Step 1. Don't submit sites consisting largely of affiliate links.

Hi all,

I would like to inquire about one of the step listed under submission guideline (Step 1).

How many affiliate links are valid on a site as per Dmoz? (Is there any figure?)
Google Adsense also considered as affiliate advertisement?

I am trying to list the site which meets all the requirement. I am using Google Adsense and total number of ads on a page is not more then 3. The contents of the site are also fresh. I am not sure if the site is not listed because of the affiliate links so I will appreciate if someone can explain it further.

There is no fixed formula regarding affiliate content. It depends on the relation between affiliate content/links and unique content of the site.

Details of how we decide if a site should be listed can be found in our Site Selection Criteria. It contains more detail on Affiliate Marketing Schemes and Spider Food, Lead Generators and Content Mills, which may or may not apply to your site. Basically, when reviewing a site we'll mentally block out all the adverts and affiliate links, and ask whether the site has enough useful content without them. We'll also consider whether the site exists primarily to drive traffic to advertisers / affiliates, or whether it's there to provide useful content of its own.

nowalkhan said:

I would like to inquire about one of the step listed under submission guideline (Step 1).

Click to expand...

> How many affiliate links are valid on a site as per Dmoz? (Is there any figure?)
There is not set figure.
Look at a site and in your imagination remove all affiliate links, banners, other advertisements and any text and images that are only on the site to let people click on those affiliate links. What do you see now? Is there still a lot of content to be seen? Or is the page almost blank?

> Google Adsense also considered as affiliate advertisement?
Yes.

> I am trying to list the site which meets all the requirement.
Although this is technicaly impossible (only editor can list sites) we are thankfull that you took the time to suggest a site of which you thought it would be of interest to our visitors.

> I am using Google Adsense and total number of ads on a page is not more then 3.
That is good, else you would have violated Google Adsense rules.

> I am not sure if the site is not listed because of the affiliate links so I will
> appreciate if someone can explain it further.
Most probably the site is still waiting review. In our FAQ (link at top of this page) we have several questions and answers on this subject.

>How many affiliate links are valid on a site as per Dmoz?

The ODP guidelines don't talk about numbers. They talk about purpose.

The submitter's guidelines ask, roughly speaking, whether the purpose of the site to communicate your own personal interests, knowledge, and business/charitable/hobby activities--or to act as a (flimsy) scaffolding to hang advertising for someone else?

The ODP editor's guidelines say, roughly speaking, ignore the affiliate links, if you can.

Well, thank you all of you for sharing your thoughts on the topic.

> I am trying to list the site which meets all the requirement.
Although this is technicaly impossible (only editor can list sites) we are thankfull that you took the time to suggest a site of which you thought it would be of interest to our visitors.

>> Let me rephrase that I am trying to suggest a listing of my site which meets all the requirement and it is possible for a site to meet all the requirements. I am listing in most relevant category (which will expediate listing process 4x time I guess). The only site listed in that category at the moment is a free site which has pop-ups & even ask for authentication while clicking on the link from Dmoz (I am not sure if that site meets the requirement). I do not sound like a brokoen record, but apparently it is quite frustrating when we invest our time and money to build a quality site and can not list in directories like Dmoz for months and even years while we can see sub-standards site listed in the directory.

Ah well, we can't please all of the people all of the time .

Thanks for your thoughts but it's also quite frustrating to be repeatedly told that we hobbyists aren't working hard enough on your behalf. Just to be very clear, we aren't working on your behalf at all and any benefit that you think accrues from a DMOZ listing is largely illusory.

Thank you for the reply.

I agree that editors are Dmoz are not working on my or someone else behalf. The point I brought in my previous conversation was totally different. I am not frustrated of the site listing but yet I am frustrated by a sub-standard site already listed in that category. If I am looking for some information in that particular category, what I will get from Dmoz is one site which will eventually ask for a security password

We have a dedicated thread in the Quality Control Feedback forum here for people to report sites that shouldn't be listed. Feel free to report that site there.