I made a post before about hiring editors. I was thinking about it and I figured that if I want to hire a directory editor there need to be some guidelines for him to follow. Even if I decided against hiring one. A set of guidelines for approval is handy to have around for my own reference. So here's what I've came up so far. These types of website is strictly not allowed. 1. Made for adsense wesites 2. Made for Amazon affiliate websites 3. Made for Ebay affiliate websites 4. Clickbank landing page 5. Any other kind of landing/lead capture page. General guidelines for other websites: (stuff that is not a requirement but as a general guideline) 1. Should have an easily accessible link to a “Contact us†or equivelant page, preferably with real life contacts.(Snail mail address and telephone numbers) 2. Content is prominent and not cluttered by excessive ads what do you guys think. I feel like I should add more stuff. What do you guys think? Any more ideas? The contact us bit is my own observation. Usually Those MFx sites dont have a contact us page. Or the contact page is just a contact form. But usually small businesses sites or blogs will have the contact info of the owner very prominently displayed. It's not always the case but I feel that it is a good indicator for the vaidity/quality of the site.
It's pretty much fair, your guidelines that is. Maybe you should ask them with a general question, an open end question and listen to their answers, that way ya will understand their general frame of mind.
another reason I want the guideline is that so that I can put it on my submit page. I know it won't deter a spammer much, but someone doing submission service might stop submitting these websites if they know that it won't be accepted into the directory.
A very good idea, I just hired YMC to do my page, and worth every cent, also to acknowledge help from Swedal & JamieG. Still need to add more as i go, but starting with something and building as you go must be a good thing, each directory will have differing needs so no real right or wrongs. good luck with it.
1. Made for adsense wesites 2. Made for Amazon affiliate websites 3. Made for Ebay affiliate websites Could probably put those into one line along with other restrictions related to affiliates. Lots of people only scan guidelines, including me ( unless in signing my life away ) When im not paying for example, i scan guidelines only looking for the following Regarding Title No trailing slash Nearly everything else i wont bother reading, i have about 10 guidelines on mine, and thats enough, maybe too much, i might squeeze the same info into half that soon. When i visit the guidelines page and its huge i wont bother using the directory, i simply cant be bothered, thats regardless of paid or free. The reason because theres huge choice, hundreds of paid dirs, thousands of free ones, 10's of new ones daily. Might be worth thinking about that if you like to get all restrictive, technical, and lawyer sounding with your rules. Think of potential business you may lose because you bored the submitter to death with put off's Its something ive been thinking about lately, i want the punters money but might be putting them off with guidelines and they go elsewhere. Like trying to get into a nightclub, you get asked your age, frisked, stared at and intimidated by the bouncers, still want to go inside? of course you dont, you go to the one next door with less rules
I generally assess a sites unique and quality content when reviewing links in my niche directory. If wikipedia were to add some adsense units I wouldn't decline them. If the adverts dominate the content or if the site is simply a BANS store or landing page I'll reject it.
Because they are generally made with PLR articles and seldom have any value to users. I don't intend to get all lawyer-ish on the guidelines.. I just want to put down some guidelines so that if for example the submitter have 10 MFA sites ready to submit. Sees the guideline, and then don't submit it. Then it will be less work for me and the submitter. Since I'm going to reject it anyway. I'm just trying to filter out the submissions that won't make it before they even submit it. I was hoping that with the guidelines inplace the directory will have better quality, less spammy links submission overall.
ebay niche stores should have no problem. Also, some quality adsense containing sites cannot be called MFA
They won't, because submission services tend to charge by the hundreds of submissions rather than by results. But you should still put up guidelines, because a small percentage will bother to read and understand them. Highlight the most frequently abused submission guidelines on the submit page itself, and then put up your more detailed information on a separate page. The guidelines are never going to be comprehensive, there's always going to be something that you forget to specify. I favour the approach of having some guidelines pop up as javascript alerts when someone enters information that's likely to be against my TOS, so that the submission page isn't too crowded but specific advice comes up when it's needed. Not everyone has JS enabled, but some people do get the message and fix their entries. If you're going to hire an editor, look at the guidelines posted on some of the really old directories. These documents have been built up after a lot of time and experience, so they've become a lot more comprehensive. You will also need to give anyone you hire an internal document laying out more specific things that you don't want to publicise to just anyone: what is your exact threshold for thin content, exactly how large must a forum be in terms of posts and members, your banning policy for spammers, what procedures do you have for spotting SEO spam, how you check for cloaking and hacked websites, and so on.