Update Listing Problem

[businessdata]

My site has been on dmoz for over 6 years (thank you). It never had its own domain name i.e. was in the format xyz.com/directory/

 

I decided that it needed its own domain and set the site up at newsite.com

 

I applied a 301 redirect to xyz.com/directory/ on to newsite.com

 

Then notified dmoz via the Update Site form and asked if they could change the name to the new domain.

 

They removed the whole listing. no sign whatsoever of xyz.com/directory/ or newsite.com !!! Is this what usually happens in this situation? I don't understand - please help.

[informator]

Editors continually review listed sites and no site is guaranteed to be listed forever. The guidelines for listings also evolves during the years. Maybe your site was listable 6 years ago but not now?

[motsa]

They removed the whole listing. no sign whatsoever of xyz.com/directory/ or newsite.com !!!

Are you sure about that? Browse the actual category, don't rely on search.

[businessdata]

OK thanks

 

I did an exhaustive search by category and note the new site is indeed in there!

That's the good news. So apologies for not having spotted that.

 

The bad news is that it is now buried in an irrelevant category i.e.

Top: Regional: Europe: United Kingdom: Business and Economy: Property: Commercial

 

Which seems to mean that the site is no longer included in relevant searches for its topic, which is 'businesses for sale', and there is a clear category for this - # Shopping: Classifieds: Business to Business: Businesses for Sale

This is an authority type site which lists medium to large businesses for sale throughout Europe, not a smaller regional concern that lists commercial properties.

 

How do I go about challenging this kind of editorial decision? Or is that not an option?

[shadow575]

If an editor moved the site to a sub-category it is because they felt it was the best location for the listing. If you disagree or think its an error (we are human and can error too ) you can suggest an update. That will force an editor to re-review the listing. If after review the editor still thinks its in the best category it will remain there if not it will be moved.

 

<add> we list sites in regional based on where the site is located not where they provide services. If this site (based on your description alone) is about commercial properties and is in the UK the most appropriate location most likely would be UK/Properties/Commercial<end>

 

For the record, dmoz and its editors cannot and never have been concerned with search results. We list sites in categories based on our guidelines and where we feel the content on the site best belongs.

[businessdata]

uh-oh what have I done?

 

Just followed your advice and politely asked for a review of the site category.

 

The site was promptly deleted from the category, and as far as I can see, not moved anywhere else.

 

This site is the same as the original, bar updates. As far as I was aware, I was doing the right thing, telling dmoz that my site was now 301'd to its own domain. Guess I should have left it where it was, as it now looks as though I have no dmoz listing at all.

 

Could it be there is a time lag between moving a site from a category and it reappearing in another (he asks hopefully)?

[hutcheson]

Yes, there can be such a time lag--either in execution (which might be a long time, but I don't think would have been here) and in appearance (at least from the publicly visible pages) -- the latter being limited to 10-12 days at most.

[businessdata]

It has been 10 days and the site has not appeared anywhere else in the Directory. Looks like it has been deleted. If I had known, I never would have rocked the boat. I would rather they just left it where it was.

 

Why would they put the site into Top: Regional: Europe: United Kingdom: Business and Economy: Property: Commercial, then delete it completely just because I made a polite request questioning the suitability of the category?

 

What options do I have now, if any?

[hutcheson]

Why would they put the site into Top: ... Commercial, then delete it completely just because I made a polite request questioning the suitability of the category?

 

Isn't that rather begging the question? If you know why they deleted it, why are you asking? If you don't know why they deleted it, why are you asserting what reason it was?

 

We don't do site status reports here, so it would not be appropriate to discuss specifics.

 

There are always two options. (1) Make suggestions, (2) report apparent abuse.

 

I do not ever recommend alleging abuse unless you can identify a pattern involving several independent sites. (That is, in my experience "none of my sites are listed" or "all of my sites got removed" are always, repeat ALWAYS, reliable indications that the webmaster is the abuser.)

