Unnecessary and Unworthy Deeplinking

[nirmalsol]

Being a big fan of Dmoz I take it as my duty to report something very unethical I found.

 

A website called Nivalink.com which is already listed in the proper category (http://dmoz.org/Regional/Asia/India/Maharashtra/Localities/Mumbai/Business_and_Economy/Business_Services/) has been very much deeplinked which is not at all worth.

 

Please see http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=nivalink

 

Some of the Hotels and Resorts listing is presented in such a way that it represent an official site while it DOES NOT

 

Many of these Hotels have thier own offial websites too like "Victor Exotica". Its official site is http://www.donasylvia.com/exotica/html/exotica.htm

 

Another example is "Casino group of Hotels in Kerala", the offcial site is http://www.cghearth.com/

 

This is really shameful

I hope to have it reviewd

[oneeye]

Thank you. It isn't really an ethical problem, more that guidelines and policies change over time - these deeplinks were listed a long time ago before we were so strict on hotel reservation company pages and before they started trying to spam us out of existence (unsuccessfully fortunately). Quite possibly at the time they added value since they all had the hotel's own phone number on them. If you know of the hotels' own websites then please feel free to submit them as replacements using the Add URL link within the categories, that would help us a great deal. Thanks again.

[hutcheson]

Back in the early days, some of these little-niche directories / microsite hosts / travel sites served an actual purpose providing information that wasn't widely available. And so many of their individual business pages/deeplinks were listed, without the ethical qualms that you'd have today.

 

It's really not fair to lump those pioneers in with the sleazoid jerks who open a new "directory" every week to spam the search engines, and at the peak of their Google-link-popularity defraud businesses by charging a "listing fee" -- and then quickly descend into bad-neighborhood hell, only to be replaced by a new domain name and theme run on exactly the same scam.

 

Today, just the words "niche directory / pay to advertise with us" will cause knowledgeable consumers to run screaming in terror; but it was not always so. Almost every affiliate/doorway/ponzi/multilevel/etc. scam on the internet started out as an attempt by someone who had no product and offered no service, to imitate someone else who had real products and performed actual services. And the niche directories are no exception: since Google is so good at promoting "genuine" sites, the scammers and spammers spend their time mechanically imitating the characteristics of genuine sites. But below the ten million or so hotelrezzing scammers, are a dozen or so genuine reputable information sources that contain the original content the other guys steal, and provide the services the other guys advertise, and constitute the models the other guys imitate.