www.10w40.com

RE: http://www.10w40.com/

I've been reading the discussions here and noted from another thread that the automotive queue might be pretty large - but I figured I'd make an inquiry just to set my mind at ease..

I submitted the site to the category:
http://dmoz.org/Recreation/Autos/Repair/
about one month ago, and don't realistically expect it to be listed yet, but, is it possible to get a feel for how backed up this category might be?

I had previously submitted the site in July of 2001, but it never showed up, and as a hobby site, it wasn't worth making repeated efforts. I still feel much the same way - it's not worth making a big broo-ha-ha (sorry, can't find the correct spelling in the dictionary...) over, but still, it would be nice to be on DMOZ too.

Regards - Tom Campbell

Over 500 listings waiting for review in that category. <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" alt="" /> I'm going to look through it now and see how many are duplicates or already listed .

Wow - thanks for the quick reply.

Your response confirmed my fear. I gave up last year (actually, after about 2 months, I just forgot about checking...)

I can relate to the efforts involved though - Finding sites, identifying the right categories, and writing short narratives is time consuming; although I do it for specific articles, not whole web sites. Still, it takes me an average of 5-10 minutes per review, and my brain gets fried after about 20 or 30 at a time.

Tom

Any news on the chaff review of the auto repair category? (Do you guys have an official term for weeding out the garbage requests in a queue? - seems like separating the wheat from the chaff to me <img src="/images/icons/grin.gif" alt="" /> )
Alternately, any idea if the editors are still actively reviewing the category, or whether the buildup is just because they might be so busy in other categories that this one hasn't been attended to for a while?

A quick spam bust (removing widely inappropriate submissions such as a Dentists site(!!), deleting duplicate submissions, removing deeplink spam, moving foreign language sites over to the relevant World/ category and moving some sites to the appropriate Regional/ category - despite the 'category submission guidelines' stating that local garages etc would NOT be listed under Rec/Autos/Repair ) brings the total number of unreviewed to under 400... Still a long way to go though - so don't hold your breath.

Oh, so that's why I was getting 'Site Not Found' errors. Darn beebwares, working on a category at the same time as me <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />.

I wish the process was as easy as seperating chaff from wheat. Unfortunately weeding out the poor submissions is quite a task and can take up most of an editor's time. <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" alt="" />

The unreviewed queue in that category has significantly reduced since the last time you asked, but your site is still there waiting to be reviewed.

Feel free to remove this if too OT - but;
What are you guys doing up at this hour?

We're both based in the UK, where it's actually about midday. The category is now down to around the 375 mark, if you're interested.

Both totalxsive? I think you are forgetting poor dfy there...

I was actually awake until 4am British time (3am UTC/Zulu/GMT) and I've been up since around 9.30am - most of that time is working on the ODP...Talk about dedication <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

(damn totalxsive - I go to move a site to the appropriate Canadian category and it disappears. drat... Oh well, I'll go clear some unreviewed from somewhere else - but where to start? <img src="/images/icons/confused.gif" alt="" /> )

&gt;&gt; Both totalxsive? I think you are forgetting poor dfy there... &lt;&lt;

Hmmm, oops <img src="/images/icons/blush.gif" alt="" /> . Darn me.

Silly me - I should have looked at the info under your names in the author category. I've gotten so used to US when I see English on the Web since I moved to Germany last year. Without hearing the accent, I keep thinking of English in upper midwest terms (grew up in Minnesota). I HAVE to stop thinking that way...

Looking forward to my next UK trip in December - London right before Christmas. Silly time to come, but all the CIO's wanted someplace to take their wives shopping for the December meeting.

Note:
Of course, while _I'm_ now in Germany, 10w40.com is still dedicated entirely to the US market. Didn't want to confuse things with that last post.
Tom

Is the Autos category still up around 400 queued?
Anyone know if the editors are still checking in with these categories?

It's only been a week since you last enquired - so please wait a bit longer. At the moment, most editors are concentrating on removing 'dead-links' that have been flagged, so reviewing new sites have been put temporarily on the backburner (so to speak). The category is still under the 400 unreviewed site mark, but hopefully should be going down further within the next month or so.

I've significantly reduced the backlog and have started looking at what's left. Sorry to say, your site appeared to me to be overwhelmingly full of affiliate links, both overt and deceptive. Not going to be listed in that form.

Thank you for taking a look at 10w40.

