Refunding Submission Fees? What?!??

I fully concur with CReed 100% on the refunding process for reviews.

 

In the approval/disapproval email, this is what the site owner gets from the directory owner:
either "congratulations you are listed in our dir" or "sorry, we can not list you site in our directory".

Is this what you call review? Do you tell the site owner what's wrong with his site, what's good, what can be done to improve his site? no! then you are not selling any reviews, you are selling listings in your directory. Google made you change the name of the service you are providing but you are still providing the same thing.

How about we call it advertisement?

 

I review all of the listed websites on a regular basis that is what the review fees are for, a listed website will probably receive several reviews over the course of a year. It would be unfair to just not refund the payment after the initial review fails. Anyone who does this should make it very clear on the submit link page that this is their policy, not in the guideline but on the prices, like Yahoo do, so something like:

Regular link - $45 (non refundable review fee, if your site is rejected you will not receive a refund)

Or once you submit before you go to PayPal it should say:

This is a non refundable review fee, if your site is rejected you will not receive a refund do you wish to continue?

Anything less would be totally skandelous and complete QBC material. Now that I have a good idea about what types of sites I want, I can usually judge if a site is suitable for inclusion in less then a minute (it used to take a lot longer), Biz Dir is all about business related sites, adsense and affiliate marketing alone do not qualify as business. The descriptions are the bit that takes time.

 

I agree in theory we should be charging for review, but then we have to make it very clear why a site will be rejected. I have made a start with my UK Directory by making only a partial refund to rejected sites who are turned down because they are not UK-relevant. But I have made it clear in the submission guidelines and terms. I'll monitor this for a while to see what reaction I get.

 

No, how about we call it a fee for submission and review, which it is. I spend a lot of time listing good sites that were never submitted so we can make a decent directory. If someone wants to submit their site for consideration they're welcome to do it, but please read the guidelines to see what we won't accept.

Seems some directory owners are selling listings or advertising, how about those of you who are selling these links or advertisement call it what it is and there will be no confusion.

Are you making a place to advertise websites? Or are you making a directory of useful resources? Say what you mean and it all becomes simple.

If you want a review AND a written critic of your website, feel free to pm me. I don't mind providing that additional service if you're willing to pay for it. Maybe one of the mod developers could create a mod for this additional service?

 

I bet outsiders of the directory world sit p**ing themselves laughing at us lot we all bite the bait everytime.

The good thing is discussion shows we actually care about virtually everything in the world of directories, the bad thing is we make the same mistakes, making enemies with our fellow people.

We always keep going off topic

Heres something funny, im in Britain and the sun is shining and its warm, no really it is... Damn off topic again

 

I am with mhamdi on this one

 

A couple of key points to this thread.

The point that nobody has brought up her is consistency.
If you do not refund an MFA site, then you better not refund a site with a sub par design.

Also, you should never feel pressured to accept a website, if (hypothetically) I rejected alive or aviva because I felt that it was not providing a content benefit for visitors, I would receive such backlash form the directory community that my directory would nearly crumble.

Submission price should have absolutely nothing to do with refund policy.
If my featured links are $100, then I have the same right to not refund as a site charging $10, of course the directory owner MUST not be biased in rejecting listings, and must the decision to reject the site with utmost certainty.

 

Best of luck to anyone who decides to take someones money without giving them a listing.

 

It's great to see the participation and I really appreciate everyone's comments, opinions and ideas. I don't think anyone should be concerned with receiving negative rep, we should be openly discussing topics that affect us all. There's no real need or advantage to making it personal, and we all tend to lose a little bit in the end when it does happen.

I realize that there are different business models and I ask these questions to get input from many, as our experiences vary. I'm not suggesting that we immediately change the way we do business and we must all conform to the same standards.

I'm just asking that we each take a closer look at how we do business and see if there are ways that we can make improvements.

There are many good points raised by those that oppose the idea, as well as from those that support the idea. All of these ideas and comments are well worth considering before making any changes.

I know that many are comfortable with their current model and I respect your views and comments and hope you'll do the same with others. If you've been following the discussion thus far and haven't commented, I'd like you to please consider doing so.

 

I do refund the money if I reject. I think "review fee" is more an ideal that many directory owners rather want to call instead of "listing fee". And I assume many directory owners do so because of a possible penalty on link selling sites by Google.

If that's the reason, then you can get rid of the text and use an image, for example. It's easy to fix that.

IMO, I think any submitters/advertisers would consider the money is for their sites being listed. So, the fee should be listing fee. They wouldn't like the idea that they may lose money if rejected. It's not their intention to pay money just for getting their sites reviewed.

 

Nice post. You made a very good point CReed. I agree with most opinions given here.. Very nice!

 

Here is my question:

How in the hell do I know if my site qualifies to be included in your directory?

So many times we're more concerned about the money not your potential customers which might have more than one website.

I think is unfair to take the money when there is no way or no option for the submitters to know if their listing will be accepted.

Unless, I can give them this option I will refund their money 100%.

I gues what we should worry about how to improve our service to them. How can you justify a $50 or $100 review fee. I would agree it takes time, but isn' this part of this business. As many other type business there is loss of time and money, but there is also great rewards.

If ever take a no refund policy, it will not be 100% of their submission fee. Come on people - It is just common sense and it's looks more of qbc act than a professional standard for the directory industry. Just becasue big companies are doing it doesn't mean is right or the best policy to implement.

One option would be to ask for small one time review fee which is non refundable and if their listing is acceptable then they should submit their listing again with and pay what your fee is. This suggestions is at least more common sense than the ones I have read on this thread. Regarless, reviewing a listing is part of a directory owner business and we should not expect to be paid for doing this in my view.

