Status of: http://www.buy-and-sell-car-secrets.com

I submitted my site: http://www.buy-and-sell-car-secrets.com for this category: http://dmoz.org/Home/Consumer_Information/Automobiles/Purchasing/ on 8-27-03. I inquired about its status on 9-29-03 but still haven't heard anything.

Suggested Title: Buy-and-sell-car-secrets.com

Suggested Description: Save money, time & hassles when buying new & used cars. Get more money when you sell your used car. Plus tips on car warranties, car insurance & much more.

Thank you very much!
Stephen Hobbs
www.buy-and-sell-car-secrets.com

I can't report on the status of your site, however I did take a look at it. The reviewing editor may not look favorably on your site, due to the affiliate links to carsdirect.com and the partnership with chooseyouritem.com

...but I could be wrong.

Re: Status of: http://www.buy-and-sell-car-secrets

Your August submission is still waiting with several dozen others. However, I can almost guarantee you that the description will be changed to something like "Tips for buying new and used cars and for choosing warranties, accessories, loans and insurance." . We don't do hype, sorry.

I've got tons of affiliate links on my site because it is a theme based affiliate site, so specifically what is the problem with those two particular links you mentioned?

Thanks,
Steve

Re: Status of: http://www.buy-and-sell-car-secrets

No problem. In spite of the fact that what I say can be realized (because I've done it numerous times) as far as saving money when buying cars and selling your used car for more money, I do understand that you have to have some way to filter out the hype. Thanks for your input!

I've got tons of affiliate links on my site because it is a theme based affiliate site, so specifically what is the problem with those two particular links you mentioned?

Click to expand...

You might want to read Affiliate Marketing Schemes for reasons why your site might not be listed.

Note: I didn't look at the site, nor do I edit in that category.

I appreciate your feedback and did read the section on "Marketing Schemes" and my site definetely does not fall into that category.

My previous comment of "tons of affiliate links" is an exaggeration on my part because first and foremost my site is based on useable content that is totally relevant to the theme of money saving tips for buying and selling cars.

I am still curious why the specific links I have with carsdirect.com and chooseyouritems.com would be an issue though?

You may or may not care, ODP certainly does not, ut you misspelled warranties and accessories in your meta keywords.

Just out of curiosity, I went a level down on your site in both car warranties and car wax, and found both to be infested with affiliate links.

I don't edit in the section of the directory where you are trying to get listed, but if it were my decision, your site would not be approved because I feel that the weight of the affiliate links greatly outweighs the value of your content; content that does little but drive the surfer to affiliate links is very lightweight content in my opinion.

did read the section on "Marketing Schemes" and my site definetely does not fall into that category.

Click to expand...

I would wonder how you would square your statement above with the number of links like this:
http://www.buy-and-sell-car-secrets.com/cgi-bin/site.pl?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.5starshine.com%2Fcgi-bin%2Fat.cgi%3Fa%3D266482
that are found throughout your site?

It wasn't an accident that those words are misspelled. They are very high demand/low supply key words that I'm taking advantage of for better seo.

I'm not sure I understand your term "infested with links"? All the links are there because my site is a theme based affiliate site, so of course their are affiliate links - but each link is totally appropriate to the content of that particular page.

For example: If you went to the the second page of car warranties you would find 23 extremely important questions with answers that someone needs to know when looking to buy an extended car warranty, which by the way is one of the biggest rip offs when bought from a car dealer.

The accessory page is the only page that is "infested" with links out of a 49 page site - but those links are categorized and are meant to direct people to applicable car accessory sites. Aftermarket car accessories when bought through a car dealer is also another area where the dealer profits are exorbitant and I explain that on that particular page and why you're better off in buying them yourself later. I did that with my truck last year and saved over $2000 from what the dealer would have charged me for similar items - except mine were better.

You can also see numerous pages of relevant content about fixing up your used car to sell it for more money and also how to buy a used car without getting ripped off. Their are many pages of that stuff. Maybe you already know how to do that and might even take that knowledge for granted, but many don't know how, and I'm offering them that with a step by step walk through the entire used car buying or selling process.

I don't understand your comment about the 5 star shine links? You could spend hundreds of dollars (as I point out on one of those pages) when buying a new car for their "new car paint sealant" and I explain why you don't need to do that because its a scam. I don't understand what you mean by "square" in reference to the 5 star shine? Hey, the stuff works and it works really well.

For the new car buyer - a trip to your local car dealer can be a brutal and expensive experience. I'm offering lots of tips to save money and time that can turn what is normally a hideous experience into a pleasant and even comical experience.

I thank you for your comments.

Re: Status of: http://www.buy-and-sell-car-secrets

Telling us here how good your car wax is (or even how good your site is) will have no impact on our decision to list it or not. This is not a site promotion forum, it is a submission status forum.

The status of your suggestion that we include your site was given above: it awaits review.

As also stated above, the description you suggested will not be used.

Two editors have expressed the opinion that your site is not likely to be listed. Three now.

Feel free to check back in a few months for a status update. Should you do so, please reuse this thread rather than starting a new one.

Re: Status of: http://www.buy-and-sell-car-secrets

Once again, thank you for your input!

I am merely pointing out that this person brought up one page out of 49 that has lots of links on it. One page! The vast majority of the site is content.

If he took the time to go through my site page by page then he would find numerous long highly valuable content based pages that only have a couple of carfax links on them.

I'm trying to understand why you or the other guy would just go to one page or two pages out of 49?

As far "promoting my site", I am only attempting to clarify an observation made by one guy that only looked at one page about car accessories and another page about car wax out of 49 pages. I don't understand why he would do that?

If my description as I wrote it won't be used then will dmoz change it? Yahoo changed my description and that was fine with me because it still described the website.

Re: Status of: http://www.buy-and-sell-car-secrets

I'm trying to understand why you or the other guy would just go to one page or two pages out of 49?

Click to expand...

I quickly browsed your site -- looking at probably a dozen pages in all -- as a courtesy to you. I was not doing a site review, I was trying to get a feeling for the site, and the feeling that I got was that it was not overly rich in content.

You might want to think about that. I don't edit in that section of the directory, but I do edit in the directory, and spend a lot fo time looking for content at websites.

You might ask yourself -- if two ODP editors have looked at my website and had a hard time finding content -- what can I do to make the content more obvious? After all, if we have a hard time finding the content, will someone in your target audience find your content easily?

I'm not picking on you, or your website, just giving you something to think about.

With regards to your question about your ddscription, yes, the ODP reviewing editor will write a description based on the content that he or she is able to easily find on your site.