Why English sites only?

Is there a special reason why some directories are only asking for english only sites to be listed in their directories?

Enquiring mind wants to know

 

I wonder that too at times, missing out on a lot of potential custom around the world.

Fortunately my sites cover a variety of languages so it creates less of a problem for myself but must be frustrating for others i imagine.

 

Yea, exactly, I can't understand if sites comply if I don't speak the language of the site.

Also, it requires a different and more complicated plan if you are going to structure and organize your directory so that it can accept and list in a reasonably neat categorization of the directory.

Many obviously believe it's not worth the effort.

But many don't, with so many directories out there...

 

Most directories only accept English sites because of the need to manually review every site. For example, I don't speak Polish so how can I possibly review a Polish website? Fortunately, many sites in non-English will usually have an English version though, as English has become a kind of a global Internet language.

 

Couple reasons I can think of...

1) Verification... knowing the language.
2) Familiarity with advertising or advertising requirements.

I'd imagine if you were to divide the content so people that couldn't speak a language didn't have to weed through the contents, then you'd just get language specific advertisers for each section.

The way I look at it is this, if you get big enough that you need other languages to allow expansion, then you can afford to hire people that speak the language to help build that part of your content and to manage whatever revenue strategies you have for it.

Alternately, if I can't convince people in my native tongue to put themselves into my directory, what hope do I have of giving them good reasons in some other language?

 

I think primarily English speakers, including myself could consider making more of an effort with regards to other languages.
Too many English speaking countries think that the non english speakers should learn English but we dont always seem so keen to return the kindness.

Recently an Estonian friend made my jaw drop with how well he spoke, read and could write english, his understanding of English grammer was far beyond my own, his effort to always get it correct was amazing.

Regarding other languages, there are always free online translators, and while some may make an excuse that they dont work correctly all the time, they can still be used to get the jist of things.

 

I will accept other language sites if they look good. If they do look like a good site, I'll run a translator to make sure it is good but I only put them in the World category and dont allow then in regular categories on my site.

 

I manually review each site, so if I can't understand what's in the site, how can I decide whether it should be listed or not? If there's an English version of the site, then I'll list that url instead.

 

Another good reason for keeping a directory English-only is that it's more likely the submitter can read the submission guidelines, terms of use, etc, if their site is in the same language. But I think the main reason has to do with what an editor can understand and review, as others have mentioned.

I imagine there are other directories out there that only accept sites in particular non-English languages. But because DP is in English we don't get to hear about them on here.

 

Because english is widely used...

 

But so is Spanish, it covers a good part of the world and others like French too.

 

and mandarin too

 

I am accepting any language, as long as it states that in the description, in the last part. Site in X language.

And as long as the website has an easily accesible english laguage version (and selector).

 

Time is money and the time required to translate websites when possible is too costly.

 

We don't require, because we do have directories in multilanguages.

http://www.a1directorysearch.com/ (English) 100% done
http://www.a1directorysearch.com/dir/spanish/ (Spanish) 95 % done
http://www.a1directorysearch.com/dir/french/ (French) 20% done
http://www.a1directorysearch.com/dir/russian/ (Russian) 30% done

Also we are working on (Norwegian) (German) (Italian) (Dutch) (Portuguese)

Please suggest more languages as you like to see in a1directorysearch.com

 

Nice, where do you find the time...

 

I have no biases, I am just targetting the English speaking market.

With English being my primary language, it'd be pretty hard to review international submissions

 

C'mon dude .. Are you not fluent in Ancient Greek ?

 

Aye? .....