We should by all means encourage people to submit to our directories rather then scare them away with this stuff.

 

I do understand directories work hard on promoting and making their site strong for Search engines such as Google.

I submit to free directories and only would pay for those ones I actually feel the price is justifiable.

A big turn off would see a no refund policy, unless of course its the Yahoo! DIR, where I did not hesitate in risking $299 for a yearly review fee.

I recently signed up here, I hang out more at SEOChat, and believe me, there are so many directories that I do not hear of.

Those that I do w/out having to come here, can have any policy they want and I'll still submit. But for those directories that just spring up, a no refund policy would for sure scare the heck out of them.

 

I disagree 100%. If a site meets all of the advertised submission guidelines, but you deny the site based on your personal grudge against the site's owner or a bias against the site's message, does that give you the right to keep the submitter's fee simply because you looked at the home page for 2 minutes?

QUESTION: Jeff, if I were to launch a directory (from my PR7 domain) in which I charge a fee of $99 to "review" sites, but openly state in advance that none of the sites that I "review" will be listed in my directory, how many sales would I make?

ANSWER: 0

 

I agree 100% with this viewpoint. Sorry, but nobody pays another person to visually "review" his/her site. Let's get real here.

 

Well first of all, if you start a directory from scratch and get the domain to PR 7, than obviously people won't mind submitting because you have inner pr. If you have no inner pr and are just charging 99$ for the heck of it, than count me out in your submission list regardless of the money back or not.

Who is here saying they will not accept any site they review. I believe you are just taking it to extreme and saying that. Does yahoo directory say that they won't accept any site they will accept ??? Or do they not accept sites at all and just take your 299$ away ???

I believe not, they do say its a non-refundable fee, but they do approve the quality sites. Obviously if you submit a site which have 10 adsenses, 5 affiliates banner, and you pay 299, they will reject your site.

Now let me answer the question, how will i know will my site be accepted ??

Read the guidelines, i will use my directory just as an example

Is your site a gateway page ?
Is your site full with adsense ? (This just does not mean only google adsense)
Is your site is a complete casino ?
Is it an underconstruction site ?
Is your site the one you are submitting redirecting to another site ?
Is your site a MFA Type?

If the answer to any of these questions are YES, than definately you will not be approved !!!


If the answers are no, than you are in a safe boundary, and more likely than not, if i reject you it will be because the site lacks something, and if i know you or you give a right email in the submission, i do contact you and explain the reasons with a refund.



Is it a turn down when you see non-refundable in front ?? Well it should not be if you think your site qualifies.

Obviously it should be a turn down to those who are submitting a site which i specified above are not allowed. These terms of services are meant to be a turn down for those. If they don't read and just blantly submit and click the check box that yes yes they agree.... than it is not my fault. It wastes my time to review a site which have 10 google adsense, 15 affiliate banners. I am sorry just not getting in and as i charged for a review, it would be non-refundable.

So basically what i am saying is that anything clearly specified in the terms, which is not allowed and you do it will end up in a non-refundable fee because i only don't refund those where i know i have full rights and i can prove myself if a paypal dispute is opened.

But all the other times when it is not mentioned, I will refund the money.

Couple of days ago, i was talking to williamjack (Sanjay) owner of e-internetindex, he said he will submit 4 featured to my site... i said ok

he went ahead and send the fee for all 4 together, and it turned out all 4 were online casinos.

But i didn't mention in my guidelines i won't allow online casino sites. I went ahead rejected all the sites, refunded his money because obviously he didnot know that.

Than added another line in my terms of service that NO Online Casinos are allowed.


Just my personal perspective hopefully some see my point.

 

Never let the colour of a rep prevent you from posting, if someone posts a red you can bet one thing, your speaking the truth. I know I get tons of reds but the greens I get are from people who count and know I post facts.

Back to the topic in hand.

You made a point on submission guidelines and the no refund policy, So I went and looked at yours and focussed on this one first.

Sites providing little or no unique content will not be considered. Fair enough, a good rule to have....BUT!!

This opens up a whole new can of worms, for what do you as an editor consider to be 'little content'? Big Web Links? All of 750 links, (101 of them directories!) or perhaps Bling directory which if you look in the very first page, how many links? 2. Go through the entire directory as I did and each page is the same, LITTLE or NO content.

your link description in http://www.idk.in/Arts/Design/ of Award.to, which states, (and I'm assuming its you who edits this? Future home of the Worlds best designed websites. The place for your design inspirations. But when you click on it the link is a bidding directory?

I could go on and on but I won't, I'm merely pointing out the fact that your somewhat firm statement Sites providing little or no unique content will not be considered. doesn't hold true.

Moral of the story, practice what you preach otherwise people could quite justifiably argue a case with paypal or other processor that your no refund policy is completely flawed.

 

I think this is best way to deal with this issues:

You're assuming and expecting a lot from submitters. To you it is perfectly clear but to others is not (beauty is in the eye of the beholder). What I think is crap or something else might not seem to you the same and besides there are a lot of directories owners with different ideas and guidelines.

Your guidelines and many others that I have seen can be disputed because they are not 100% objective.

Is it their fault for submitting a listing that for sure is not going to be accepted in you directory? I think not. Let's start over and see what's missing with the directories.

In my opinion the problem is not with submitters, but with the directories themselves.So we must come up with a solution and not let our visitors choose whether to submit or not submit a listing.

I think if they submit to your directory is because they believe the listing will be accepted. I can understand the frustration of having to review sites and refund the fees, but certainly there is a better alternative.

 

you have to refund the fee plain and simple otherwise its robbery. Or at least a percentage back.