do you accept every listing in your directory?

[falcondriver]

hi directory owners,

besides of this "no gambling/p0rn/warez" thing, are there any other reasons why you may reject some listings? if yes, post them :)

[montux]

falcondriver,
I Don't like to Reject any listing as but i have few rules for my directory (http://directory.inetzeal.com/)
[1] Title must contain Name of website
[2] Description Should be Description Means it should be atleast 3-4 Sentences.
[3] There should be no PROMOTIONAL content thorught the titles and description.
Thats it
if webmaster follow these rules than i surely accept their listing

[Moe]

I reject quite a few actually.

If the site is obviously made just to try and make a quick buck I don't accept it.
If the site is created out of mostly free articles I don't accept it.
If the site has little content I don't accept it.
etc.

Basically what I do is put myself in a surfers shoes. I look at the submitted site, lets say it's about widgets, and think to myself, if I was looking for a site about widgets would this site be useful to me. If the answer is yes I will accept it, if not I don't.

I want my directory be useful to my visitors and not just a link farm.

[seowebguide]

Quality, well categorized listing of links. You don't really need any other criteria. When reviewing a website ask yourself if your directory users would find the resource useful.

Don't be afraid to hit the delete key... strive for quality, not quantity.

[bbott]

We rarely need to reject a listing. When people pay for a listing they follow the listing guidelines to a tee usually.

Of course we do get some spammy sites sometimes which we reject.

When we used to offer free listings we'd delete listings non stop.

[Masetek]

hi directory owners,

besides of this "no gambling/p0rn/warez" thing, are there any other reasons why you may reject some listings? if yes, post them :)

Have you seen some of the purpose built adsense sites out there?? LOL there's thousands of them and they often submit them to directories. I get them spamming my directory site all the time, and it's not even a directory!

[Colbyt]

I am doing a specific region directory and it clearly states that. I reject about 80% mostly from people who did not or could not (based on the country codes) read the submission terms.

If I weren't doing regional the guidlines others have posted sound pretty fair except I never submit more than 255 ch of description.

[Ron]

I have a directory of directories and have to reject about 70 to 80%.
In my submission guidelines it's written in red and bold directories only ! but it seems not clear enough...

[bluesky]

If a site is just on the purpose to list ads, I will reject it without hesitation

[dcristo]

hi directory owners,

besides of this "no gambling/p0rn/warez" thing, are there any other reasons why you may reject some listings? if yes, post them :)

Definately. The database of a directory is everything. Spammy type sites should never be accepted, otherwise you run the risk of getting penalised by the search engines for being associated with bad neighbourhoods.

[toby]

Firstly, I would see the description field. If a person who submitte to my directory won't even bother much to type the description, why would I accept him?

Next, his site must be of acceptable quality i.e. like others have mentioned: No made for adsense type of site, for example.

[iowadawg]

I have a directory of directories and have to reject about 70 to 80%.
In my submission guidelines it's written in red and bold directories only ! but it seems not clear enough...
I am amazed at the number of people who come to my niche directories and then submit links that have NOTHING to do with the niche!
Can't people read the guidelines? Are they stupid?
Or are directory submitters (those who do this service manually and/or with software) not really looking at the submissions?
I just deleted at one directory 12 submissions.
A few had false descriptions that had nothing to do with their site! Just a good description that fit the guidelins of that directory.
These submitters are plain stupid for thinking I would look at the description and okay them without looking at the site!
Food related directory, just deleted one submission that was from a PORN site! Nice description about recipes, food, etc....but the site was pure PORN!
Geesh....

I advertise one directory heavily and I put on my ads and on my postings here, to submit links ONLY to the proper sub-category, as the main category is reserved ONLY for paid featured ads.
But still, I have to delete links because people are not able to comprehend, read english, or are just plain stupid.

[JagoHarry]

If a site is just on the purpose to list ads, I will reject it without hesitation

Often something I have to do. Getting rubbish listed on my niche sites is very common. Submitters will try it on though, but that's the fun of owning a free directory! :)

Dan

[olddocks]

The biggest problem is countering spams. Some machine operated robots crawl web daily to submit automated inclusions. It really daunted me. After that it forced me to use image verifications....

Here are the things i would focus on accepting links, not just for money but for quality.

1. Excellent content rich site
2. Well chosen domain name
3. Excellent site design and presentation
4. Well written / Appealing titles and descriptions
5. Category relevance (how well site is related to category submitted)

The biggest problem i noticed is, many people dont want to spend time in writing good titles and descriptions.

when comes to selecting sites, i give so much importance to domain names and their extensions. How well your domain name instantly tells all about your site and relates to content. For example in UK category, i expect sites to have .uk endings which i very much prefer than including that in general category.

Hope my info helps other directory listings.

