EXACTLY! Much of what I posted in my first should not be possible. Image verification should prevent auto-submit, but it obviously isn't full-proof. Also, how can you submit to the Top category when I have my admin set to NOT accept to cat submissions. Spammers always find ways. It's a constant battle between good and evil.
I get a lot of submissions that make me think, this must have been auto-submitted, since no-one could be that dumb, surely. But then I read stuff they put in the comments section where they will have put something that's unique to my site and that tells me that no, there are really people out there who are doing stupid stuff manually. But yes, sometimes image-verification can be circumvented automatically.
HAhAhA! I know the backdoor. I was considering to use it for our tool. But I thought that it's not ethical, so I didn't.
Hmm... PortProphecy, I disagree with your point that if the title of the site is the same as the submission it should be deleted. I always use my site's title as the title, as it describes the site in the best way. If it works for my site, why not use it on directory submissions? (Especially if they're legit)
I specially like this line. If someone doesn't even care to read my guidelines, or can't even visit my site once, why should I consider giving them a link?
I had a submission for a web site offering manual directory submission services. The site did not meet the clearly published qualifications (no published business name/contact info) and the submitted title was a keyphrase - not complying with clearly stated guidelines. Makes you wonder...
I encounter all of your posted examples on a daily basis and you are quite correct that once you figure out what to look for the delete button gets used alot without needing to review. I wish someone had posted this long ago when I first started my first directory. It would of saved me lots of time but I learned in time. Excellent post for all. Rep added.
How come DP isn't letting us spread rep to PP? wtf man! this is the third time I've tried and to no avail.
I have a small question to all the directory owners. If a site has a quality content or some quality aspects and has been submitted using software then still are you going to reject the site.
If it meets the submission guidelines I'm sure you might squeek by... You'll definately have more luck submitting manually.
an0n, you have to spread the love around before showering it upon one person again. It's DP's way of curbing cyber-stalking. kiran, i think that a lot of times, it will depend upon which side of the bed the editor woke up (ie. what mood they are in). Best not to leave it to chance if you value the directory listing. mobilebay, a good listing is one that follows the posted guidelines - which are different from directory to directory - which is why you should read the guidelines.
They are easy to spot amongst the garbage. In the following example, there are 4 submissions in the pic. One immediately, jumps out at me as someone who ACTUALLY took the time to manually submit and follow all the rules. http://www.portprophecy.com/pics/rejected08.jpg The first three in that picture have all the signs of auto-submissions. Incomplete sentences, horrible grammar, bad capitalization, titles keyword-stuffed to the max, ect...
captcha doesnt work, registration doesnt work, ip banning doesnt work. The morons just keep posting their crap and never bother to read or follow guidelines. So after about 3,000+ postings, i just had to turn off submissions for my free directory for a while. kiran having a good site doesnt mean that one shouldnt follow a directory's submission guidelines.
Great post! Really helpful.. Even though I don't use auto submission tools, I do however use the exact meta data for submission.
Thanks However i think the description of the good one looks spammy and the kayak one looks ok , oh well
Thanks very much, very good post, you've motivated me to be much tougher on crappy submissions at bigtangle. I still feel guilty deleting the rubbish submissions, so you can tell I'm new at directories. One of my biggest timewasters is moving things to proper categories - perhaps I'll actually start deleting them rather than just threatening to, and then wasting time moving them myself.
Yes, at first, I moved to correct categories. But then, I had the realization that I am providing a FREE service. So why waste my time if the submitter did not follow the rules? Now I just delete those in the wrong categories. Just refunded on a featured ad as the person tried to submit a site that looked good, but after about 30 seconds or so, redirected to a porn site! Nasty person!
I've actually given out about two dozen greens already to other people. i dunno.. probably just a rep system defect. anywho... keep on topic.