status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.com/

Can you please let me know about this site:

http://www.atlanticcityshotels.com/
Submitted to:

http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_Jersey/Localities/A/Atlantic_City/Travel_and_Tourism/

Thank you

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

You were rejected for being a Travelnow affiliate (all of your "Book a room" links take the surfer to Travelnow via an affiliate link).

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

Yes, it definitely "exists primarily to drive commercial traffic to another site." And that's the Thing That Must Not Be Done.

Yes, it definitely "exists primarily to drive commercial traffic to another site." And that's the Thing That Must Not Be Done.

Click to expand...

Well, all cynicism aside, how does this differ from the case of a fan site, which the guidelines specifically mention as acceptable:

"However, a site that contains affiliate links in addition to other content (such as a fan site for a singer that has interviews and photos plus banner ads and links to buy the singer's CDs) might be an acceptable submission to the directory."

Is it so hard to believe there are fans of the Atlantic City Boardwalk, its casinos, its sights, and experiences? And if so, how would such a site look? I think it would be filled with original photos, information for others who are interested in discovering, etc developed by someone who spent time on the boardwalk putting in miles on foot tracking down info and talking to the people working there.

Can you give me any advice on getting this accepted? Is it really the text links that caused the red flags? Would banners better?

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

>>might be an acceptable submission<<

The key is "might." It might not if someone overdid it.

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

It's not just the visible travelnow link.

Any "Hotel Directory" site must expect to face almost absolute skepticism. If ANY responsible editor (cynical or not) DIDN'T see the travelnow (or competitive) link on such a site, the only question should be "how did they hide it this time?" And, knowing how much we hate their incessant spamming, the hotel reservation industry has taken to providing their affiliates with more and more deceptive scripts, to hide the affiliate links better (and for no other conceivable reason) and, then increased the barrage of spam. These are not humans, they are toxic waste. They share leucocytes with Bill Gates.

But, biological and ethical issues aside: at this point, I do not believe it is technically POSSIBLE for a site visitor to examine a webpage or any of its source, and determine from that whether or not its individual hotel links are affiliates. (This doesn't mean that we can't detect many of them, because they have to tell other lies in order to hide the fact that they're concealing their affiliation. It does mean it's difficult. It means it's not fun to review such a site: it takes considerable research and investigation, with an almost foregone conclusion of "affiliate site wearing fright wig.")

Add to this the consideration that (with ODP's coverage of hotel sites) the added value to surfers of ANY hotel directory has to be very, very low (if not negative.)

All of that is general background, with no specific reference to your site. But that is the environment into which your site comes. Lots of pictures, even original (you claim, and I could believe it easily enough) -- but they are similar to the ones you'd see in any commercial hotel brochure. Not much non-hotel content, and not all that easily found, either. (Well, it calls itself a HOTEL site, and that's no lie.)

For any city other than Atlantic City, yes, I think the concept of a fan site for hotels would be ludicrously incredible. Well, I can see that Atlantic City is a special case -- unique in the nature of its attractions (i.e. nothing to see but the place where you stay while waiting to gamble, if you want the really cynical slant.) I'll hold my breath and not touch this one, but ...

[again, returning to the general topic, not this site specifically] I think the editing community is about two beers short of lynching _every_ hotel directory in the 'burg: and personally, I've got two pillows and a bucket of crude oil in the foyer, just waiting for the occasion.

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

"However, a site that contains affiliate links in addition to other content (such as a fan site for a singer that has interviews and photos plus banner ads and links to buy the singer's CDs) might be an acceptable submission to the directory."

To me the big difference here is a fan site may use affiliate links to someone who sells the artists product, but that is not the reason for the site to exist. The fan would still put the site up if we specifically made them remove the affiliate link *because it's their interest/hobby*.

A commercial site with affiliate links is *usually* only there to get people to click that link - if we made them take out the link, how many would keep the site up. Pure business decision oooh, less than 1 I'd guess.

'Block out the affiliate links' is fine, but then you also have to ask "Is this site here just to drive traffic, or is it a good, standalone, information source?" Then you have to decide how much of the standalone content is unique. Then weigh up the balance of usefulness/uniqueness of the site against the number/quantity/quality of the affiliate links.

If you created a site about a city, and put an affiliate link to amazon selling a city guidebook - well I'd list it. If the same site had 40 affiliate links to different bookstores, car hire companies, travel consolidators... well I think you see where I'm going here.

The fact that all the affiliate links go to the same company or are spread over several is unimportant.

In the end 'why should the visitor come to your site?' should be the question. If the answer is 'So we can make money by sending them elsewhere.' They are not getting any unique or useful information, and would be just as well served by going directly to where you are forwarding them. I'm not saying 'better off' as they will get exactly the same rates quoted, merely 'equally well served'.

my 2c <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />
Please note 'you' is the generic form and is not specifically targeted at this site/submitter

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

Thank you for the insight and discussion. I am disappointed with the overwhelming cynicism facing small website owners, but I'll have to accept it.

