Spam city ! Advertising a free directory with no recip links = no profit and no backlinks ! If you turn paid, then the number of submissions will reduce dramatically however, when you do get a new submission, it will either mean money or a backlink...
Switch to paid, but do give a refund, not refunding is not cool. If you do insist in no refund, do state clearly your reason why, so that you dont get angry submitters annoyed at no listing and out of pocket.
Well, the "paid" submissions should mean that you pay for the review of the link, whether it gets approved or not. If not, then they are simply paid links plus you waste the time with refunds.
I have the same trouble with one of my oldest directories. I get a ton of rubbish and about a flake of gold each and every day. The biggest problem I face are continual duplicate submissions from what appear to be submission services. I really don't think you are going to see a big change even if you go paid. I tried that and just wound up deleting for non-payment. Didn't use to be that way, but I guess the longer your directory is around the more garbage you're likely to get. Anyway, you can always try going paid to see what happens????? Best of luck!
Either you need a spam blocker or you need to make your site of "better quality" ie: Write some original information on the submission page.
Free directories gets lots of SPAM submissions, So that makes life even more tougher. So u have 2 options hire some one to review the tons of submissions or make it a paid directory
common reason submission in wrong category extremely low quality of site (read MFA, Autoblog, nothing but affliate links) email address not working (99% of website submission services have mailbox full) and I hate those sites that ask me to submit some kind of personal information and do not have a clear privacy policy and a phisycal address. (that's 99% of payday loans)
I have a clear submission policy. I do not see how some original content on my submission page can make my dir a "better quality" site.
Thats where it gets complicated, defining what your offering, justifying what your keeping, so if a review is paid for, why not still list the site and tell the world that the site is junk? A review elsewhere results in a good, bad or somewhere in between result.
As an estimate, for free submissions we generally find 10% - 20% are acceptable with the odd day where almost nothing is of any quality. This is after automatic filtering to refuse parked domains, under construction home pages, descriptions in the 1st person, bad words and so on being allowed into the review queue. So I'd say your numbers are about right. Going paid only will not stop all junk submissions, we offer express reviews and do get MFA sites submitted along with other assorted junk. It's general a review for inclusion. Listing a site with a message that it's junk is going to get you a charge back, a request to remove the site plus various abuse for telling the world that their beautiful site (in their eyes) is junk and probably a letter from their lawyer. Heck tweaking title or description text can cause some to go into melt down.
Thats what im pointing out though, that if its a fee for a review then how can only the better site get listed, i totally understand what your saying, its common sense not to want to list a bad site, im just saying that should it really be called a review, does it really fit for what is being offered. I personally dont feel that it is the ideal label for the service offered.
That would be covered under the sites T&C ie no poor quality etc will be accepted and review fee refunded. I do however see your angle on the topic.
surely paid submissions are not the way for SEO anymore...I was wondering what this will mean for ppl with directories?
Another thing i want to point out is that i dont have an answer myself yet, i keep going over this in my head but im yet to find a solution to it.
Call it inspection, examination, consideration of, either way you're reviewing (as in a formal or official examination) the contents of a site to see it meets your criteria and if it does you give it a stamp of approval by listing it or a failure by not listing it. Personally I think "review" is a good enough fit. I think it just means you have to by links for traffic not PR.