Status of http://forddirect.com/StartPage.html

Hi,

Could you please check the status of http://forddirect.com/StartPage.html which was submitted to
http://www.dmoz.org/Shopping/Vehicles/Autos/Internet_Sales/
on 10-9-2002 to category editor, elwoodsharp

Thank you!

The base URL is listed in Shopping/Vehicles/Autos/Buyer_Services.

Unfortunately, that is not the correct URL. The URL of the base URL is www.forddirect.com/StartPage.html not www.forddirect.com. How do I change it so the correct URL is indexed in the correct category?

Thank you.

The site is already listed appropriately in http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Vehicles/Autos/Buyer_Services/ (as http://www5.forddirect.fordvehicles.com/ since that is where forddirect.com redirects to) and has been rejected from the Internet Sales category.

[edited to add: what is the difference between the service provided at the root URL vs StartPage.html? Other than a small design difference, they both end up pulling the same data from forddirect.fordvehicles.com.]

Hi,

http://www5.forddirect.fordvehicles.com/ is a sub-domain of fordvehicles.com - it is not our main site.

The main site for FordDirect is www.forddirect.com/StartPage.html.

The root of forddirect.com redirects there (for whatever reasons) and all of the useful content accessed from forddirect.com/StartPage.html comes from there. Therefore, forddirect.com/StartPage.html ends up being just a doorway page for forddirect.fordvehicles.com -- and we don't list doorway pages.

Thank you - I will contact the marketing department within my company to take care of that issue.

I'm just curious but how are the URLs discussed here any different than http://www.ford.com/? Look at http://www.ford.com/en/vehicles/default.htm where the URL mentioned is at the bottom of the page with one small difference, it has a 1 after the www (http://www1.forddirect.fordvehicles.com/) instead of a 5. But if I click that URL the number changes each time. Does the Ford company get more listings because they are a bigger company?

old crone:

I may need some more coffee... but I must admit I didn't understand what are you referring to <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />
Could you please elaborate ?

&lt;edited&gt;Ah, now I see what you mean&lt;/edited&gt;

I'm sorry, guess I'm too confused to explain my confusion. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

http://www5.forddirect.fordvehicles.com/ is apparently listed in http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Vehicles/Autos/Buyer_Services/ and http://www.fordvehicles.com/ is listed in http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Autos/Makes_and_Models/Ford/

http://www.ford.com/ is listed in http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Autos/Makes_and_Models/Ford_Motor_Company/ and in http://dmoz.org/Business/Automotive/ and in http://dmoz.org/Business/Major_Companies/Publicly_Traded/F/

and http://www.ford.co.za/ is listed in http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Autos/Makes_and_Models/Ford/ (site is currently being refurbished)
A deeplink of http://www.ford.ca/ is listed in http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Autos/Makes_and_Models/Mercury/Trucks/

There are other ford country specific listings but they are listed in their regional locations so I didn't list them here. There may be more but it's more than I want to weed through. I am just curious as to why these sites are all listed when they are all owned by the Ford Motor Company. Just wondering if big companies get more listings and I was curious about the number after the www in the http://www5.forddirect.fordvehicles.com/ URL and why it changes but that's not relevant here, I guess. Sorry again, just my curiosity getting the best of me. <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" alt="" />

forddirect.com/StartPage.html is not a doorway page. If you go to that site, you can navigate through each car model and get customized content on that car model. forddirect.fordvehicles.com goes directly to a call to action. For example, this page http://www.forddirect.com/content/car/03crown_victoria/Crown_Victoria_Standard/ is not on forddirect.fordvehicles.com

That's true but the real purpose there is to allow people to build their own dream vehicle and/or get a quote, yes? Both of those links go to somewhere on forddirect.fordvehicles.com. I'll admit I have no idea why you have set up the domain so that the root redirects to somewhere else instead of giving the index.html page the content of the StartPage.html one, though I'll be honest and say that even if it did, I would probably personally choose to list forddirect.fordvehicles.com instead since that is where the "meat" of forddirect.com is located