submission status for nalasgallery.com

July 19, 2002

category:

http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Visual_Arts/Posters_and_Prints/

date 5/8/02

July 19, 2002

I received a response to this thread that said that nalasgallery.com looks like a mirror of 995artprints.com, but I cannot look up the post on the site, I get an error.

In fact, these sites are similar design, but they are absolutely NOT mirrors because one sells regular art prints and the other sells art prints that are ALL priced at $9.95. So there is no cross-over of products. If that is a problem, I can understand, but I would hope that editors would look deeper than that.

arlarson · July 19, 2002

Perhaps a shopping editor will comment on the overlap between the two sites. I do see that the 995artprints page for any specific artist is linked from the nalasgallery.com page for that same artist.

With the present backlog, it will probably take several months for the site to be reviewed.

old_crone · July 20, 2002

It may not be a mirror but the gallery is listed in nalashome.com which appears to be the main site and it has also been submitted. If I had the accept and/or delete power, I'd consider accepting nalashome.com and delete the other two, though I suspect it's an affiliate of something. Any shopping site that requires a user name and password is suspect in my not so humble opinion.

And why do "All returns require an authorization number" that the customer has to request via email? If this site is the seller, collects the money, and ships the product, why would the customer need an authorization number for returns?

But, that's just my 2 cents, which is about all it's worth.

July 20, 2002

Must be a nightmare editing in Shopping:

For example take on this site:

Weather Station Thermometer Barometer Hygrometer Piano Finish Wood

http://www.nalashome.com/products/NHIFWS3018.shtml

Item WS3018 in Nalashome

and you can find also selling the same product with the same code number;

http://theexecutivesgift.com/g90143.htm

Item #: WS3018 in The Executives gift

http://www.infinityinstruments.com/product/weather/#listing

Item #: WS3018 in Infinity instruments

http://www.gormangiftgallery.com/woodweatstat.html

Item # WS3018 in Gorman Gift Gallery

As Old Crone says " I suspect it's an affiliate of something". If you check them all in that detail it takes hours to accept or reject a single site.

Dig a bit more and you find the source of the weather station.

Then dig more to see if there is a common source for all the products.

Got the time for a million unreviewed anyone?

sabre23t · July 20, 2002

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr>Any shopping site that requires a user name and password is suspect in my not so humble opinion.<hr></blockquote>

Care to elaborate old_crone?

I note that www.nalasgallery.com did not require user name and password to add items to the shopping cart. And on checkout it redirects to http://ww4.aitsafe.com/ where the billing/delivery details form did not require user name but has checkbox "store your details for future purchases".

I note that www.nalashome.com uses shopping cart from http://nalacompany.zoovy.com and checkout from https://ssl.zoovy.com . No requirement for user name or password to checkout.

And yes, www.nalashome.com seems to be the main site since it refers/redirects to www.nalasgallery.com under "Art Gallery".

old_crone · July 20, 2002

sabre23t

I was only referring to nalashome.com. If you try to order an item you will have to get a user name and password. You didn't look deep enough.

https://ssl.zoovy.com/nalacompany/c=oJZSpDcX072vdRhUjxjrhkj83/checkout.cgis

Weeding out affiliates is the single most time suck for editors. It's not unusual for affiliates to get through many editors simply because it's soooooo time consuming and many editors do not know what to look for. It's too bad they have to spend their time being a cyber-snoop instead of editing good submissions. It cost everyone in the long run.

When it comes to their pocket book, there isn't much an affiliate webmaster won't do to get his/her site listed. They have little or no regard for anyone else and its not going to get better as the net evolves.

Again, just my 2 cents, well, maybe 4 cents this time. :/images/dmoz/purplegrin.gif

July 20, 2002

"It's too bad they have to spend their time being a cyber-snoop instead of editing good submissions."

Which provokes (again) the question as to whether editors should arbitrarily reject sites that have the appearance of being affiliates, and spend their time editing more promising material.

