Re: Site submission
...I think they provide a useful service to consumers.
No, you are absolutely and utterly wrong. They provide a useful service to _advertisers_. Their service is not to consumers, and their payment is not from consumers. And this, of course, is the reason that so many big advertising consumers (that is, retail companies) use them.
And, in any case, this is not a directory for CONSUMERS, it's for SURFERS. You can think of us as your prey in the privacy of your own mind, but it's best not to use predatory-type language in our presence!
Now, do we say that there are no conceivable circumstances under which an affiliate link offers service to surfers?
No, we don't say that. Some time ago I "cooled" a site which had affiliate links on it, and I considered that the affiliate links actually enhanced the value of the site (I mean, "value for surfers," of course. I didn't care what it did for the webmaster).
Of course, that site had significant informational content about some subject. It wasn't just a bunch of classified ads masquerading as a directory.
Which brings us to the more profound problem. Assuming you dumped the affiliate tags on the links, would this site be listable?
And the answer is, probably not: because it would be very hard for an ODP editor to find any "unique content" on the site. In a way, THE [Open] Directory is competing with it. If we list a site directly, we don't need to list any other site just because it lists it also!
So you could make a list of the sites that you list and the Open Directory doesn't. What would be the best thing (for the benefit of the surfers) for the editor to do? Well, of course, list those sites -- and THEN reject your site for not having any more unique content!
The standards are rising. Many directory sites listed three years ago would be deleted if re-reviewed; many directories listed one year ago would be rejected if freshly submitted now.
So, however you look at it, it is difficult to create enough significant directory content to merit a listing in the Open Directgory, and it is getting difficult more rapidly than most directories could possibly improve.
As for "appeal" -- what could you appeal? The ODP doesn't offer services (of ANY kind) to webmasters or advertisers or SERP perps. No site is guaranteed a listing. The "Public Contract" merely offers to review sites that were submitted (and these forums exist partly as a way of ensuring and verifying that has been done.) And all that has happened.
And if you were appealing, what could you possibly say that would make a difference? The review is supposed to be based on the WEBSITE, and not at all on claims made elsewhere.
What theoretically could be done is try to identify any actual unique content on the site, and redesign the site so that that actual unique content was prominently labelled and navigable, then resubmit for another review with a comment "site redesigned to feature unique content." For other sites like this, my experience has been that the marketroid-concept of "original content" was so dissimilar to the ODP knowledge-based content , that such attempts invariably proved futile.
There are innumerable advertising venues on the web, that are open to purveyers, buyers, and sellers of advertising. For an advertising site, you probably need to be looking at those. And the ODP is not one of them.