I do differ with your opinion (not really a surprise, I suppose) I invite other metas to weigh in on the points below. I hope this doesn't make me a poster child...

I've been reading the discussion threads for the past few months regarding what is unique, original, useful content site vs sites where affiliate links ARE the content and offer nothing new of value. Based on the DMOZ discussions I've seen here in the past, and how the shades of gray have been interpreted in the final outcomes, 10w40 should be well into the "clean" category. I would not have submitted 10w40 to DMOZ if I felt that it did not offer something unique and truly useful to the general public.

The site is comprised of over 300 reviews of direct repair articles that I have tracked down in my own research to do work on my own cars (brake repair, headliner replacement, and LOTS of diagnosis articles) i.e.:
http://www.10w40.com/pages/fix_diag_noise.asp
Finding repair articles, writing reviews, ranking, and indexing the deep links directly to the articles is time consuming for me as the editor of the site, but of great value for someone looking for to diagnose why their Dodge Ram stalls whenever they exit the freeway.

There is also an active discussion section where people post problems and solutions for each other.

You are right though, there are affiliate links peppered throughout the site.

There are right-column graphic ads (no-one ever clicks on them, but they add color to the site).

There are also 2 text sales ads (red text) on each page.

Certainly the arm of the site that lists parts suppliers
http://www.10w40.com/pages/buy_part.asp
has quite a few, although even then, only 15 of the 45 suppliers are affiliates, the remaining 2/3rds are just sites that I think are good sources for special parts but have no relationship to. Also, some listings start off with a review of alldata.com, a site that sells manuals online, for people who really need an answer immediately and can't find it on the 10w40 site.
Would putting "Sponsored Link" beside the description like Yahoo does help the DMOZ editors feel better about mixing affiliate and non-affiliate links in a list of reviews?

So, I do agree that there are SOME affiliate links on the site. While collecting all this information and writing up reviews is a labor of love, I do have to pay the hosting bills. The affiliate links are advertising, not content. The industry has established that advertising does not have to always be graphic, nor limited to a particular section of web page real-estate. If they were on the CPM model instead of affiliate, would they be viewed differently?

But when it is all said and done, there are over 300 reviews of auto repair and upgrade articles, and about 40 links to affiliate sites. The reviews are checked regularly, and new ones added as I find them or people suggest them to me. It is a content site that also has a few ads (affiliate links) to pay the bills.

Just to summarize the issues (whether they apply to 10w40 or other sites):

First, I absolutely agree that to be included, a site must offer unique, original content. Sites that use affiliate links exclusively or primarily (pictures and product descriptions) are neither unique nor original.

However, for sites that do offer unique, original content but also include advertising (as most do):

Since CPM ads are dead for any site under 100,000 visitors a month, is using affiliate links in place of CPM a death knoll for DMOZ inclusion?

How about when those ads are text links instead of graphics? Does this cross the line?

And now for the humdinger: when editorial content is mixed with advertising (whether affiliate or other payment vehicle), what kind of disclosure is necessary? I've come to the conclusion that at least for 10w40, any time I include a link out that is not visibly different than other "objective" links out, I will be adding "sponsored link", just like the bigger directories are. (It will take a few weeks to change the templates for me though). Is this a reasonable standard for DMOZ to consider in it's evaluation of sites where legitimate content may be mixed with revenue generating content?

I haven't looked at every inch of your site but in looking at one of the pages you noted (http://www.10w40.com/pages/buy_part.asp ), it's difficult to see the content for the affiliations. That first page contains nothing but affiliate links. Subsequent pages seem to contain a mix of the two. Other sections, as you mentioned, have a slightly lower degree of affiliate links but you still have an awful lot of them and they are "in your face". This makes the "content" of the site seem to be predominantly affiliate links...which don't get listed.

The Buy_part page is the one "branch" of the site where there are a significant number of affiliate links. I included it in the prior post as an example to make clear that I was not trying argue the fact that there are some affiliate link - by posting an example of the worst page.

The other branches are relatively free of links, except for the alldata.com link that comes up as the first review on some.
http://10w40.com/pages/fix_diag.asp

http://10w40.com/pages/fix_repair.asp

http://10w40.com/pages/fix_maint.asp

The above branches are the "meat" of the site, and where visitors spend the majority of their time.

And as you noted, the parts page has significant affiliate (sponsored) links on the first page, but the following 4 pages have very few (sponsored links are weighted to display first).

(Edited to correct link paths)