vite Posted April 22, 2004 Posted April 22, 2004 Submission status http://www.costrak.com Hello Guys I would like to know whether my site has been seen to http://www.costrak.com The category is a sub - category of accounting software http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Accounting/Time_Tracking/ Its a small site but, it tells my prospect what they need to know. And , It is complete Cheers
Alucard Posted April 23, 2004 Posted April 23, 2004 I see no submisison for that URL in the category you name, nor any record of it being reviewed or moved to another category. It is posisble that either your submission never came through, or you submitted to another category. Either way, if you feel that this is the most appropriate category for the URL to be listed, I would ask that you resubmit. Thanks.
vite Posted April 23, 2004 Author Posted April 23, 2004 Does my category have editors ? http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Accounting/Time_Tracking/ Hi Editors I have submitted my site , to the above category. If you get two submissions, it was not deliberate as you know.
spectregunner Posted April 24, 2004 Posted April 24, 2004 As we know. We haven't shot anyone for several months now for only two submission, so I think you are safe.
vite Posted May 2, 2004 Author Posted May 2, 2004 So, did you get my request Hi, I wanted to verify that our listing request was at least recieved Cheers
vite Posted June 30, 2004 Author Posted June 30, 2004 Hi Guys My site was accepted and listed a while back. How ever, I now find that it is not showing on the listing off its category. I t does come up when searched for using the search ODP engine , but is shown with a tempory url I was using during a site reconstruction. I know that I have been doing some work on the site , but it is fully operational an functioning now. Yes, I did have a redirection on it for the duration of my upgrading , but that is over now. What do I do to rectify the situation? Regards Vite http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Accounting/Time_Tracking/ http://www.costrak.com
Meta hutcheson Posted June 30, 2004 Meta Posted June 30, 2004 It is your own actions that have caused the current situation. First, you submitted the site before it was complete and functional, a violation of the submittal policies that are designed to help people like you not get into situations like this. But they can't help if you don't follow them. Second, you submitted a redirecting URL, in direct violation of the submittal policies. Third (or perhaps this should have been first) you have a most unprofessional-looking website. It is hard to look at it and suppose that its creators were capable of writing reliable software on which a business could be based. This is a question that multiple editors raised -- and even though we have a strong prejudice in favor of letting each real business have its own website, I can fully appreciate their concern. I understand why any surfer would have a hard time thinking this couldn't possibly be a real business. And this is the real core of your problem. We don't see how competent your programmers are, we just see how careless your web designers are. The natural suspicion that they are the same people is most unfortunate for you. From our point of view, there isn't really anything to rectify. From your point of view, the road to a better situation involves lots of work.
giz Posted June 30, 2004 Posted June 30, 2004 Although I guess that the product is unique - you made it - there is very little content on the site itself; no picture of the product - not even a screen shot of it. I'm not sure I would buy something based on that. It is listable, but it isn't a particularly good advert for your product. One thing I noticed is that your site has a complete lack of flashing adverts directing the surfer to other sites; and that is a rarity on commercial websites. I would certainly stick to that aspect of the design if nothing else. As for the redirect, see the other thread: http://resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18201
vite Posted July 1, 2004 Author Posted July 1, 2004 Very frank critique, thanks Hi Guys Thanks for taking the time to respond. Our first site was hosted on webspace provided with an ISP subscription using fairly a low quality free template provided by the site. This has now been replaced by webspace paid for, an directly linked to the domain name. A superior template , offered by the host has been used. Our new website may never match microsoft, oracle, sap, IBM, but then again, we are not them. Furthermore, there exists no desire on our part to follow the well trodden dotcom part of fast-cash-burn, i.e. pay proper website designers when we have just taken off, or spend weeks/months mastering an implementing cutting edge web tech. We intend to one day pay for a top notch website, but for now, a DIY site must suffice. None the less, your comments do actually reflect our actual experience vis-a-vis site traffic, low click to inquiry ratio, thus we'll probably invest more time on the web/shop front, thanks Screenshots In knew something was missing from the new site, thanks, we've rectified that Once again thanks for the comments, we'll just have to beaver away a little harder Cheers vite
giz Posted July 1, 2004 Posted July 1, 2004 ... company profile, picture of your building, picture of a few people working in your office, a few mugshots and brief write up of the people, company history, downloadable sample or manual or example ... ...all possibilities. I just picked an example at total random for a comparison http://www.unicorntrails.com/
Meta hutcheson Posted July 1, 2004 Meta Posted July 1, 2004 giz's example is nice looking...but My concern was as much with the actual verbiage on the site. There was much marketroid "is ideal for" this or that targeted market, but very little about the important things: functionality. What does the program do? How many different ways can you input data? What kind of database does it use, and how should it be backed up? What reports does it generate? (Screenshots!) How can a client add the extra reports he's surely going to need? And probably most importantly, what programs does it interface with? (Your client isn't going to want to type the same data twice to get it into your program as well as the payroll program they're already using!) These are the kind of issues that make the difference between a throwaway semester project for a college student, and an industrial-strength application. And that is the kind of information that clients will need to see before they care about actually trying it out. Think of a car salesman: a couple walkes in with four children, you don't try to get him to test-drive a Mustang. You show them all the seatbelts on a car you think would meet their transportation requirements.
