13 replies to this topic

[nedguy]

Just seen this new thread on resource zone.

http://resource-zone...ead.php?t=14516

It gives a fascinating insight into of what really upsets dmoz editors

NG

[OldWelshGuy]

Superb post, a real insight into the ethos of ODP, and how highly some rate integrity on the web.

A little more information is that the original post is from a company who had a site that was successful, but got sucked into affiliate links, in a classic Bait & Switch manoeuvre.

I particularly liked this comment

So that's where you are, with a reputation for committing the most evil form of attack on the directory for one of the two most evil spammers on the planet.

Why didn't he speak his mind?

Seems to me that The ODp is trying to stop this expired domain content switching fad of the moment.

[Jill]

I wonder why the original poster gives the ODP so much credit for their success on the Web? Isn't he being a bit over-dramatic? Is removal from DMOZ truly the end of the world for him?

[OldWelshGuy]

I wondered if her really meant what he said, I mean saying that losing your ODP link was killing you is silly UNLESS he was one of these who had a link in multiple regions for each of his regional pages. (I was told of a site that had 80 ODP links from different categories to its specific pages) This might hurt a bit.

[Jill]

Prolly just trying to make the editors feel sorry for him.

[MCP]

I visited the site in question and saw no spam. Am I missing something?

[torka]

Depends on how you define spam, I suppose.

I imagine the editors were referring to that honkin' big "make your reservations now" panel taking up at least 50-60% of the real estate front and center on the home page, while any of the original content was reduced to teensy little text links squished down and lurking off to the periphery, where they wouldn't distract visitors from the plethora of affiliate links. I gather that's part of some sort of "affiliate" site network, which -- from the way I read the editors' comments -- is a network non grata at DMOZ. I would imagine that the panel itself is replicated in multiple other sites -- it has that look, MHO -- which in DMOZ eyes could constitute spam, I would think, particularly when placed that much in-your-face as the principal component of a site home page.

They seem to like originality over there a lot more than replicated content, from what I can tell.

Just my take on what I saw...

--Torka

[kctipton]

Had that company/domain changed hands? If so, I didn't know it from the discussion.

[Haystack]

I don't know if it's changed hands, but the focus of the site has definitely changed based on the past versions I found on archive.org

[powerofeyes]

I visited the site in question and saw no spam. Am I missing something?

Only certain people know what the real spam on the site is, Especially Hutcheson knows where the real spam is, Actually that site in one Affiliate of tra***no*.com, And Dmoz dont like to list Affiliate sites, Possibly when the site was listed it has unique contents and unique business but now it has turned into an affiliate site for tr*******.com site,

Hutcheson is very much concerned about ho***no*.com and tr****no*.com affiliate sites,

See his comment in webmasterworld in a very important thread, it is a thread talking about "Whether google being attacked is fair or unfair",

From the underside, it might behave like a penalty. But I don't believe it's a penalty either. I'd come much closer to believing it's a finer discriminant applied to links (in conjunction with either the source or target page).

How does Google measure quality? well, inbound links.

[Deleted too much quoting from another source as per our guidelines.]

Reference: http://www.webmaster.../23241-3-10.htm

tr****no*.com is already Penalized in Google for having lots of mirror sites (possibly due to those affiliate sites )

Hope now people can understand where the real problem is,

thanks,
VIJAY,

Edited by Jill, 01 May 2004 - 12:45 PM.

[powerofeyes]

is a network non grata at DMOZ.

Yes that's right, Dmoz is completely removing all these tr*******.com affiliates from their index, Dmoz, Google search and yahoo search none of them want to list these sites,

[OldWelshGuy]

That's right Vijay, he actually names the two companies, and calls them the two biggest scammers on the planet, or something equally descriptive .

I know I am teaching granny to suck eggs, but the fact is that when you apply to a directory, you get graded based on the information within the site. Major changes in the site focus or business model should be notified to the directory.

Human edited directories rely on being notified, as by and large they don't spider content after inclusion. When you submit to a directory you agree to play within their T&C, part of which is normally that you notify them of major changes such as becoming an affiliate portal.

What you are is what people see, and, as the editor pointed out, had these affiliate links been spread within the copy of the site, then it probably would have stayed in the ODP. It was the fact that the 'focus' of the site had changed, it had moved on from being a great information portal, that pointed you to other places online via paid adds or affiliate links, to become an affiliate link gateway from the very onset of the visit.

In web marketing when you build a site, how you treat your customers is what reflects your business model IMO. If I was building an information portal, that was intended to deliver much information to visitors, but at the same time make me money via affiliate links or paid adverts. Then my site planning would be such that I would want to pull the visitor into the site, get inside his head by taking him to specific areas of information (ie Fort Myers beach vacation rental homes), and THEN I would serve up the targeted affiliate links or paid ads. Had this been the business model of the site, I am sure it might have stayed there.

The LAST thing you do on an information portal site is send your newly found visitor off to other parts of the web. It flies in the face of basic web marketing. making this worse in fact is the fact that we are not talking about some greenhorn novice, we are talking about a seasoned web savvy business, who, must have known what they were doing. making the shift to being an affiliate gateway was a conscious decision on their part.

I do not think they set out to bait and switch, but knowingly or not, that is exactly what they did.

When i became a moderator here it was because of what I was at the time of consideration. If I changed my business model to link farming, cloaking and other black hat techniques, wouldn't you say that my position here would be unacceptable, and I should leave?

Same thing IMO.

[BrianR]

Well said, OWG - good post.

BrianR

[BrianR]

...and calls them the two biggest scammers on the planet...

So does that mean that they have a WeaselRank of 10!?

BrianR