Wrong Reason For Not Being Listed

wholenutrition · Jan 2, 2009

Hi,

We have been trying to get our site listed for over 2 years now into http://www.dmoz.org/Shopping/Health/Nutrition/Sports/Supplements/.

I was trying to find out why we are never added, when I see new sites being added to that category every couple months. An editor finally let me know that we were denied because he said our site was affiliated with <url removed> , which is already listed in DMOZ (http://www.dmoz.org/Sports/Strength_Sports/Bodybuilding/Chats_and_Forums/).

Over a year ago we advertised on that site, heavy advertising, but we do not own and are not affiliated with that site in any other way. We haven't even advertised with them for over a year now.

Can you please let me know what we would need to do to get our site listed?

Oh, and our site is <url removed>

Thank you,

John

jimnoble · Jan 2, 2009

You can't 'get a website listed'; all you can do is draw it to our attention when you suggest that we list it. If you've done that more recently than Fall 2006, there's nothing else that you need to do.

Some volunteer will process your listing suggestion in time but we can't predict who or when that might be. Elapsed times can range from a few days to a few years. There is no need to re-suggest your website and doing so could be counter-productive because a later suggestion overwrites any earlier one.

wholenutrition · Jan 2, 2009

I understand and I have read through the guidelines. I guess it's just sort of unfair not to be listed because of an editor who believes that our site doesn't belong because of an error on their part.

Thank you for your reply.

John

pvgool · Jan 2, 2009

You can ofcourse always file an abuse report if you have clear evidence that your site is rejected for the wrong reasons. Include as much information in the report as possilbe, like the email you recieved.

hutcheson · Jan 2, 2009

In my experience, sites in that category are downright secretive about their actual corporate relationships--far beyond what one can imagine an honest company would do, and even far beyond what is legal in some countries. The editors always have to deduce relationships based on things like circular link structures. (And affiliate doorways are _legion_.)

That's the reality whose ramifications we all face. Editors must deduce corporate relationships between websites based on things like, well, link structures and advertising chains--and the benefit of the doubt to websites weighs nothing against benefits to surfers. And website designers must expect rational surfers to approach such sites very skeptically, and therefore should provide maximal, checkable corporate information.

We all fail sometime. That's also a reality. But if the ODP fails to list a listable site, that's no loss to the website owner--or at least no loss that matters to the ODP. But it is a loss to surfers--and that does matter.

So go back to your website. How easy is it to determine exactly who is providing the goods and services? How easy is it to check up on their legal status? If the answers are "not very", then the FIRST failure is YOURS--and don't expect anyone else to care until you've fixed THAT.

Once the answers are "very", then it is no longer a rude imposition to expect an editor to do the necessary checking--again. But, because a site doesn't have any automatic right to a second review, I'd recommend including something in the description to indicate important information was added to the site. (Otherwise, what consideration would you expect to keep an editor from taking the previous editor's word over yours, with no further checking?)

wholenutrition · Jan 6, 2009

hutcheson said:
In my experience, sites in that category are downright secretive about their actual corporate relationships--far beyond what one can imagine an honest company would do, and even far beyond what is legal in some countries. The editors always have to deduce relationships based on things like circular link structures. (And affiliate doorways are _legion_.)

That's the reality whose ramifications we all face. Editors must deduce corporate relationships between websites based on things like, well, link structures and advertising chains--and the benefit of the doubt to websites weighs nothing against benefits to surfers. And website designers must expect rational surfers to approach such sites very skeptically, and therefore should provide maximal, checkable corporate information.

We all fail sometime. That's also a reality. But if the ODP fails to list a listable site, that's no loss to the website owner--or at least no loss that matters to the ODP. But it is a loss to surfers--and that does matter.

So go back to your website. How easy is it to determine exactly who is providing the goods and services? How easy is it to check up on their legal status? If the answers are "not very", then the FIRST failure is YOURS--and don't expect anyone else to care until you've fixed THAT.

Once the answers are "very", then it is no longer a rude imposition to expect an editor to do the necessary checking--again. But, because a site doesn't have any automatic right to a second review, I'd recommend including something in the description to indicate important information was added to the site. (Otherwise, what consideration would you expect to keep an editor from taking the previous editor's word over yours, with no further checking?)

Hi and thanks for the feedback. Our site is the online store for our 5 retails stores, all which are in the Chicagoland area. Our address, numerous phone numbers on the site, BBB, Bizrate Badge, Whois lookup all show we are the site we are. We don't have an affiliate program and are not dropshippers.

After finding out we were rejected, I tried contacting the editor as well as writing in description field why I think we should be reviewed again, but with no change.

But again, thank you for your feedback and maybe I can hope that another editor will edit our listing eventually.

Wrong Reason For Not Being Listed

wholenutrition

Member

jimnoble

DMOZ Meta

wholenutrition

Member

pvgool

kEditall/kCatmv

hutcheson

wholenutrition

Member