Someone asked how I knew that my site was rejected and why I assumed it was due to the affiliate links. The answer is that I examined the log files . Following an ODP referal as they visit the homepage, then click an affiliate link and then back out of the site immediately suggested to me that there was no review and I felt mislead by the published guidelines.

This attitude is counterproductive because, rather than limiting the problem, it actually encourages systematic abuse from the travel companies and affiliates, because only the most sophisticated cover-up schemes get in, wheras you throw out small website owners who conscientiously tried to provide something beyond links to buy something (but didn't try to hide the source of the product).

Now, by rewarding the schemes and denying sincere people, the directory (and the internet) has actually become MORE controlled by the big business and schemers (rather than less, as was intended).

What this means for the user is that they are presented with the same information everywhere, and that information (in the case of gambling destinations) is straight from the gaming properties and reservations services. In other words there can be no great broad palette of opinions anymore when the information is being filtered exclusively thru the corporate marketing depts in far away places.

There is no reason why an editor should have trouble recognizing an affiliate travel link. Actually it would be hard to find a site that does not have affiliate links (there are only a handful of reservations services).

But they shouldn't be worried about the links. Not according to the published guidelines. If they are having trouble and obsessing over the links (rather than content as the guidelines (the published ones at least), that further stresses the point that only the most sophisticated will get in, and the genuine people who did not even bother hiding get dumped.

I believe this environemt points out a leadership problem. To me, ODP should use its strengths more effectively. Instead it is in full retreat, slashing everything in its path (or at least the sincere people who happen to have unhidden affiliate links).

The strength of ODP is supposed to be in its force of volunteer editors who have some level of expertise in their field.

Who edits Atlantic City? Amazingly, leadership has failed to recruit a single qualified individual. Some might think AC is a cesspool, but surely somewhere thre is someone who cold review sites and easily identify what is useful (instead of banning sites due to a link).

Instead of recruiting a qualified person, they are satisfied having an overworked higher-level editor slash his/her way thru countless submissions in categories deep underneath the top categories. There is no time to review, so the criteria reduces to an affiliate link witch hunt.

Instead of recruiting, they only place a greyed out apply-to-be-an-editor link hidden at the bottom of pages. As a result, only the in-crowd and the schemers know about it.

So there you have it. My view at least. It will only get worse as the schemers and big business become more sophisticated in the tactics and the editors nail the sincere little guy trying to pursue an interest and share it with the world.

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

I agree with you to a degree boardwalk.

Sites should never be rejected simply because they have affiliate links. They should be evaluated on the basis of the content. You are a very borderline case. Reviews on your site are your own, but they cover the same ground as countless others' on other websites. This is what makes it difficult to evaluate the unique content on your site.

That being said, I don't know what the solution is. We just can't let affiliate sites run rampant in the directory. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

You are a very borderline case.

Click to expand...

I was trying to be general, because I know my site is already banned. I am not trying to get it reviewed.

The point is that it was not rejected due lack of content. It was never judged on content (it was rejected as an affiliate site without review).

That is what saddens me and makes me feel the public guideleines, which are different from the guidelines in practice, are misleading us poor schleps and that only the schemers know the way around them.

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

Since this site is a borderline case, is there going to be a review board, seperate from discussions here and/or the process of waiting and resubmitting the site. That can judge these borderline cases? (Provided that there suddenly appears a wealth of free time on the part of all the editors.)
And is there any discussion on making the editor rules of inclusion both public, and as specific as possible? To help avoid problems like this in the future?

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

Yes, there is place for discussion difficult cases - in our internal forum.

Our rules are published in http://dmoz.org/guidelines/.

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

&gt;... and as specific as possible?

Note that the specific rules are all negative. There are not, and will never be, any specific rules saying, "any evil spammer can force any editor to get any worthless site listed by merely doing XXX, YYY, and ZZZ." But "editor discretion" is specifically written into the rules.
So you can see why we adopt specific rules only as a last resort, knowing that listworthy sites can and will be excluded as a result.

And note that the only conceivable, relevant, specific rule here would be "All hotel directory sites are excluded." We have not yet adopted that rule. Offered even odds as to whether it will be adopted this year, I'd buy into the "yes" pool.

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

Why don't you just make the publicly accessible rules the same as the rules that are in practice? That might possibly save all parties aggravation (and a whole lot of other emotions for us that create sites and get banned for life because of a TravelNow link).

Why not just put it right in there that editors are going to ban sites without review if there is a TravelNow link on it?

Re: status please http://www.atlanticcityshotels.c

The GENERAL rule is: " Sites consisting primarily of affiliate links, or whose sole purpose is to drive user traffic to another site for the purpose of commission sales, provide no unique content and are not appropriate for inclusion in the directory."

It's at http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html . Adding the level of detail you request would take more effort to keep updated than staff has available. and I suspect they think most editors can understand it pretty well as it is.