I let that rhetorical question hang in the air!

old_crone · July 20, 2002

"Which provokes (again) the question as to whether editors should arbitrarily reject sites that have the appearance of being affiliates, and spend their time editing more promising material."

I say delete, delete, delete! Let the webmasters prove they are not an affiliate/mirror/doorway or anything remotely similar instead of the editors having to prove they are! But, that would probably bring editor abuse to the forefront of these discussions. It's a loosing battle and no big surprise that affiliates get through.

July 20, 2002

Very good analysis *clap clap* /images/icons/smile.gif

theseeker · July 20, 2002

I'm hoping that the public abuse report form that is in the works will help in this regard. As we've discovered many times in this forum and others, no one is better suited for spotting such affiliates than the webmaster that was just rejected for being an affiliate.

Hm. Have we derailed this thread?

hutcheson · July 20, 2002

>>no one is better suited for spotting such affiliates than the webmaster that was just rejected for being an affiliate.

I wouldn't go quite that far. A fair number of the sites accused aren't, um, easily verified. But even if half of the sites spotted are verifiable (and I believe that's about the right percentage) then we're still happy to hear about them.

Conversely, as a webmaster you have to remember that you can't just slip by an ODP editor to dive in the gravy train; you have to remember that anyone can suggest (via the "Update URL" form, as well as forums like these) that a site should be moved or removed.

July 20, 2002

If this is how it is at ODP, then I can see why my site is not listed and I don't even know that I would want it to be.

Neither of my sites are affiliate sites. Yes there are several sites with the same product numbers, but these items are all coming from the same manufacturer, thus we are all using the same stock numbers. FWIW, Infinity Instruments IS the manufacturer and I sell their products. So, yes, it would seem likely that I would have the same stock numbers. Infinity is NOT an ecommerce enabled site, so I don't understand why any site that carries the same merchandise as another site, with the same stock number, AUTOMATICALLY has to be an affiliate.

With the use of drop-shipping, direct fulfillment and buying from the manufacturer, etc. there will be dozens or even hundreds of sites with the same stock numbers, that does not make any of them affiliates to some master site. Look at the lingerie sites, nearly all get their inventory from the same place and nearly all use the same stock numbers, doesn't make them affiliates.

Yes taking checkout directs to other sites as I do not have my own checkout/cart system on my own servers. You would get the same if you were shopping with Yahoo stores (as their checkout would direct to yahoo store URL and not the merchant's URL) or a site that uses Americart as a shopping cart, both of which ARE very popular small business shopping carts. Anytime someone uses remotely hosted ecommerce, you will be directed to another URL at checkout.

And I DO have my cart (on nalashome.com) enabled to ask customers for a user name and password (it is NOT required) becuase people like being able to check their order status online . The cart that I use for the other sites does not have that option, thus it does not ask for user name and password.

If this is what editors are like, then I can see why being listed in ODP is so problematic. If I had an affiliate site, one would think that my actual links would have affiliate ID codes in them, as is required to even track affiliate sales. I have never seen an affiliate site without them.

I was hoping to find out real information on the status of my sites' submission, instead I have gotten a lot of unfounded accusations. I have three honest ecommerce sites. Yes they do link to eachother, and that is for the shopper to have the opportunity to see all that we have to offer. I do not want all my sites as an isolated island.

If all the editors are like "guilty until proven innocent" then I can see how there is a lot of paranoia about why someone has their site set up a certain way versus another way.

I don't even understand why my return policy even comes up for question. I want customers to contact me for a return authorization (as do many sites) so that I can be prepared for what merchandise is being returned. Also, it helps to control issues when customers have purchased something 90 days ago and just want to send it back. It is very common for smaller stores, and even larger stores, to require customers to obtain return authorization numbers. I can't see how, in any way, that is indicative of whether I actually SELL the merchandise or whether I am an AFFILIATE.