[nea]

Just a few thoughts:

 

It is possible that the editor who reviewed the update request did not have editing rights in the category the site was moved to, in which case the URL will wait for an editor who does edit there.

 

When you say it hasn't appeared anywhere in the directory, you are relying on search being up-to-date, which also might not be the case.

 

If your site was listed in Regional/UK, it is not certain that it would be listable in Top/Shopping; UK-only sites are generally listed in the Regional/UK category, Top/Shopping being reserved for sites that deliver internationally or in several US states.

[businessdata]

Thanks for your reply.

 

<<If you know why they deleted it, why are you asking? If you don't know why they deleted it, why are you asserting what reason it was?

 

I don't know why they deleted it. I am just making an a priori judgement that the deletion had something to do with my request for reclassification as it happened immediately afterwards.

 

If the editor did not agree with my update listing suggestion, why did he/she not just ignore it, rather than delete the listing that he/she had only just entered into the category days before?

 

I have no evidence of apparent abuse, so I have no intention of reporting abuse.

 

All I am doing is asking for general advice on what to do next as I am confused by what has happened. Should I therefore make a suggestion as per your 1st option? What exactly do you mean by 'make suggestions'? If I submitted the url, would this not be deemed as submitting the same url more than once, as the editor has already knowledge of the url through the update listing submission?

[motsa]

I don't know why they deleted it.

You also don't know *that* they deleted it. As has already been mentioned, they may have moved it to another category (not necessarily the one you asked for) in which they may or may not have editing privileges. If they have privileges, then you will have to wait until the search database is updated to find out where. If they don't have privileges, then the site will have to await rereview by someone who can and that's not something that you can really monitor.

[shadow575]

It has been 10 days and the site has not appeared anywhere else in the Directory. Looks like it has been deleted. If I had known, I never would have rocked the boat. I would rather they just left it where it was.

 

Why would they put the site into Top: Regional: Europe: United Kingdom: Business and Economy: Property: Commercial, then delete it completely just because I made a polite request questioning the suitability of the category?

 

What options do I have now, if any?

A few of things come to mind.

1) if you requested an update of category its possible it was moved to a new category (might be the one you requested, or a different one. Have you checked?)

2) if you requested the update and the editor in category 1 didn't have editing rights in category 2 it would be removed and moved to await an editor who did have rights their to review the request and list/reject it.

3.) it was determined from the request that the site was listed in error or no longer listable, therefore it was deleted.

 

I would guess #1 or #2 would be more likely, but editors do make mistakes so you have to consider #3 even if it is more rare. There could be more reasons, but I would guess these would be the most likely.

[businessdata]

A few of things come to mind.

1) if you requested an update of category its possible it was moved to a new category (might be the one you requested, or a different one. Have you checked?)

Yes, I have spent several hours looking through the most likely categories. Of course I could have missed it if it were transferred somewhere unexpected.

 

2) if you requested the update and the editor in category 1 didn't have editing rights in category 2 it would be removed and moved to await an editor who did have rights their to review the request and list/reject it.

OK, I am hoping this is the case - Motsa is right in that I don't know for sure the site has been deleted. However it was suggested by a mod in this thread that a move from one category to another normally takes 10-12 days at most from date of removal from the original category.

 

3.) it was determined from the request that the site was listed in error or no longer listable, therefore it was deleted.

I would guess #1 or #2 would be more likely, but editors do make mistakes so you have to consider #3 even if it is more rare. There could be more reasons, but I would guess these would be the most likely

So you are saying that if it was deleted, it is the result of an editor's mistake?

