Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for removed

This month i checked DMOZ, i have noticed that many of the urls we had listed for over 1 year have just been removed with no notice and no reason here is the list of URL that have been removed.

www.dataacquisitionsystems.com
www.vibratory-feeders.com
www.screw-conveyors.com
www.powderedmetalparts.com
www.pneumaticconveyors.net
www.industrial-shredders.com
www.deburringmachinery.com
www.conveyor-systems.biz
www.extrudedplastics.com
www.fiberglassfabricators.com
www.magnetassemblies.com
www.mezzanines.bz

These were all removed I would love to know why?

They are all doorways to http://www.industrialquicksearch.com/ - the decision was made to list this URL alone as it points to all the others.

Listing all of the other permutations may create false allegations of favouritism towards your site, so we just list the main one. We ask submitters not to submit deeplinks for the same reason, unless they offer lots of unique content, and pages of links do not count as being unique content.

Re: Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for rem

The sites contain the unique content of http://www.industrialquicksearch.com/ which is properly listed in Business: Resources: Directories.

Although the other URLs may have been listed, it was against the guidelines for them to be listed. When this was noticed, they were appropriately removed.

The various domains linked from IQS are basically deeplinks to content (though hosted at different domains, a domain does not a site make). Including all the domains would be equivalent to linking to the corresponding Yahoo category in each Dmoz category, instead of taking the links from the categories and adding them to Dmoz.

Probably not what you wanted to hear, but I hope you can understand the reasoning.

-sam
[added: what totalxsive said above, too]

Re: Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for rem

Three niggles:

First, in the normal course of events, nobody is notified when a site goes in or out of the directory. We're "volunteer directory editors," not "corresponding secretaries" and are, for good experiential reasons, discouraged from combining the two callings. If there were a reason, you wouldn't expect to find it -- except through a forum like this.

Second, lists of links actually can count as content, which is why the site is still listed (under a URL that looks like a business name). In fact, among the many low-content "directory" sites that are submitted, this stands out as unusually comprehensive.

Third: deeplinking is truly "the exception rather than the rule," and submitting deeplinks deprecated, but (more to the point) both redirecting URLs and search result URLs are "expressly and specifically forbidden." The "vanity-domain-names" (or "keyword-stuffed" domain names mentined are all redirectors: and they further appear to redirect to a search result. (Whether that search result is incorporated in staticly built pages, or rebuilt on the fly for every page access -- is an irrelevant implementation detail.)

I look at this site with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the use of redirector URLs to hide the fact that the pages are deep links -- is the sort of deceptive submittal practice that is fervently unappreciated among editors. On the other hand, it does appear to pass the "usefulness tests" (comprehensiveness, freshness, and focus) that make it a useful adjunct to a large general directory like the ODP. But the final decision is (IMO) simple. We place service to users above justice to pestilential or deceptive submittors. And we do include comprehensive directories (like ODP, Yahoo, Looksmart, and IQS -- which in its niche may even be more comprehensive), but we simply don't deeplink them as directories.

Re: Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for rem

I understand that indutrialquicksearch.com is listed and this sites main focus is to act as a base point for into on the main company. Each individual site listing does not point to a centraly located site that is why this statement

"On the one hand, the use of redirector URLs to hide the fact that the pages are deep links -- is the sort of deceptive submittal practice that is fervently unappreciated among editors." does not seem to be true.
The reason we list each site is because each site focuses on a completly different set of products and is not easily found using the Industrial quick search .com page.

I understand i just wish that the usefulness and benifits of these sites are recognized.

If the Industrial quick search home page was never listed then maybe none of my sites would have been removed.

Re: Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for rem

>>If the Industrial quick search home page was never listed then maybe none of my sites would have been removed. <<

You don't know that.

Re: Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for rem

It was a violation of the ODP guidelines to have listed the redirector URLs. It is a violation of the ODP guidelines to list search-result URLs. That is completely independent of whether, or how, the site is listed elsewhere.