I mean, this has been an unbelievable experience. It also sheds light into how the ODP works and why it is the way it is. All these sites have not been submitted to yahoo yet (budget constraints), but again, 995artprints.com got in without a hitch just as you see it now, with all the cross links and such.

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr>When it comes to their pocket book, there isn't much an affiliate webmaster won't do to get his/her site listed. They have little or no regard for anyone else and its not going to get better as the net evolves. <hr></blockquote>

Wow, I can't believe this. I just can't believe this.

hutcheson · July 20, 2002

>>When it comes to their pocket book, there isn't much an affiliate webmaster won't do to get his/her site listed. They have little or no regard for anyone else and its not going to get better as the net evolves.

>Wow, I can't believe this. I just can't believe this.

Believe it, man. Believe it. You see your three sites, and a two or three competitors. I see three hundred submittals like this ... every week. And I'm not one of the editors most active in the spam-prone categories! There are more than 5,000 submittals like this to the ODP ... every DAY.

It's like the electron -- just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and doesn't affect you personally. "Pure affiliate sites" are the caltrops on the information superhighway, grit in the gears of the e-conomy, the Pravda of the information age. Your own site review is being significantly impacted; there is really nothing any of us can do about that. But you have received considerable valuable advice about what you need to do in order to build a website that effectivelys represent your company's business. If you can learn to believe it, and convince your web developer to design as if it were true, you'll have profited.

There's no charge. Mention us to your friends.

July 20, 2002

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr> just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and doesn't affect you personally<hr></blockquote>

My statement that I can't believe this was not that I can't believe that this is what it's like, that affiliate sites will go to no end to get into the ODP, it was that I was severely being accused of being one when in fact I am not.

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr> But you have received considerable valuable advice about what you need to do in order to build a website that effectivelys represent your company's business.<hr></blockquote>

No, I have not. I have received advice on getting my site listed into ODP. I would not go through the trouble of having the site re-designed OR shifting the focus just to get into ODP. From a shopper's perspective, the site is fine. I suppose if a shopper would go through the trouble of looking up product numbers to see who else might sell the same item, then that's not really one that I am going to serve, nor redesign my site to accomodate.

Yes, I have received a lot of feedback, but no one here has actually said, "this is the status of your submission." There has been contemplation on it's acceptance/rejection.

And again, yes I have received feedback, but I would not change my linking, change my product ID numbers, change my return policy AND change my remote hosted shopping carts just to meet the *possible* approval of an ODP editor.

IOW, I have received feeback, but not really anything useful about my business, which is not even the purpose of coming here in the first place.

July 20, 2002

Furthermore, Hutcheson, if you go by that same name on other forums, then I also remember emailing you a while ago from the searchengineforums about my ODP submission. At that time you informed me of the backlog of the category on my nalashome.com site.

I came here because this seemed to be a forum for getting the information that many desire-- the what happened?

I can understand that the ODP editor and such community would have a huge guard up about affiliate sites, but I don't think that is representative of the general web community. From the non-affiliate-spammed community, there is nothing wrong with the site.

Again, there has been feedback, but none of it really useful from a NON-ODP standpoint and I would never go and tell my friends to submit about the status of their submission only to get critiques as to how they can make their non-affiliate sites look less affiliate like.

old_crone · July 20, 2002

"With the use of drop-shipping, direct fulfillment and buying from the manufacturer, etc. there will be dozens or even hundreds of sites with the same stock numbers, that does not make any of them affiliates to some master site. Look at the lingerie sites, nearly all get their inventory from the same place and nearly all use the same stock numbers, doesn't make them affiliates."

The above statement just proves that webmasters do not understand the definition of an affiliate. The keywords are "there will be dozens or even hundreds of sites with the same stock numbers" meaning they are affiliated with the company who manufactures and ships the products, thus they are affiliates.

But let's say they aren't, just for the sake of argument. Why would a directory want to list and send their end users to hundreds, even thousands of sites with the same product? Unless of course, there is unique content on each of those sites. And having unique content is subjective and depends on the reviewing editor's definition of unique.

