I have several directories, and the mian reason I reject most sites are that they fail to meet the "Niche" of the directory. Example::: I have a business directory. I dont want to see your little informational site on genetal wartz. I can grab an encyclopedia for that. However, if you have a product to offer to cure them, put up a site, and you might get in. Basically, if it would not fit in a phonebook, then it may not belong in my business directory.
My current pet hate... any site that starts with "...a wealth of information about...". Usually an adsense site with no content!
I have just finished accepting/rejecting sites for one of my niche directorties. 398 submissions. 130 accepted, the rest rejected. of those accepted, I was in a generous mood, so moved many of them to the right category, even created 6 or more categories for them. Problem now is that I have to find other sites to go into those cats with them, as a cat should not have les than 5 sites in it ideally.
Porn or adult sites. Or wrong area to submit site like penis enlargement/enhancement in weight gain under weight control - health and fitness.
Or "articles about blah-blah-blah" Or the ones where every single site is the same, just different header title and articles. Especially for some reason, all the .info sites. And now, for my main directories, any and all affiliate sites. Or when someone submits a url that redirects.
I always give sites the benefit of the doubt, but after all the end result must be good for the users. 1. Spam sites no way 2. Must fit the niche, which is cars - if the site looks good I will make a category for it as long as it's auto related. 3. If I have a bad feeling about a site, I'll check it out further and review from there. What irritates me is people submitting sites that have nothing to do with the niche. I just can't understand why they bothered filling out the form. The key driver of my selection criteria is the site strategy - which I suppose could be called the long term plan for the site. If the submission doesn't fit with this in any way shape or form it's out. This strategy though is fairly clear, to list prestige auto related sites and be a valuable resource for people searching for same.
Most make it easy for me: 1) Submit to internal categories when I specifically note twice on the site they are reserved for featured listings. This mostly happens for a single directory submission service from India that is just too lazy to find an internal category, but others do it too. I've reserved the second level categories because I've spent a lot of time getting good PR links and those spots will benefit the most. I'm not going to offer them up to "sniff my mesothelioma adsense ads" sites for free 2) Spamming up the title: My keyword | My spam site | Useless garbage | I know nothing about SEO | More keyword stuffing (just on and on till there's no space left to stuff a keyword title) 3) If the first thing I see when reviewing a site is a facefull of adsense ads, it's gone. I'm not against adsense at all, but I hate "in your face" adsense sites with nothing else to them. 4) Submitting internal site pages without purchasing a featured link. My guidelines make it very clear, yet some people do it anyway. And if they do more than one, I add their ip and email to a list I created that upon submitting a page, will not even add their site to the database for approvoal. Deniage! I get way too many submissions per day. I was "soft" at first, but spending an hour and a half a day going through listings, If I'm going to do my part, I expect the submitter to do their part. Those are probably the most typical reasons.
Exactly. Submitters who take the time to craft a perfect description are less likely to make the reject pile. I think it's a lot harder to take that attitude when your directory is just starting out, and there aren't too many submissions coming in anyway. But if you don't it just encourages lazy submissions and you end up doing more work as a result.
Every once in a while, when I have nothing to do (and wife does not need me for her projects), I go to one of my directories and start checking links. Hard to do one at a time, but be surprised at how many links are dead, changed to something else, or in the new light are mfa's or spammy sites I once accepted.
1. Keyword stuffing in the href-text. I guess we all hate that. 2. Category placement. Depends on my mood. Sometimes, I fix the category, sometimes I just reject it immidialety. 3. Short description. Should be atleast two sentences. 4. Bad site. Sites that look the same as another site, made for adsense sites, contains content that is copied from somewhere else(article sites etc).
Directory submissions are rejected some times when wrong or irrelvant cateogry is chosen and on paid listings payment is not send.
What realy pisses me off is when I say "Do not submit to top level categories", and then some "expert" submits to a top level category...... rrraaahhhh, I usualy ban the IP right away. That is the case on www.forplex.com
Most common reason? An inability to follow simple directions. Typically, improper case will set me off, but I make corrections, so this will not get the listing rejected. Most common reason in the KingBloom Directory is the site listed does not exist when our bot checks it. There are several other reasons, but mainly, an inability to follow simple directions does it every time!