[SubmitShop]

I dissapprove few ones. [Internal Pages, New websites having PR0, banned sites etc.]
Mostly I modify those submissions which are not submitted in the appropiate category and I put them in the right category. I am editor of more than 15 Web Directories though :)

[coolweb]

We always validate quality sites only.

We do not validate:
Under Construction Sites
Sites consisting mainly of affiliate links
Sites developed just for earning revenue from AdSense
Sites with poor design
Sites Poor in contents
In all of our directories, submission guidelines and rules are mentioned.

We rarely need to reject a listing. When people pay for a listing they follow the listing guidelines to a tee usually.

Of course we do get some spammy sites sometimes which we reject.

When we used to offer free listings we'd delete listings non stop.

Yes i agree, in Paid directory we hardly get sites which are against the rules or submission guidelines, that is benefit of professional paid directory.

[advancescripts]

some time title didn't match to desc. or some time site not working properly

[Nikolas]

I reject (except the usual p0rn, warez, illegal) :

1) Affiliate sites
2) 'Turn key' sites with only duplicate content
3) Sites that provide a ton of keywords in their listings.

[JagoHarry]

I've started to reject turnkey websites now, they're becoming an irritation.

[just-4-teens]

[1] Pure affiliate site.
[2] Use tactics like keyword spamming to try and increase rank.
[3] Poor page design.
[4] Made for ads[ense] sites.
[5] Not enough unique content i.e. all free articles etc.

[muchacho]

No, only quality sites. I only approve around 5% of sites suggested to my directory. I really wish I could approve more of them.

[empservices]

My take on this is that if your directory is new, you will accept most of the submissions.
However once the directory matures and you have more quality listings, you can get picky about who you let in.

[just-4-teens]

My take on this is that if your directory is new, you will accept most of the submissions.

i disagree with this, just cos my directory was new didnt mean i let everyone in :) i would rather have a small directory filled with 500 decent sites then a medium directory with 500 decent sites and 500 spammy sites

[empservices]

hehe .. ok our directory is small as in 100 providers ... so that would make it VERY small :)

[Nikolas]

As it is very easy to promote a directory, the best is to keep it clean with quallity links from the start, because when it grows it is very difficult to change this.

[minstrel]

Have you seen some of the purpose built adsense sites out there?? LOL there's thousands of them and they often submit them to directories. I get them spamming my directory site all the time, and it's not even a directory!
Me too - the ones that are just news feeds or a list of articles from article databases to support AdSense - deleted!

I am amazed at the number of people who come to my niche directories and then submit links that have NOTHING to do with the niche!
Exactly my experience. My directory software is set to email me when there is a new submission (because a submission requires manual approval) and I'd say that at least three quarters of sites submitted have nothing to do with my niche - delete!

[SonicReducer]

Great topic,

Here's what I don't accept.

1. If a site is missing a field, like the description I delete immediately.
2. Adsense/YPN only sites.
3. Those one page, sales letter sites.
4. Sites with no content.
5. "Adult" sites. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I just run family directories :)
6. Sites that are Amazon links to a particular product.

What really irritates me is when someone chooses the top level parent category, when there is a subcategory that is an exact match of their site. I recategorize them now, but I don't know for how much longer I will keep doing that.

[iowadawg]

More and more, I learn something here in the forum.
This thread is helping me quite a bit.
Now I will actually visit the sites submitted to my directories.
Then if the site is a spammy site, built only for adsense, or not what the description says, will delete it.
Good points from a few of you on what to delete and I thank you for that.

[minstrel]

Now I will actually visit the sites submitted to my directories.
Anyone who doesn't want to end up with a link farm instead of a real directory should always do this - you'd be amazed at what people will type in hoping the directory owner will NOT go and look at the site - anything for a backlink :eek:

[flawebworks]

What bugs me the most is when someone doesn't bother to use proper capitalization. Drives me crazy! Or uses commas, etc in the title tag, or excessive use of commas in the description. Or a string of keywords for the title tag, not a descriptive string of keywords.

Not everyone is a web designer: myself included, so I don't reject a listing because someone can't design a page. Nor can everyone write a title or description - this used to be the hardest thing for me - still is, if I think the page is quality, I'll modify the listing. I'll add a category if I need to.

The only time I don't look at a site (and I tend to look at several things of the site when I browse) is if I've been to that site, or most directories because I've submitted sites to them.

I myself always try to read submission guidelines, and I wish more people would learn to do so.

[iowadawg]

On my main directory the category where adult sites were placed.
Just got rid of it...so now family friendly, work friendly, just pure friendly.

[SonicReducer]

I myself always try to read submission guidelines, and I wish more people would learn to do so.

Amen brother!

[iowadawg]

Change I have made now is not to accept any interior urls.
Has to be main site or not accepted.
Biggest reason for this change was that someone with a site that had
like a dozen or more interior pages submitted each one.

