Status of submission of http://www.hotelscomparison.com/

Alucard

Alucard

Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2002
Messages
5,920
The submisison is still awaiting review. No editor has looked at the site yet, or done a review, so the issue is just that, and not a problem with the site.

Thanks.
 
L

ldlyon

Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2004
Messages
10
Hi,

I submitted the site
http://www.hotelscomparison.com/ in February.

I last checked on the status 6 months ago. Please can you tell me the current status. It was posted in:

http://dmoz.org/Home/Consumer_Information/Price_Comparisons/

Is the waiting time still up to 2 years? Do the moderators process the sites from an orderly queue or are they picked randomly.

My site was a novel idea when I started 2 years ago. Now it seems every Tom, Dick and Harry is running a comparison site. Is my site being discriminated against because there are so many similar sites around?

I realise you are busy and am grateful for any information

Thanks,
Liam Lyon.
 
spectregunner

spectregunner

Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2003
Messages
8,768
Is the waiting time still up to 2 years? Do the moderators process the sites from an orderly queue or are they picked randomly.
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Picked randomly best describes the process, although randomly may suggest an erder that does not actually exist.
Is my site being discriminated against because there are so many similar sites around?
Click to expand...
No.

You are eligible for another status check on or after the 19th of this month, using this thread.
 
H

hutcheson

Curlie Meta
Joined
Mar 23, 2002
Messages
19,136
>Is my site being discriminated against because there are so many similar sites around?

The answer is a definite "no", although the reality is somewhat nuanced. If there are already "so many sites like it", then obviously it has a very small chance of being unique. Since that is true, it is then obvious that editors would know reviewing more such sites is not as productive a use of their time as working some other way. Since THAT is true, assuming editors are rational, you should be prepared for longer delays in the queue, higher standards, more demanding reviews.

So you should make sure that you so (somehow!) have SIGNIFICANT unique content, and furthermore that a surfer (or editor!) visiting your site can find OBVIOUSLY unique content within 30 seconds or so.

But ... being descrinated against? Not at all! We treat all the sites like that ... like that.
 
L

ldlyon

Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2004
Messages
10
More information on uniqueness

I think my hotel site has a great deal of uniqueness.

I offer hotels in 500 cities from 11 companies with a total of 97,000 properties. The search is fast and aggregates the results on hotel name which you don't see that often and if you do it will not have been done properly.
The PHP code is over 50,000 lines and has taken 2.5 years to complete.
The uniquenes is not that visible because all the smart stuff is hidden away behind the scenes.

The problem is how do I get a moderator to even look at my site.

After 9 months from submission there are 2 possible situations at the moment:

1) No moderator has ever looked at my site. He/she assumes from the domain name that there is not enough unique content and has never looked at it.

2) A moderator has looked at my site (very briefly) and decided that there is not enough unique content based on the home page or one hotel search.

Surely if 1 of these 2 cases exists then my site should be failed with the status of "not enough unique content". My guess with travel sites is that the number of new submissions is greater than the rate at which they will be reviewed. This means that my site will never be reviewed.

I am palnning to add 1000-2000 more destinations to the site in the next 6 weeks. How will a moderator know to look at my site again once this has been completed. He/she doesn't. This is why my site should be status "not enough unique content" so when I make changes I can resubmit the site again.

I can prove that my site is unique as people have recommended it in forums.

This post in moneysavingexpert.com
http://forum.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Travel;action=display;num=1091358746

received 4000 hits in 1 week when someone recommeded my site back in August.

I have read many threads from frustrated users who are waiting patiently for inclusion into the index. Paid inclusion is NOT the way to go but there must be other ways to improve the process. Do moderators look at popular forums to determine which sites are being used by real people.

The problem is I need to increase my sales so I can employ some staff to cope with the size of the site. Being excluded from dmoz keeps my sales at a bare minimum and I am in a situation where I am working flat out to keep my head above water.

I undertand the pressure on moderators. They are overwhelmed by the volume of sites to review. How do they know wher to start.

To summarize my suggestions:

1) Automatically fail any site with status "not enough unique content" if it is not reviewed after 6 months.

2) Use poplular forums to determine which sites are being used by real people.

Thanks,
Liam Lyon
 
spectregunner

spectregunner

Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2003
Messages
8,768
1) No moderator has ever looked at my site. He/she assumes from the domain name that there is not enough unique content and has never looked at it.
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Probably correct/definitely incorrect. In all probability no editor has looked at your site. We don't judge sites by their titles, we just them by their content. If we rejected every submissin with a porr/incorrect/misleading/spammy title, the backlog would vanish in about 48 hours.

My guess with travel sites is that the number of new submissions is greater than the rate at which they will be reviewed. This means that my site will never be reviewed.
Click to expand...

Probably correct/definitely incorrect. Travel sites are, to a certain extent, a bain to the directory. There is so much spam and affiliate content/schemes that reviewing travel sites takes longer than for many other types of sites. Still, your conclusion is not supportable. You have only been waiting 8 months, we routinely tell people that wait times in many parts of the directory exceeds two years, so take a deep breath and relax, we will eventually review your site, we just won't commit to a timeframe.

How will a moderator know to look at my site again once this has been completed. He/she doesn't. This is why my site should be status "not enough unique content" so when I make changes I can resubmit the site again.
Click to expand...

Totally without basis. When you submit, all you submit is the URL. When an editor looks at it, we look at it the instant that we look at it. This means we don't know or care what it looked like yesterday, last week, last month or when you submitted it.

The problem is I need to increase my sales so I can employ some staff to cope with the size of the site. Being excluded from dmoz keeps my sales at a bare minimum and I am in a situation where I am working flat out to keep my head above water.
Click to expand...

So, go promote your site elsewhere. No one is stopping you. Have you gone forth and submitted your site to the hundreds of search engines and directories that accept submissions? We have never made a commitment to look at suggested sites within a given timeframe -- after all site suggestions are far from being our highest priority. They are much closer to being our lowest priority.

To summarize my suggestions:
Click to expand...

Plainly speaking, you do not know enough about how we build our directory, why we build our directory, and what we think is important for your suggestions to have any real meaning. We are't going to run a category popularity content and we aren't going to automatically purge suggestions after a given timeframe with a specious "not enough content" label. If we haven't looked at a site after six months or a year or even two years, it does not mean the site lacks content -- it simply means we have not looked at the site. Nothing more, nothing less.

If a site lacks content when we look at it, we put it in the electonic trash can. If someone asks about their suggested URL and it has been looked at and lacks content, we smack them upside the head a few times and tell them to go add content and resubmit.

Look, your site is in the submission pool. It has not been dispositioned. Quit wasting your time worrying about it -- it will get reviewed when it gets reviewed. Go out and promote your business and don't be so foolish that you are risking your business on the hopes that some volunteer editor, somewhere on this planet, will reach into the submission pool of more than a million sites, and pluck yours out of the water. Invest $1 on the lottery instead -- the odds are better.
 
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