected though,

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How do you know it is rejected. Maybe it is still waiting review.

paullind said:

Should I resubmit as long as the identical competitors site is there?

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Certainly not.

paullind said:

There's no editor for the category, if i went up 2 levels there is for Nova Scotia, should I ask them to reconsider or is it inappropriate to send feedback to the nearest category editor?

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We prefer not to receive such emails.

There are at least four possibilities:

(1) The sites aren't identical, the other site has something unique, in addition to the content both sites share. The ODP editor has done the right thing.

(2) Both sites are unique (but because they "appear" identical) the editors have so far focussed attention on sites that have more apparent potential for uniqueness. Only one site has been reviewed. The editors are doing the right thing.

(3) Neither site is really unique. It was a mistake to list one of them.

(4) the two sites are (for all practical purposes) identical; we've listed one, and the other one is forevermore "non-unique". There's no social reason that competition is needed, and no reason a rational person would attempt or abet that kind of competition. We all move on to something constructive, confident that the editors are doing the right thing.

(5) (By far the least likely) The editors have, so far, not found the significant uniqueness that your content has, and as a result have decided not to list it every time it's been reviewed.

In cases 1-4, a resubmittal is clearly unwanted and unappreciated. (In case 3, a re-review of the OTHER site would be a good idea.)

In the extremely rare case 5, a resubmittal could potentially be constructive, but is very unlikely to be ... UNLESS you've first reviewed the website, identified what about it is unique, identified what deficiency of site design (layout or navigation) might have made the unique content less-than-easily-found, and addressed that deficiency!

Note that if a site is in a heavily spam-ridden area (real estate and travel DEFINE "heavily-spam-ridden" in our dictionaries!), the editor is exceedingly ill-advised to waste time looking at a site that SEEMS identical to another one. Chances are, it is what it seems! The editor should therefore go somewhere else to look for more promising sources of unique content. So, it's absolutely imperative for web developers in these "competitive" (that is, spam-ridden) areas to make the unique content prominent. (Well, nothing is imperative -- it's your site and you can do what you want with it. But if you want attention from people looking for unique content, you'll have to understand how to attract them. And multiple submissions are ... just so NON-unique.)

DMOZ a thing of the past

I am listed in the DMOZ and honor the editors for the time they spend. But I do feel the DMOZ is a thing of the past and should be dissolved and I feel it may soon happen. If there are a million in waiting the DMOZ is not doing what it was intended to do, I feel that every entry should be deleted and the playing feild leveled. This is 2006 not 1993, a lot has changed in search tech.

The ODP shouldn't be listing sites that are having a hard time competing. We should be listing sites that either don't NEED to compete, or that have already demonstrated their ability to compete.

Obviously, we haven't achieved that ideal yet. But it is a worthy goal.

The net has changed, but spammers are still spreading caltrops by the wheelbarrow-load over the information superhighway. And the ODP is not impervious to their sabotage, but it remains more resistant than any other major resource. And that's a worthy accomplishment.

plasmaticfire said:

I am listed in the DMOZ and honor the editors for the time they spend. But I do feel the DMOZ is a thing of the past and should be dissolved and I feel it may soon happen.

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You are free to have these feelings. But they are not the feelings we (the DMOZ editors) have. Which doesn't mean we don't know that things can be improved, but the improvements we are looking for are completely different than the ones webmasters want.

plasmaticfire said:

If there are a million in waiting the DMOZ is not doing what it was intended to do,

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It is intended to build a directory, which we are still doing with around 25000 to 30000 netto listings (new listings - removed sites) each month.

No one ever said the ODP would list everything.

What it does want to do is list a reasonable number of sites, and set up categories covering as many topics as possible.

That has, and is, being achieved - even if many suitable sites are still not listed.

Appealing a decision

hutcheson said:

There are at least four possibilities:

(1) The sites aren't identical, the other site has something unique, in addition to the content both sites share. The ODP editor has done the right thing.

The sites list homes for sale in a region. A common website service found all over the internet. Nothing else offered.

(2) Both sites are unique (but because they "appear" identical) the editors have so far focussed attention on sites that have more apparent potential for uniqueness. Only one site has been reviewed. The editors are doing the right thing.

By listing the first site and not the second you are giving preferential support of the first site, the treatment is not equal and one site will receive more traffic than the other. This is biased favoritism.

(3) Neither site is really unique. It was a mistake to list one of them.

If you are going to go out of the way and reject one site, why keep the other up for nearly 2 years? It favors the site that is not removed, websites are not being treated equally.

(4) the two sites are (for all practical purposes) identical; we've listed one, and the other one is forevermore "non-unique". There's no social reason that competition is needed, and no reason a rational person would attempt or abet that kind of competition. We all move on to something constructive, confident that the editors are doing the right thing.

"..No social reason competition is needed.." Are you insane?

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paullind said:

There are at least four possibilities:

(1) The sites aren't identical, the other site has something unique, in addition to the content both sites share. The ODP editor has done the right thing.

The sites list homes for sale in a region. A common website service found all over the internet. Nothing else offered.

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OK, but are they offering a list of homes they are selling themself or is it just getting information out of a database many sites are using.
See the difference in "unique"

paullind said:

(2) Both sites are unique (but because they "appear" identical) the editors have so far focussed attention on sites that have more apparent potential for uniqueness. Only one site has been reviewed. The editors are doing the right thing.

By listing the first site and not the second you are giving preferential support of the first site, the treatment is not equal and one site will receive more traffic than the other. This is biased favoritism.

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We don't care about the amount of trafic a site gets. If all editors decided to focus their attention on (in their opinion) more interesting categories or websites they are still doing a good job.

paullind said:

(3) Neither site is really unique. It was a mistake to list one of them.

If you are going to go out of the way and reject one site, why keep the other up for nearly 2 years? It favors the site that is not removed, websites are not being treated equally.

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Ahh, you still are asuming your site was rejected. Myabe it is still waiting review.

paullind said:

(4) the two sites are (for all practical purposes) identical; we've listed one, and the other one is forevermore "non-unique". There's no social reason that competition is needed, and no reason a rational person would attempt or abet that kind of competition. We all move on to something constructive, confident that the editors are doing the right thing.

"..No social reason competition is needed.." Are you insane?

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If 10 sites present exactly the same homes for sale we will only list 1 of them. We prefer to list the one who has the original content. If we can't see which site that is we will list the one which has some other content next to the shared content. If there is no other content on all sites we probably will list the first site we find and won't list any of the other sites. Our users will be able to find all content, no need for us to present them with several copies of that same content.

You're concerned about two sites not being treated the same. That is not and cannot ever be a concern. Because the fact is, every site is treated uniquely: by a unique person at a unique time based on what that unique person thinks is relevant about the state of the web at that moment.

This means, in practice, that the first of two identical sites will generally be listed, and the second will not (because listing the first one changes what we know about the state of the web, and makes the second one demonstrably non-unique.)

That allows us to focus our efforts on things that help users. I can't tell you what to post on your website: I can only tell what the ODP is interested in. But that works the other way around. You can't tell editors what they should do. You can only tell them about unique content they haven't found yet, and let them see if, how, and when it contributes to the ODP mission.