Meta jazz Posted July 1, 2004 Meta Posted July 1, 2004 http://www.costrak.com/ URL still not listable. The http://www.costrak.com/ URL still isn't listable though. It just frames http://control.netbenefit.com/users/www.costrak.com/index.php I'm not saying anything about http://control.netbenefit.com/users/www.costrak.com/index.php 's quality, just that http://www.costrak.com/ can't be listed, as that URL. J
vite Posted July 2, 2004 Author Posted July 2, 2004 Oh Dear, I understand the qualitative comment regarding content even though I am absolutely certain that I know my market better than the commentators do. In that regard, please understand that the product is designed for Very-small-enterprises, the level of sofistication you guys suggest tells me that your experience is with large or medium sized organisations. Trust me when I say that SAP/R3, Oracle, peoplesoft, BAAN, Edwards, Pegasus, SUN, ,,,,,, are not likely to be competing with any sales guys from Costrak Ltd any time soon Our product will work admirably with paper based systems, but thats about it. Now, this bit (see bottom),,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, we are using shared hosting, I believe the reason for masking is the hosts webstyler package is hosted on a seperate serve. I never realised that was how they did it till you mentioned it, thanks. To be rid of that masking, we would have to cose our own html , or buy a template package, Can we be listed as the true URL , that is http://control.netbenefit.com/users/www.costrak.com/index.php[/url] please Is Dmoz.org focused on big corporate sites, sites hosted on dedicated servers at considerable cost, products developed with massive budgets for the PLC's of the world,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, or is there still room for the little product , by the little guys trying to breaking into the big pond, Interesting question, don't you think The http://www.costrak.com/ URL still isn't listable though. It just frames http://control.netbenefit.com/users/www.costrak.com/index.php I'm not saying anything about http://control.netbenefit.com/users/www.costrak.com/index.php 's quality, just that http://www.costrak.com/ can't be listed, as that URL. J
Meta hutcheson Posted July 2, 2004 Meta Posted July 2, 2004 Yes, this thread has stretched rather beyond the charter. It's because underneath all those issues, omissions, red flags, there really seems to BE a business (or at least an attempt at one) underneath. Currently the site is (the consensus seems to be) borderline unlistable. If you are able to address some of them, the site may become borderline listable. (This is a fairly rare state for a site to be in.) It's only a coincidence that that there are a number of editors with previous experience in your business and your market -- we can't guarantee this kind of expertise for all sites. This has nothing to do with the size of the company involved, simply because we don't have that information. Anyway, you have the results. You can check status in six months. Even before then, you can resubmit if you've added significant content to the site. (That way, if the site already had been rejected, it would get reviewed again.)
Meta jazz Posted July 2, 2004 Meta Posted July 2, 2004 See the Redirects and "Cloaked" URLs section of the guidelines at http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#redirects . Do not add the cloaked URLs. Add the real URL instead. In this case, http://control.netbenefit.com/users/www.costrak.com/index.php is the real URL, not http://www.costrak.com/ J
vite Posted July 2, 2004 Author Posted July 2, 2004 Thanks Jazz Thanks , I'll resubmit the direct URL Regards Vite
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