Status of LanierBB.com/Alaska/

I would like to check the status of my submission of our site http://www.lanierbb.com/Alaska/index.html
submitted on 7-12-04 to ..Regional/North_America/United_States/Alaska/Travel_and_Tourism/Lodging/Bed_and_Breakfast/

I would also like to know the proper procedure for checking the status of all the additional submissions under the Lanierbb.com domain name I have made recently. essentially, I have submitted many of our "state pages" (web pages which relate directly to individual states, and their respective bed and breakfasts); and would like to know the proper way of checking the status of as many of them as possible. I assume that the proper way to do this is to start one forum thread with all the various submissions requested individually within that thread (so as not to clog up your message boards with a lot of requests from our site... don't want to make anyone's lives more difficult ). thank you for your time, and I hope I was clear enough.

~Lucius Bono, Lanier Publishing

The proper method, sorry, is not to have submitted them at all. The editors do deeplink sites "in extraordinary cases", but we've never met a webmaster on earth who didn't think his site was extraordinary; so it isn't fair to them to burden them with that rule, or to us to allow them to exploit it.

deep linking of competition

Thank you for taking the time to explain to us ODP's policy regarding
deep linking. However, it is still unclear to us how our deep linking
case is different from that of
any of our competetion.

Nearly every subcategory
(.../Regional/North_America/United_S
tates/Travel_and_Tourism/Lodging/Bed_and_Breakfast/) currently
includes deeply linked sites. Bbonline.com, bedandbreakfast.com,
ibbp.com, theinnkeeper.com, iloveinns.com, and virtualcities.com (just
to name a few) all have several deep links within these subcategories.
Even as far down as the city level. For example, Bbonline.com alone has
more than 700 deep linked pages within your directory.

As you know, ODP holds allot of clout with the major search engines in
determining page rank and placement within the engines for valueable
keyword terms. ODP's inconsistency regarding its deep linking policy
has provided our competition with an unfair advantage within these
search engines.

We have raised this case before almost a year ago. ODP ultimately
raised the thread to an internal forum and we never heard of any
resolution (link).

So you see, it really isn't a matter of ego. We don't think that our
site is extraordinary and deserves special treatment. We simply would
like the same service that is provided to our competition.

~Lucius Bono, Lanier Publishing

The difference is that judgment is reserved for editors. You will get the same service that was provided to your competition, when you follow the same rules they did.

We are not interested in helping you (or hurting your competitors) in the search engine arena. We're interested only in what's best for our surfers, and how best to achieve that.

The best way for you to achieve that is to follow the submittal policies.

First off, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to clarify this
issue with us. I'm sure you're probably swamped with more important
issues.

One more question and I'll let you get back to your work. It seems like
you're telling us two things:

1. "The proper method, sorry, is not to have submitted them at all."
2. "You will get the same service that was provided to your competition,
when you follow the same rules they did."

Maybe we're asking the wrong question here. I think the proper question
would be, "how did our submission procedure differed from that of other
deep linked sites, if the proper method is not to submit at all?"

We certainly aren't asking anyone to play favorites. We simply
understand the value of the ODP as a tool for site promotion.

Thanks again for your time.

~Lucius Bono, Lanier Publishing

Simply put, the submission rules that your submit the root URL once, to the single best category and leave it at that.

If, in reviewing the the site, the editor determines that there is content that is sufficiently unique to warrant listing in an additional category, the editor will take those steps.

Now, before anyone gets excited -- are there sites currently in the directory that were suggested by the submitter and that perhaps should no longer be there? Yes. No question about it, but (and this is the biggie) we root those sites out on an individual basis when we come across them, but their presence does not suggest that we should list other sites that do not meet our current criteria.

Thank you for your time.

~Lucius Bono, Lanier Publishing