I'd suggest that it might be shortsighted to redesign a site whose primary content is web-navigational information, based on the theory that poorer web navigation is the way toward better listings.

Re: Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for rem

what do you mean by redirector URLs i dont think that is what we are using each site has its own url and its own IP adress.

Re: Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for rem

>>each site has its own URL and its own IP address.

And the IP address is irrelevant -- many sites have hundreds of IP addresses; other single IP addresses host multiple sites. And, for that matter, the separate "URL" (I think you meant "domain name") is irrelevant -- the ODP lists websites, not domain names.

The problem is not that each "site" doesn't have its own domain name; it's that each domain name didn't have its own "site." They are all views of one database schema generated by one template and maintained by one entity. But why would each view need its own IP address? I can think of only one reason.... "extra layer of deception."

Look, this site started out looking like a real, legitimate site. But legitimate sites doesn't need this kind of smokescreen! yahoo.com and directory.google.com can handle hundreds of thousands of categories under one domain name. They even make a virtue of it: "branding", I think they call it.

But by engaging in these dubious (and transparent) deceptions, you raise doubts about the legitimacy of the site itself. The editors are going to have to ask whether a spammy submission is for a spam site (the answer is usually "yes", of course) ... but is that the kind of question you want them to be asking? Or would you rather them be thinking , "I know this site -- it has good content in several areas. I'll spot-check to make sure some content is there, and quickly move on to wondering what category it should go in."

Re: Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for rem

Or, in a very short form:

We only list sites containing *unique content* .

Re: Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for rem

windharp wrote: "We only list sites containing *unique content*"

LOL That’s already been proven to not be the case on more than one occasion! In fact – I’m going to go out on a limb and pull a number out of the air … Id speculate from experience - that 75% or more of the sites listed in the directory DO NOT contain “unique content!” It’s easily provable fact!

Anyway … In some cases it is clearly a mirrored site with mirrored content – in most cases however it isn’t that obvious. I think editors need to be trained on how to spot non-unique content – its not that difficult. Because if editors are going to exclude one site they should exclude them all – its only fair!

Re: Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for rem

You've never ventured out of business cats, have you?

If you had, then perhaps you'd realize just *how* wrong your statement was. (not meaning to be rude...)

Re: Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for rem

If you prefer the longer form (I don't like people who want to misunderstand what I write...) :

We try to list only sites with unique content.
Keep in mind editors are human volunteers, most of them not dealing with spam all day.

Just found out after 6 months that in a category I was handling all the time, several entries where mirrors from the time I listed them. I simply didn't recognize them at the beginning.

How did I see it now? Doing manual review of all the sites in the category. Thats the thing that makes ODP better than any automated search engine: People digging through all those sites to review them /images/icons/smile.gif

Re: Why were so many of the sites I do SEO for rem

excluded wrote "...that 75% or more of the sites listed in the directory DO NOT contain “unique content!” It’s easily provable fact!"

Prove it, then. A statement like this might conceivably be true in maybe 5% of Shopping or other commercial categories that contain less than 20 sites. Of course, the 75% drops significantly in those categories once the abusive editors who created the imbalance are removed, and their abuse undone.

In ODP as a whole, mirrored or other non-unique content is a distinct (and usually fairly obvious) minority. The submitters and former editors who are now posting on this site are also not representative of ODP submitters and editors in general. The vast majority of sites listed in ODP weren't submitted by an "SEO", and even fewer are listed or given preferential treatment by editors who are personally affiliated with the sites.

From what I've personally observed, I'd say 75% is actually the percentage of SEO-submitted sites that are intentionally designed and submitted to introduce useless junk into ODP.

If a site is legitimate and has useful content, it doesn't need to resort to sleazy and manipulative tactics. Honest sites that are submitted to appropriate categories and use appropriate titles and descriptions will get listed.