Status of http://www.find-hotels.us

Im think that I submitted http://www.find-hotels.us a, but Im not sure. I wonder if you could tell me If it was submitted, because Im sure I don't want to submit twice.

It would be either http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Travel/Lodging/Directories/
or

http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Travel/Lodging/Consolidators/

Thanks,
B Jones

Oh my, what a lot of sites you have B Jones. And redirects, mirrors, vanities, etc. etc.

So we'll make it very easy for you. None of your travel related sites are listable so please don't worry whether it has been received - any received has been / will be rejected on sight.

If you want to know the reasons then please check our guidelines and the submission notice - it is very clear. If you want the shortened version then as far as we are concerned sites like this are spam and waste an awful lot of editor time that would be better spent on original unique content sites. Sorry.

RE Status of find-hotels.us

I dont understand what you mean. Redirects? Mirrors? Where do you get this info? Are you sure you're not looking at some cache? I would like to remedy this if its going to hurt my site, so any info you can give me, I would appreciate.

Is it because Im an affiliate, and dont actually own the booking engine?

Thanks,
B Jones

Now that you mention it, I think the submittal policy has something to say about affiliates.

And it's "do not submit".

The editors' policy is different. It just says "do not list."

And thanks, as a result of your request I've removed one or two listings you managed to get through already.

For the benefit of others, this type of submission is one of the main reasons you are here asking for the status of your own submission. If it was not for the submission of spam then it is entirely conceivable that all genuine submissions would be dealt with within a month or two. In the time it takes to investigate sites such as this example, then deal with the URLs that fall out, remove any of those that have somehow got through, etc. we could probably have listed up to half a dozen of your genuine original sites. I don't know if B Jones will do the normal response of expressing indignation and saying how rude editors are, maybe, maybe not, but I for one am thoroughly fed up with this type of submission and the best reason for that is that all you people that come here with genuine requests and have spent a lot of time and imagination putting together excellent sites full of great content owe your frustrations to this other type of submission. If you want to do something about it, don't criticise DMOZ and campaign against editor inefficiency or lack of responsiveness - campaign against spam submitters. Anyone can trace through the site this thread refers to and see that at least one of the URLs was already listed and this was an attempt to get another one through. Send B Jones an email and tell him what you think of his contribution towards the delay your site has experienced in getting reviewed.

Mirrors

What about the mirror thing. I dont want mirrors pointing to my site, regardless of whether or not im listed in the directory. If this could hurt my site, and if there's somthing I can change, please let me know>

Thanks

Where do you get this info?

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Same place anyone can get it - by looking at the URL you provided.

Dont get it

I dont get what you are saying. How can you just look at my url and tell all that?

And as for the affiliate thing, I have seen several other fellow affiliates listed (some have multiple listings) in the directory. (why i decided to add my site), but maybe the rules have changed.

The rules have changed, or the sites have changed, or the editors made mistakes (all of those happen.)

Point them out, and we'll look at them.

I'm not SURE he meant "look at the URL" as opposed to "look at the website", although I'll admit that URL itself did jump up and down for me also, shouting "If you're looking for affiliates, I'm the place to start."

I don't know who or where, but someone, somewhere, teaches a course in creating affiliate domain names. It's not a BIG help to us (we look at the sites anyway), but it's a minor help. When we want to look at sites more likely to be listable, we skip them; when we want to purge spam, we focus on them.

I dont get what you are saying. How can you just look at my url and tell all that?

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Tell you what - make a list of all the URLs you own, look at each one and decide what it is, then work out how each was linked to the URL submitted.

I have seen several other fellow affiliates listed

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Please tell us about them, we'll deal with them. Many genuine travel agencies have switched to affiliate programs - in one session I removed three quarters of one big city's travel agents for this reason and all had been OK when first listed.

oneeye said:

I for one am thoroughly fed up with this type of submission and the best reason for that is that all you people that come here with genuine requests and have spent a lot of time and imagination putting together excellent sites full of great content owe your frustrations to this other type of submission. If you want to do something about it, don't criticise DMOZ and campaign against editor inefficiency or lack of responsiveness - campaign against spam submitters. Anyone can trace through the site this thread refers to and see that at least one of the URLs was already listed and this was an attempt to get another one through. Send B Jones an email and tell him what you think of his contribution towards the delay your site has experienced in getting reviewed.