This kind of affiliate does complicate the issue. Which sites get listed and which ones don't, or should all of them be listed?

"I don't even understand why my return policy even comes up for question. I want customers to contact me for a return authorization (as do many sites) so that I can be prepared for what merchandise is being returned" Is it so you can be prepared or so you will know what products are being returned because it's not being returned to you?

"All these sites have not been submitted to yahoo yet (budget constraints), but again, 995artprints.com got in without a hitch just as you see it now, with all the cross links and such." Of course it did, and you pay for the privilege yearly. If the ODP charged for listings they would not have the backlog they currently have. You truly have no clue as to what the editors have to contend with on a daily basis - without any pay for doing it!

Spend a few months editing for a directory (be sure it's a shopping/travel/marketing category and you'll have a small idea of what editors have to contend with and why they suspect every submission to those categories as being an affiliate of something!

Believe me, it would be much easier to just accept them all but then the directory would be useless. It would be no different than a search engine.

And, there is one other thing you need to know - the ODP is not here to serve webmasters, it's here to serve the end user. If you want to be listed here, then ask yourself, how do my sites serve potential customers and do I offer them something that others don't offer? Or, are my sites just clones of hundreds, even thousands of others?

But, being listed on the ODP is not going to make you a wallet full of money, right? So, no biggy if your sites aren't listed, right?

But don't loose hope, they may still be listed and I may just be full of s**t.

Oh, I never meant for you to feel singled out. All my references about the lengths affiliates will go to in order to get their sites listed, were about affiliates in general, not to you personally. I'm sorry if you have felt offended by all of this. We're just a bunch of overworked and unappreciated editors blowing steam.

Plus, I'm no one for you to worry about, I'm just an opinionated old crone.

old_crone · July 20, 2002

"And again, yes I have received feedback, but I would not change my linking, change my product ID numbers, change my return policy AND change my remote hosted shopping carts just to meet the *possible* approval of an ODP editor. "

I'm afraid that's exactly what you will have to do, eventually, if you want to compete with all those thousands of other sites selling the same products as you. Your competition is only going to grow. Content is everything on the net and if yours isn't different, it will be passed over in favor of a site that is different.

Just something to give some focused thought to.

July 20, 2002

I have a strange sense of humor. Having discovered (not everybodies favorite) http://www.bizrate.com in these august columns a few days ago, I fed in "weather station piano finish" and...

do you know you can get one for $52.67 as opposed to $58 on Nalashome.

Very useful site that for checking details !

theseeker · July 20, 2002

chuladi::>>I was hoping to find out real information on the status of my sites' submission, instead I have gotten a lot of unfounded accusations.<<

arlarson provided that information near the beginning of the thread: "With the present backlog, it will probably take several months for the site to be reviewed." I can clarify that by saying that nalasgallery.com is still waiting to be reviewed.

As for what makes an affiliate, I don't edit much in Shopping and I'm not as qualified to comment on that as some. But I have put some thought into it. The scenario you have is one of the hardest to come up with a good answer for. The supplier of the products does not sell the products, but there are many sites that do sell them. That means that there could be hundreds of sites selling the same products, and none of them would be unique.

That's going to be a case where uniqueness is the only deciding factor. If there are 10 sites that contain unique content in addition to those products that are offered on hundreds of sites, those are going to be the 10 sites that are listed.

That's just my opinion.

hutcheson::in reply to "no one is better suited for spotting such affiliates than the webmaster that was just rejected for being an affiliate."

said >>I wouldn't go quite that far. A fair number of the sites accused aren't, um, easily verified. But even if half of the sites spotted are verifiable (and I believe that's about the right percentage) then we're still happy to hear about them. <<

That's what I meant. /images/icons/smile.gif

sabre23t · July 21, 2002

nalasgallery.com & "grey unreviewed queue"

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr>Which provokes (again) the question as to whether editors should arbitrarily reject sites that have the appearance of being affiliates, and spend their time editing more promising material.<hr></blockquote>

Which is what the editors are effectively doing by "leaving the affiliates looking sites in the unreviewed queue", and editing sites that looks more promising, just_browsing (BTW, I think you and old_crone would make very good editors /images/dmoz/purplegrin.gif)

Hmm ... this prompted a thought about another unreviewed queue. So we have in order of "quality" ...

