Hi guys, I had to share this one with you all as it highlights some of the rights and wrongs about submitting to directories: The story: I maintain a free travel directory www.farflungshores.com as travel is a passion of mine and I also run a very successful travel website and saw there are very few human orientated travel directories. This directory was started around 18 mths ago. You can see the popularity that it has with submitters at directory critic in the travel niche where its number one after the paid site (and thats without offering people anything to leave a review as some sites do). So around a week ago I get a submission from a travel blog about india. Its not that well written but from the human angle its interesting and provides a unique perspective. Unfortunately the guy used a copy pasted description. Ok, I´ll reject the submission, tell him to re apply and to use a unique description. Today I find exactly the same submission and I reject it again, explaining again the same comment about a unique description being required. So about 20 minutes ago I receive this: As I have 5 minutes I decided to reply Time for the big red "Banned" button
Maybe you could add some guidelines to your submission page. Unfortunately there's also many uninformed directory owners who aren't interested in editing descriptions or even making sure they're put in the correct category.
Always happy to receive feedback. I used to have around 7 or 8 bullet points instead of the current 3 but found that people would just scroll down and ignore them.... I´ll have a look into trying to add something in the description box that says "Description must be unique" Cheers, Angus
I'm surprised you wasted your time even emailing him the second time... But anyway, syted is right - if you have clear guidlines they may often be ignored but at least you can just send the person a link saying "read here" rather than a full email...
I understand you but it's not realistic to change your description for every directory submission either. Nobody has so much time and frankly writing thousands of unique descriptions is pretty much impossible unless you're Steven King...
I personally try for reasonably different descriptions. After all, its only 1 or 2 sentences of description
Hammer, meet nails head. I had a hard time just coming up with 5 - 8 good quality descriptions that were all unique.
I've seen a lot worse! Be glad this submitter understands English. Try to explain the problem to an Indian or Chinese who only speaks the language 'KEYWORDS'. Hugo
My favorite duplicate content submissions of late came from a fairly large company. I was excited to see that they had submitted all three divisions with fairly decent crafting tips. The tips seemed off - too good actually. Sure enough, they were lifted word for word from About.com articles. Guess they assumed little old me was too ignorant to figure out what they did. I do have a suggestion for these types of things. I used to delete and sometimes ban too. That was until someone emailed months later to inquire about their listing and I had no 'paper trail' to back up my decision. The close but crappy submissions get "suspended" now and I use the admin notes field to document why they weren't accepted. For me it's not about justification as much as saving the time to review a site that I had already decided was out and being able to see if that reason still exists. The truly off-topic submissions just get deleted. I might have a slight advantage as a writer when it comes to creating unique descriptions. What I typically do is submit to a handful of directories at one time, say 5-10. For each session of directory submissions, I write something new. So many of the directories never add or add months later which makes the overlap risk low. I also don't have to create a new description for every single submission. C'mon folks, if you, the owner, can't write a few words to describe your site why would anyone find it worthwhile to visit?
It is with situations like this that we can look down on others and be glad we are more superior to them
I am absolutely amazed at what people submit and get really tired of the Russian and Chinese spam that I see everyday in my directories. Guidelines, who needs them (just kidding, I have them in detail) as no one bothers to read them...
You still should post some guidelines as syted noted. When it comes to niche directories, submitters are more inclined to spend the time to read your guidelines. I probably would still block the domain. Having the same submission submitted again after being rejected is quite common. Wait until you see it a dozen times.
It is even worse if you have a common directory script that can be used to submit with automated programs (like /submit.php on phpLD)
Time to block the IP. It is now automatic for me that a bad written title and description gets deleted without a review. I don't give a flat flying... if it is the greatest thing in webland.
I'm thinking of starting a directory myself...but I guess I'll think twice as I'd need to deal with spammers or people who just don't respect the directory owners.
there's no excuse for not providing unique content anymore, even for something as trivial as a directory description. All it takes is a button press...