The issue for me is that I was concerned about the possibility of negative consequences of making a request to re-examine the classification of my site. That's why I asked the mods here for advice first. I was told:

If you disagree or think its an error (we are human and can error too ) you can suggest an update. That will force an editor to re-review the listing. If after review the editor still thinks its in the best category it will remain there if not it will be moved.[/Quote]

Either/or. Not deleted. Now after having acted on this advice I find out it is not quite so. There is another possible outcome. It could indeed be deleted. Or it could be moved out of the directory 'temporarily' while it sits in the in-tray of another busy editor who may have a year or more of submissions taking precedence. There is no rewind button, no site status reports, nothing we can do at all. It might seem a terrible thing to say, and I am not meaning to offend any of the diligent volunteers here, but I can't help feeling that 'trying to do it the right way' by approaching this forum has been counter-productive.

[nea]

However it was suggested by a mod in this thread that a move from one category to another normally takes 10-12 days at most from date of removal from the original category.

You misunderstood what Hutcheson said. When a site is newly listed in a category, whether as a result of a move or not, it can take up to a couple of weeks before it is actually visible on the category page, due to server synchronisation issues. Usually it's visible within a day, but sometimes the servers are cranky. The "10-12 days" wasn't related to moves between categories (although I don't blame you for misunderstanding that).

 

So you are saying that if it was deleted, it is the result of an editor's mistake?

Actually, what shadow said was that an editor might have listed the site in error, and that that would have been discovered and rectified at a re-review. But of course it is always possible that a site is removed in error as well. The possibility of human error is inherent in any project where humans are involved, and shouldn't need to be spelt out. But from my experience, accidental removal is a very uncommon mistake to make.

 

There is another possible outcome. It could indeed be deleted.

It could be deleted if it was found that it wasn't listable. That was actually explicitly said in the very first response you got in this thread, from informator.

 

Or it could be moved out of the directory 'temporarily' while it sits in the in-tray of another busy editor who may have a year or more of submissions taking precedence.

A common misconception - sites are not sent to any one specific editor. They are sent to a category, where a number of editors have editing rights. Sites sent to a category by another editor often get a faster review than those coming straight from outside suggestions (that is not a hard-and-fast fact, it depends on a lot of variables and may vary a lot between different parts of the directory, I should add).

 

It might seem a terrible thing to say, and I am not meaning to offend any of the diligent volunteers here, but I can't help feeling that 'trying to do it the right way' by approaching this forum has been counter-productive.

That is something we can obviously not agree on

You saw a listing that wasn't right, you told us about it, and action was taken because of it. The editors work to make the directory as good as possible, without special consideration for any one individual site. We try to avoid having good sites hanging in limbo, but for the user it is better not to have an unrelated site in the category they are looking at. So, thank you for helping us out.

[businessdata]

OK, thanks nea for clarifying these issues.

 

I suppose I can only sit tight and hope for the best. Re-reading the submission guidelines, the site still ticks all the boxes so I will try to remain optimistic.

[hutcheson]

It's not (AT ALL, EVER!) a matter of "ticking all the boxes." We're not barracks-lawyers, we don't appreciate them, and we don't expect volunteers to act like them.

 

It's a matter of providing "unique content." In a business category, that typically means "authoritative information about the provider of a particular good or service" -- and there are many people who provide goods and services, each of whom can be (or can appoint) a unique authoritative source of information about themselves.

 

The SEO forums typically do their best to cover up this single salient fact, because most of their members are regularly engaged in providing faux (redundant, in-authoritative, and often false) information about those providers. But if you think about it from the viewpoint of a surfer, there are no boxes to check, no rules to parse with a legal gimlet: it's all just telling your potential customers who you are and what you'll do for money.

[businessdata]

It's not (AT ALL, EVER!) a matter of "ticking all the boxes."

 

Agree; this is what makes dmoz unique and why owners of quality sites desire a listing. My quick comment about ticking boxes is not meant to suggest that the editorial process is a black and white pigeon-holing exercise that is able to be run in an automated fashion.

 

I am saying that, in my (subjective, obviously) opinion, I would be surprised if the category editor were to reject the site for falling outside the indefinite guidelines that include "Original, unique and valuable informational content that contributes something unique to the category's subject".

[businessdata]

Ahh. The site has resurfaced. Thank you all for your help.