Same with sub-domains. No longer accepted for the same reason above.
Why people want to submit a site that is http://www.xxxxxxx .com/1stpage
and so forth to /24thpage is beyond me.

And another that came across several times today were twin submissions for the same site.
EG... http://xxxxx. com and http://www.xxxxx. com

[just-4-teens]

Change I have made now is not to accept any interior urls.
Has to be main site or not accepted.


what i do is only now let 1 submission per domain (unless they pay for featured) and if they wanna submit an interior url as there 1 submission then so be it :)

[minstrel]

what i do is only now let 1 submission per domain (unless they pay for featured) and if they wanna submit an interior url as there 1 submission then so be it
That's pretty much how I feel in general about the issue too - they know the site - let the site owner decide which page. Occasionally, I'll alter it to the main page if it doesn't "feel right" for some reason.

[lucaxxx]

Spammy type sites should never be accepted.

We select sites based on their content and interest to our readers.

we don't accept:
Pure affiliate site.
Poor page design.
Not enough unique content

[minstrel]

Spammy type sites should never be accepted.
Unless of course you are running www.scams-r-us.com or www.we-list-crap.com in which case the rule would be that non-spammy sites should never be accepted.

Hmmm... sort of like DMOZ Adult. :o

[EveryQuery]

Hmmm... sort of like DMOZ Adult.

:D

As far as accepting submissions goes, I would definitely not accept EVERYTHING submitted to me. You would be overrun with spam sites, pill sites, porn sites, made-for-adsense sites, etc. Accepting all this junk would make your directory rather useless to the general public. (The spammers would love you though!!!)

[mgrohan]

We reject around 95% of submissions to our directory, unfortunetly (Our directories are all fit a niche). We would love to accept more, but in a fairly specialised niche it is hard to get good quality manual submissions.

We too get alot of spammy purpose built adsense sites, along with sites that do not fit our niche, or even people (maybe who don't have their own website) submitting seemingly completely random sites not related to their companies??

[Obelia]

I reject without visiting: sites that don't fit the niche, submissions with poor grammar and spelling, very short descriptions, and subdomains or subdirectories. Also, anything I just know is going to be spammy will get canned.

I don't even see any of the submissions that hit my automatic filters.

When I visit, I'll also reject sites with too little content, no original content, content taken from articles sites, or nothing useful to contribute. I do also reject on aesthetic grounds, or if the site has accessibility issues, but only when there is something else wrong and it's not a truly unique resource.

[chief99]

I reject alot of my submissions. It's not as easy to get good quality sites as you might think.

[minstrel]

Same here, Chief99.

Mine are niche directories. It amazes me that about 25-25% of sites submitted have nothing to do with the niche - do people not read before submitting? Add to that a significant proportion of unfinished sites and scraper-for-AdSense sites and that leaves me with perhaps 10% that might actually be appropriate.

On the upside, I'm getting better at spotting the crap sites without having to go to a lot of work to investigate them.

[EveryQuery]

On the upside, I'm getting better at spotting the crap sites without having to go to a lot of work to investigate them.

Oh yea. You get very good at spotting the scrapers, made-for-ads, affiliate stores, etc once you've seen hundreds of them previously.

[falcondriver]

i listed my site at linksubway (name changed) a few months ago, and now this one guy already sent me 4 pm's why i dont want a link exchange with his mfa-site. best quote: "what do you mean i have no content on my site? i have a blog, advertising and lot of links!" :D

[EveryQuery]

Yea, you get those kind of idiots. I have gotten a couple requests like, "Hey I own X,XXX number of websites and would like to list them all in XXXXXX directory. Can we do some kind of link exchange deal?"

Now, what kind of person owns that many websites? Think about it.
See Answer Below:




SPAMMERSSS!!!!!!
:rolleyes:

[minstrel]

Yes. That's what spam filters and IP blockers are for. :)

[submitter999]

actually am not intrested to reject any sites but the submission must be in compliance to my "submission details" thats enough to me.

[an0n]

funny thing happened this morning.

i goto check submissions and i have a few in there.

not only did the person post 2 identical websites with different url names, but they also reciprocated to my suggest.php

BANNED!

[emz]

I can't stand the adsense spam sites; I always deny them

[DirectoryFreak]

With 5 free directories I have over 150 sites to manually review every day, I sadly have to delete quite a few.

Money farms - no useable content - Denied
No Contact info - Denied
Misuse of my categories. (multiple and "smart" submissions) - Denied
To many errors in submission (description, keywords, title, url, use of deeplinks) - Denied
Framed sites with outgoing inside framesets - Denied
General misuse of my directory according to my guidelines.
etc.

At the same time, I know some may slip through, and I might deny some "regular" sites on the way also.

[spyrit]

i don't like free blogs, made a month or two ago, that have 2-3 articles copy-pasted from somewhere....really annoying
and one other thing....stupid pages that try to sell sport event tickets, and copy the contents of other pages