DMOZ promoting Amazon Books

I recently found a category that has 2 links straight to Amazon Book for purchase, both books are by the same author. Guess his sales were slipping and he decided to become an editor to promote his books. Any other good ones you've found from the big DMOZ?

 

Which category? Does he also use his affiliate code?

 

Accepting a link or not is in control of various DMOZ directory editors.

 

Can you please post the category where the links are and an editor will deal with them immediately.

 

I would love to know the category. The links are wrong. If an editor listed them that way you may have just found an editor who should be reported for abuse.

Please tell us, either here or PM me.

 

http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=amazon.com/gp

 

Thanks Sid, but none of those results are associated with an affiliate, they are direct links. Now I'm thinking I misunderstood Captain Kangaroo. He didn't say they were affiliate links, just that they were books by the same author. I assumed they were affiliates, My bad.

I have no time today or tomorrow to look into this deeper and I'm not real familiar with the Arts/Literature branch but unless another editor beats me to it, I will check as soon as I can and report back here either to say they've been removed, or with an explanation of why they are permitted.

 

That search query is not picking up all the results.

http://dmoz.org/Arts/Literature/Authors/L/Lethem,_Jonathan/

First entry was not on that list.

There seems to be a big problem with Amazon links.

http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN

233 product advertising pages, categories with multiple links to Amazon product pages. With or without Amazon affiliate codes I am not sure DMOZ was intended for this sort of purpose. If someone wants to search Amazon for a subject or a title they should use their site for that.

347 results for Amazon.com
15 for Amazon.co.uk that includes 1 affiliate for Amazon.dk - possible abuse report there if someone wants to check it out.

It may be worthwhile doing a complete investigation of the use of Amazon links within the ODP.

 

May be "senior" editors are doing "SEO" project for Amazon.

 

Well without affiliate codes they won't be benefitting much will they

 

Except selling more books by spamming DMOZ.... Regardless of how the DMOZ editor rules are "interpreted", a quality directory should not be used in this way, IMHO. I didn't even think to do a search for more. I just noticed the links in this category:


http://www.dmoz.com/Science/Agricul...culture/Organic_Farming/Biointensive_Culture/

 

Looks like a John Jeavons personal sales category.

The three Winrock links don't lead to where they purport to.

LOL, even the sites not leading directly to Mr Jeavons lead to sites with links to him and his products. I count two working links that do not lead to one of his products.

 

Is simple fix, rename the whole category:

http://www.dmoz.com/Science/Agriculture/Sustainable_Agriculture/Organic_Farming/John_Jeavons/

LOL

By WHOIS and addresses at bottom of webpages, almost all looked to be owned by him anyway..... Sheesh

Whoever edited that category needs a swift kick out of the Editor club.

 

Someone fixed the category - the changes should show soon.

Thanks for letting us know which category - if you find anymore categories like that please post.

 

Looks a whole lot better. Thanks for getting on that quick.

 

that's intresting . i saw it for the first time