[*]Dark Green Greenbusted unreviewed (should be ready for click and publish)

[*]Green Normal unreviewed

[*]Grey Affiliates looking unreviewed (sent by editors from normal queue, for experienced affiliates cyber snoopers editors to get into)

[/list:u]

Then our status report for www.nalasgallery.com could be, waiting to be reviewed in "grey unreviewed".

July 21, 2002

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr>The above statement just proves that webmasters do not understand the definition of an affiliate. The keywords are "there will be dozens or even hundreds of sites with the same stock numbers" meaning they are affiliated with the company who manufactures and ships the products, thus they are affiliates.

That is not a good definition of affiliate. By that definition, since Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other book sites would sell the same books from the same publishers, then they all would be affiliates. Which they are not. By that definition, if target.com and walmart.com carry Eureka vacuum cleaners and Eureka has a site, then WalMart and Target would be affiliates, which they are not.

The generally accepted definition of an affiliate site is one which does not sell the product, but rather promtotes the product of another site in exchange for a commission for a sale, lead or click.

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr>do you know you can get one for $52.67 as opposed to $58 on Nalashome. <hr></blockquote>

This is NOT cool. If you all want to criticize my site, prices, polices and shopping carts, then that totally eliminates the purpose and usefulness of this forum. If that's the case, then everybody post a link to their site so we all can start giving unsolicited criticism.

I did not come here for ecommerce advice. Say what you will about my site or prices. If you have an income producing, product based, commerce enabled website then put your link here, so I can see how YOU roll. Otherwise, it's useless for you to continue giving opinions on what I need to do.

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr>But, being listed on the ODP is not going to make you a wallet full of money, right? So, no biggy if your sites aren't listed, right?

My only, let me repeat, my ONLY concern for getting in ODP is for, and only for, its influence upon google rankings. Obviously, there is heavy bias with respect to submission. And I would rather not be in the directory than to do a 360 with my site just to *possibly* get into ODP. You're right. If I do not get in, it is not a big deal. But I came here to check the status of a submission.

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr>I'm afraid that's exactly what you will have to do, eventually, if you want to compete with all those thousands of other sites selling the same products as you. Your competition is only going to grow. Content is everything on the net and if yours isn't different, it will be passed over in favor of a site that is different. <hr></blockquote>

Maybe. But it's like saying there is limited room for companies on the net and it's either or. People who shop online don't look for "different" sites. They don't go to widgets.com and say, wow, that's not different, I will go to "gadgets.com." They don't search and search and search and search until they find a site that is different.

And Yes, I do understand that ODP exists for the benefit of the end user. But realistically, so does yahoo and the site that was submitted to yahoo was accepted without a hitch. I think that there is obvious bias that governs the way ODP operates.

If my site was rejected for not being unique, fine. But it's NOT an affiliate site. Let's be real, like ODP consists mostly of unique, substantially different sites. Within any one specific category, there WILL be similarity among sites. How can there not? How can you have dozens of art sites and none of them sell some of the same merchandise? How can you have dozens of books ites and none have overlap in products?

old_crone · July 21, 2002

Re: nalasgallery.com & "grey unreviewed queue"

sabre23t, I am a very good editor, just not an editor for the ODP. I'm also in favor of all editors form all people powered directories offering information when possible. We have far more incommon than not and there's always someone who knows more than I do. If I'm not open to giving what I know, how will I know more?

