Status of 1st-Futures-Broker.com

Hi,

I have submitted my site,

www.1st-Futures-Broker.com

for inclusion of the DMOZ directory for well over a year. I have submitted 3 times, every few months. The category is:

http://www.dmoz.org/Business/Investing/Commodities_and_Futures/Brokerages/

It is NFA approved, looks great, has unique content, and is ranked top 5 on most search engines for "futures broker". It is frustrating that I cannot get it listed on DMOZ. Help please!

Phil

Webmaster,

www.1st-futures-broker.com

I'm sure it is frustrating, but we have our own guidelines for what is included, and it does not depend on other approvals or ratings. This URL will not be included - there is not point resubmitting. For possible reasons, read the submmission guidelines and the editor guidelines.

http://editors.dmoz.org/add.html
http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#notinclude

Why won't you get into a discussion about why you won't list my site?

I have read your guidelines and do not understand why you won't include the site, www.1st-futures-broker.com.

We offer trading platforms that are available elsewhere, as does any other broker who uses a clearing firm's products. (Eg Lind-Waldock.com uses Refco.) I would argue this is not an "affiliate" type site that you will not allow as most futures brokers use third party trading platforms (eg J-Trader, Vision Express, Refco.)

There is a small bit of content that is the same as other sites (ie taken from the sites that provide the trading software) but over 95% of the site is unique content that I wrote.

You have included dozens of other brokerages that provide FCM software/content in this way. (Basically all of them.)

And even "mirror" sites that are divisions of the same company, eg OrionFutures.com, ExpressFutures.com, CommodityBroker.com.

1st-Futures-Broker status

Is this why you kicked my domain off your directory? For a time, I also had another domain, Futures-Trading.net, on DMOZ. It was a pay-per-click search engine for futures traders. However, after a year, it wasn't working out so I decided to just redirect the domain to my main site, 1st-Futures-Broker.com. I had forgotten that Futures-Trading.net was also on DMOZ.

It was an oversight. It is only recently - months since asking about my status - that I remembered this could be a reason. This is the only reason I can think of that you would have taken my site off.

Can you please put 1st-Futures-Broker.com back on your directory, please?

Phil

Can you please put 1st-Futures-Broker.com back on your directory, please?

Click to expand...

No, absolutely not. The URL you mention in your last post has never been listed as far as I can tell but you already have a related site currently listed. Read our guidelines please, submission of related URLs is prohibited and can result in exclusion of ALL related sites. If the other URLs you mentioned above as mirrors have not already been investigated I am sure they will be shortly. If this or any other related URL is submitted by you then you know the potential consequences! If you have any others in the system at the present time we would be grateful if you would let us know here and we will deal with them. Thanks.

All independent brokerage firms clear their trades through an FCM (Futures Commissions Merchant). This does not mean they are related in anyway, they are seperate companies.

You should have 2 categories in DMOZ:

Futures Commissions Merchants (offer clearing for brokerages) such as (Refco, R.J. Obrien, Peregrine Financial Group (who I clear through), Vision LLP, and probably about 10 others).

Brokerage firms: Companies that offer broker services such as mine his, and all the ones listed in your directory.

All your brokerage firms listed are affiliates so you will have to delete the entire category of names which would only leave FCM's if this is what you are saying. Let me know and I will compile and entire list for you to delete:

Here you can check and see what FCM a brokerage firm uses:
http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/
(type in the firm name)

So if this is the case please delete 95% of your commodity brokerage firm listings. If you want a detailed list of every single one let me know and I will provide it with information on who they clear through. Obviously this is ridiculous....

I suspect that the editor who edits this category is affiliated with a brokerage firm, and he/she is using this affiliate excuse which is a lie as a reason to keep the competition from being listed.

What other reason can there be for us being denied?

By the way it would be interesting to see the firms that got added the last year. If most of the brokerage firms added use the same Futures Commissions Merchant, you know something is fishy! Use the link above to determine who the firms that were added, their FCM is!

Lets get this out in the open!

