I don't think it looks good either for a home page to be completly overun with one type of business and I guess gambling does turn-off a lot of people so you might be losing sales by having them take up the entire (or most) of the home page. When I designed my bid directory I purposely made it so one type of business could not dominate the home page.
I don't have any issues with gambling sites as a whole, but you have to admit that many online gambling sites are really committing piracy and their restrictions against children participating are a joke. I've never been on any of your sites, so please understand that I am not specifically talking about you here. It's just like the negative reputation used car salesmen and lawyers have - a few bad apples and everyone gets painted with the same brush. There are 2 different questions at the core of this thread... Do I have to accept every site and how do I keep one industry from monopolizing the front page of a bidding directory? The examples on this question can span a wide range. I have a perfectly good submission on my pet directory - there's nothing wrong with the site in general. But, no matter how many times they submit their site that talks about how safe a pet pit bulls are and how they are just misunderstood, it will never be a part of one of my sites. I guess you could call it editorial control or a disagreement of opinion, but quite frankly it's my damn site and my decision. That said, if I had taken money from that site owner for a listing and they also paid to be on the front page of my site; I have 2 choices - give them what they paid for or refund their money - quite simple really.
It is just simple, whether you allow gambling sites on your directory Or you don't allow, Does not matter If they make it to the homepage. After all everyone is looking for a better exposure.
I think it's a flaw with the structure of most bidding directories, although some bidders would regard it as a feature. It just happens that casinos and other directories tend to have the most interest in spending money on this type of directory, but it could easily be any other type of website. So bidding directory owners have this choice: restrict the numbers of websites on the front page to 2 or 3 per category, be explicit about this in your terms, and prepare to issue refunds. Or carry on as before, and find your directory moving further and further towards one particular niche.
I see that you have a problem with gambling sites, but why not telling anything about directories? What are most directories made for? Yeah, you've guessed. FOR OTHER DIRECTORIES. On every directory that I visit the "directory" category is the most popular. If the gambling sites have infested bid directories, then other directories have already taken it over.
US gov't is so hypocritical; you can buy gov't sponsored lotto tickets, gamble on riverboats and Native American lands, but you can't gamble online? What a joke. I am seeing more and more submissions from online gambling "portals" which makes it tough to judge whether they do or do not actually enable online gaming services. I suspect that all of them are owned by online gambling sites anyway. I am really on the line now about whether to accept or reject these sites since the line has become so blurred and you hear all these horror stories about PayPal bans, etc.
Casinos pay us a commission ,they dont run the portals and trust me when they are slow to pay our players ,we can put their feet to the fire.There are global meetings for casino affiliates ,next one is in UK .We run a serious business ,pay our taxes and are committed to keeping our industry clean. I can accept when a directory owner is worried about having his paypal blocked ,it has happened to me .Most of us have seperate media companies in place to buy our advertising outside of our gambling identity for this reason.
This is censorship - why? I don't like all the bidding directories on my homepage and would welcome some gambling sites, but they are the top bidders so there they stay. If it's a bidding directory and the category is allowed why censorship? Cake and eat it comes to mind
This is funny. The reason you build bidding directory is to sell the links, why you care who is the top bidder as long as they are legit?
Matt cutts in his blog says that poker and casino etc are low quality or spammy links!! anyways, on my bidding directory i don't accept gambling sites but then if someone accepts its his personal preference and i don't have any problems with that. anyways, cheers!
U got it wrong , where does mattcutt say that he considers them as spammy he says user consider those sites as spammy lying on linux site (a particular niche not related to gambling or poker in general), do not try to twist the meaning of the blog post Mattcutt never speaks directly he likes to twist words so people can twist them further lolz