The many post I've read on this forum has giving me food for thought, what more can one ask for? /images/icons/smile.gif

July 21, 2002

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr> Is it so you can be prepared or so you will know what products are being returned because it's not being returned to you? <hr></blockquote>

Regardless of what I may say, you all have already decided that I do not run my own businesses, that I am simply an affiliate of another company. For the record, yes ALL the returns are sent to me, to my PO box, where I pick them up myself, process the credits through my merchant account myself and send customers their receipts myself.

But the fact of the matter is, what impact should that have upon my listing in a directory? Where my products are returned to?

<blockquote>In reply to:<hr>ou truly have no clue as to what the editors have to contend with on a daily basis - without any pay for doing it!

You're right. I do NOT have a clue. And I should not need to have a clue in order to get listed in a directory. I suppose it is a thankless job, but so is the nature of much volunteer work, particularly when the volunteers are never seen. It was a choice.

I suppose I should argue that you may not know what it is like trying to earn income with an honest internet business without being attacked by anonymous people on a message board when trying to find the status of your submission to a volunteer-run directory that obviously has a few deep-seated biases. But I would not expect you to care.

If the directory is bombarded with useless, spammy, submissions, then I can definitely understand the frustration. But that doesn't mean that you all should start heavily criticizing someone coming to seek help. It's like if I go to the post office and ask if my package has arrived and they start going on and on about how I run my businesses, and how my packages should look and how they should be wrapped and how my postage was not appropriate.

It was unnecessary for people to go to the extreme to which they did to criticize my site.

FWIW these are my sites that I built and that I chose the inventory for which to sell. This is my company that is in my name that I registered that I run and I answer the phone and I process the orders and I process the payments and I handle the customer service.

I did not come here asking what you all thought of my site, or my cart, or my return policy, or my pricing, or my product selection. Yes, you might have opinions, but none of them were necessary to answering the initial question.

But you know, I'd like to see YOUR sites because if you're such a good critic of mine, then let's see what you have. You all have already dissected what I have.

old_crone · July 21, 2002

"That is not a good definition of affiliate. By that definition, since Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other book sites would sell the same books from the same publishers, then they all would be affiliates. Which they are not. By that definition, if target.com and walmart.com carry Eureka vacuum cleaners and Eureka has a site, then WalMart and Target would be affiliates, which they are not. "

There's one big flaw in your argument. All the businesses you listed sell, handle, and ship the products. All but amazon have physical stores and amazon was the first to do what it does, thereby making it unique by definition. The others merely have website to support their physical locations and of course, take advantage of the net. They already have a targeted audience, no need for them to vie for placement anywhere!

"The generally accepted definition of an affiliate site is one which does not sell the product, but rather promtotes the product of another site in exchange for a commission for a sale, lead or click."

That is not my definition, nor is it the definition of the company I work for.

"Maybe. But it's like saying there is limited room for companies on the net and it's either or. People who shop online don't look for "different" sites. They don't go to widgets.com and say, wow, that's not different, I will go to "gadgets.com." They don't search and search and search and search until they find a site that is different."

No, I'm not saying there is a limited amount of room on the net for any one product or the many sites that sell them. What I am saying is if you want an edge over your growing competition, then you had better find a way to offer something different than all the rest.

You are absolutely right, people don't go out and search for something different. That job is for the people powered directories so they can give their users something different. Otherwise, there would be no point in having one, would there? There would be no reason for google to use the ODP, absolutely none!

Your only concern is to get a better page ranking on google so that people will find you in the top 20 or so. I'm saying that the best way to do that and to stay in the top 20 is to offer something unique along with your common products. You may not like my advice and you certainly don't have to follow it but I can promise you that your competition will only increase and your listing potential will decrease. Think content, content, content!

The ODP's only concern is to offer quality sites with unique content. The only way they can achieve that goal is to weed out redundant sites.

I'm done with this tread. I've said what I needed to say and now I'm becoming redundant. I completely understand your point of view as a webmaster trying to have an online business. But I also understand the situation from a directories point of view. You can make your own choice as to what to do with your site and so can the ODP. The two do not have to meet.

Besides, you may very well be listed on the ODP. I am no threat to that possibility.

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