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I assure you I am not a spammer.

This is not some attempt to beg my way.. If you are not listing my site thats fine, but please let me know what you are seeing. Im sure I don't have any sites listed in the directory.

If there is somthing strange about my url, please, anyone let me know. Do I need to change Hosting companys?

Thanks for your time.

B jones

links

I own 5 active domains (2 of those are under construction)
each of those has a subdomain, like subdomain.domain.com . I have text links from some of them pointing at eachother. Is that what you mean?

I'm betting your local community college offers night courses in "internet" use. I'd recommend taking one.

The bit about your URL isn't easy to explain.

I'll tell you what. Look at any thousand URLs listed in ODP accommodation categories. And then do a Google search on an accommodation keyword, and look at a thousand URLs there (990 of them will be affiliate spam: not Google's fault, because 999.99 out of a thousand such sites on the web are affiliate spam).

After this exercise (which is basically what editors have done), you'll begin to see patterns also.

So I have an affiliate site... That has already been establishtd.

What I really need to know is what in the world is this about

oneeye said:

Oh my, what a lot of sites you have B Jones. And redirects, mirrors, vanities, etc. etc.

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A mirror site is a 'direct copy of a data set'. I dont have that, Do I?.

We have a slightly different definition of "mirror" than you do.

See, for example, "Affiliate Reseller Sites (aka Fraternal Mirrors)" under http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#affiliate .

For anyone in the same situation

I called my hosting company. They were helpful. It turns out that the whole mirror / spam thing was that I used a frames page do display my hotels.com affiliate page from one of my domains. Is this what you were talking about?

Thanks for all the replys.

arubin said:

We have a slightly different definition of "mirror" than you do.

See, for example, "Affiliate Reseller Sites (aka Fraternal Mirrors)" under http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#affiliate .

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Thanks for that info arubin. I think I found and fixed the problem.

My content is original, but I have lots of links that go to my parent site who I am affiliated with. Many other websites link to them.
I offer the same 55,000 hotels that the other hotel websites offer.

So even if I am not hosting a mirror site, does my still not meet the site selection criteria?

Is there anything I can do to change this?

Yes, fraternal mirrors - and I am including the subdomain.domain bits as separate - technically they are separate webs. When a webmaster elects to split content amongst various URLs then we might view them as fraternal - just as bad as the exact copy mirrors. I look at lots of travel affiliate spam (and yes it is spam) so I can sniff one at 40 paces - your one I spotted from (well never mind, don't want to give too much away) but it took five seconds. And the one already (no longer) listed - well it is splashed across the site and is pretty difficult to miss. Maybe it isn't yours but I can't see why you would so openly advertise someone else - give us a list of those URLs of yours and I'll tell you which it is.

Will all the smoke and mirrors and affiliate site stuff harm you in the search engines - well I hope they will work out something soon to make sure it does. In the meantime it only harms you in relation to DMOZ and the hundred odd directories that take data from us.

jadibones said:

I offer the same 55,000 hotels that the other hotel websites offer.

So even if I am not hosting a mirror site, does my still not meet the site selection criteria?

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Let's see. We only list unique content. I think that answers your question.

So even if I am not hosting a mirror site, does my still not meet the site selection criteria?

Is there anything I can do to change this?

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Nothing you can do - you are an affiliate site and we don't list affiliate sites. If you want to report others that have escaped our net and got listed then we would be grateful if you would list them. A level playing field is beneficial to you - if you can't get in then neither should they.

I offer the same 55,000 hotels that the other hotel websites offer.

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It isn't original content then is it. That is the purpose of the site and it is the purpose of the site that matters.