Title guideline question

Hypothetically, if a business name is Mike Smith & Associates, but the domain name is www.1financialadvice.com, would the Title "#1 Financial Advice" be accepted by the ODP Editor?

There are many examples of listings reflecting the domain name as the title when the company name is something else. The first character being a number puts the listing at the top of the list within the category.

Thanks.

ipmconsults,

No, the "real" name of the company should always be used.

Dave

How is it that SO MANY sites get away with the domain name tactic of using numbers and keywords? It's proliferate throughout the ODP and Yahoo.

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr><p>How is it that SO MANY sites get away with the domain name tactic of using numbers and keywords?<p><hr></blockquote>Probably some comination of:

• Companies who's real names are the same as their keyword loaded domain names.
• Comapnies who lie about their real name on their websites, in order to get listed that way.
• Mistakes made by editors.[/list:u]

I've checked a few of the SEO sites that use this tactic in Yahoo and the ODP. Their company names are different from their domain names. The domain name is the Title in the listing which contains the number followed by the keyword phrase. I hate to whine, but why is it that so many get away with cheating? (rhetorical)

ipmconsults,

&lt;&lt;How is it that SO MANY sites get away with the domain name tactic of using numbers and keywords? It's proliferate throughout the ODP and Yahoo.&gt;&gt;

First guess would be the category editors are overwhelmed with new submissions and do not have the time to go through and clean the category up. I have been editing for a couple weeks and it is unbelievable how much time it takes to weed through the spam in unreviewed site submissions. I have editing privileges in three categories and I approach them in the following order.
1. Review the unreviewed and weed out the spam.
2. Review and move the unreviewed sites that do not belong in the category.
3. Review and rewrite the descriptions, titles, and list the sites that do belong.
4. Review and rewrite the descriptions and titles of the existing sites already listed.

As you can see I try to get new sites listed and then cleanup the category. I spent many hours editing today and more than half of the time was spent weeding out the spam and finding the correct category for sites that do not belong.

I was told that things look different from this side of the fence. I can only say "you have no idea how different".

Dave

Also many times a site will have no discernable title other than their domain name. Or they will add a title after the site has been initially reviewed, and the change in title will not be noticed until an editor does a follow-up review of the category.

If you have specific cases that you think are abuse, you can report these through the Abuse/Spam Report Form or look in the Abuse Reporting forum here for other ways to report abuse.

&gt;&gt;Or they will add a title after the site has been initially reviewed, and the change in title will not be noticed until an editor does a follow-up review of the category. &lt;&lt;

You wouldn't believe how often this happens, even in Arts categories that rarely have business listings. I always hesitate when listing a site titled like its domain, and often when I visit a category and see 1something.com as a title, I'll check just to see if it's right. I don't get much time to wander looking for those anymore, though.

If you spot some like that, I wouldn't mind if you send them to me through a PM here or feedback on my profile, though you'll have to give me a week or so (adjusting for real life activity) before I can get to them. Send site title and category.

Couldn't a non-editor just use the "update URL" function?

&gt;&gt;Couldn't a non-editor just use the "update URL" function?&lt;&lt;

True. But I'd rather these types of update requests didn't get too mixed up with other unreviewed.