Thanks for your time,

Matt Larsen
President
Larsen Trading Group

PS Editors of DMOZ you can type in the editors REAL NAME in the NFA weblink above and see if he/she is affiliated with a firm, or just unknowledgable about how things work i nthe futures industy.

I hope all this hard work will maybe get me a listing (see my other topic at www.tradesetups.com submission)

We are more interested in how sites are related than how firms are related. Given the proliference of mirror sites in this particular industry it is extremely difficult for editors to make sure related sites don't get listed, the level of vigilence required is enormous. For that reason listing a site here takes maybe 10 - 15 times longer than in other parts of the Directory and editors can be far more productive elsewhere. So activity is low and sites not being listed is not a sign of anything else other than wading through mud. There are also lots of potential categories and as with the rest of the directory it is one listing, best fit. So if a firm has different sites with different targets and one is listed in a category that fits that, another site with a different focus won't get listed where that fits best. That's the way things work in the DMOZ industry!

oneeye said:

No, absolutely not. The URL you mention in your last post has never been listed as far as I can tell but you already have a related site currently listed. Read our guidelines please, submission of related URLs is prohibited and can result in exclusion of ALL related sites. If the other URLs you mentioned above as mirrors have not already been investigated I am sure they will be shortly. If this or any other related URL is submitted by you then you know the potential consequences! If you have any others in the system at the present time we would be grateful if you would let us know here and we will deal with them. Thanks.

Click to expand...

Dear Oneeye,

Firstly, 1st-Futures-Broker.com was in your directory from approx. 4 years ago.

Secondly, I am the webmaster of over 30 domains and I know the DMOZ rules. I have NOT submitted mirror sites to your directory. Here are the list of sites I have in the DMOZ futures section:

1. Futures-Investor.co.uk - This is a site about futures, has various articles on technical analysis, out-takes of a trading course I wrote. It is my personal website.

2. FuturesTradingSystem.com - This is a site for a client who sends out trading signals by email of their futures trading system. Completely nothing to do with the above site.

That is it as far as I am aware. I think Futures-Trading.net was also listed once. This was a pay-per-click search engine for futures. That didn't work out and I now have it redirecting to 1st-Futures-Broker.com. Again, it was independent and had nothing to do with the other sites.

1st-Futures-Broker.com is a client's site (L. Bressert) of which I am the webmaster. If you look at the site's "about" page you will see they are NFA regulated and 1st-Futures-Broker.com is their registered website. They offer online futures/forex trading and automated trading systems.

I hope this clears things up and if you could add 1st-Futures-Broker.com I'd appreciate it.

Regards,

Phil

I did not make the decision to remove the listing but several experienced editors have all independently confirmed it. The site, as it stands, will not be re-added. All rejections of sites, whether of those never listed or those that have been listed, ultimately arises from the inability of the site to offer us sufficient (our judgement) high quality unique content. Should that situation change then it is possible the decision would be reconsidered. But note from the submission agreement:

I also acknowledge that Netscape and the ODP have unfettered editorial discretion to determine the structure and content of the directory and that, because a site's placement in the directory is subject to change or deletion at any time...

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Not enough unique content? Sounds like a crock to me.

There are around 100 pages on this site. All of it is unique - I know because I spent hours writing it. Apart from one or two pages that I also have similar versions of on some other sites, this content is not anywhere else.

Admittedly, this site had some content (maybe 30%) that was duplicated in the past - such as info on the third-party trading platforms - but most brokerage sites have this kind of thing duplicated. For at least 6 months, this site has been 90% unique content.

As MLarson says in a post below, there are several sites in this category that DO contain a large amount of mirrored content, or ARE owned by the same brokerage firms.

It makes one very suspicious that the editors are linked with these sites, especially when they make excuses for not including sites such as 1st-Futures-Broker.com, which obeys the rules, and includes many sites that break them.

Phil

These forums are not intended for the discussion of why any particular site is listable or not. It has filled its purpose of giving information about the site status. I am closing it.