Fellow members, I have been thinking about it. At times, I receive requests from site owners who offer "more money" to get their site listed in my directory...not adult sites but sites that do violate the directory guidelines. Either, the site content isn't "acceptable" or the description or the title the webmaster would like to choose is something I don't want to give. I believe I am not the only one to have gone through this dilemma. I'm calling it a dilemma because I did happen to hesitate before I said no. I am being honest! Good directories need investment and as many here would agree, we reinvest a part (most part of it more often) of our directory earnings back into the directory itself. However, lately I did visit some of the directories that I still have a lot of respect for and wondered if I made a mistake; some do indulge in leniency when it comes to anchor text. Am I being silly for so hardly holding on to principles? Is there really a balance between monetization, guidelines and keeping up with competitors? Any feedback will be appreciated. Thanks
Well i wasn't accepting gambling sites in mine, often i was tempted to and when you're getting those paid submissions coming from gambling sites and refunding them, you kinda think am i doing the best thing here. Regarding anchor text, im quite lenient on that. Its a constant balancing act, and each directory owner setting their own rules, theres some that wont hesitate to reject and refund if a site is not strictly within the guidelines, regardless of the money. I think if some are thinking very long term then they are thinking maybe a few of the wrong types of sites or bad titles or whatever could have lasting negative effects. Who knows, i know its a little internal battle at times, especially when you might need the money more during a bad month or two. Sometimes not an easy decision.
My opinion, and my opinion only (opinions are like aholes, everyone has one and some stink more than others). * If you can pay more in order to have the anchor text of your choice, then you're just buying a link. * If you can pay more for preferential placement ("featured listing" or "bid for position"), you're just buying a link. * If you can pay more for additional links to your site with your preferred anchor texts, you're just buying a link. Are the above indicatiors of a quality directory or one whose primary purpose is to manipulate the results of a search engine? If it were your search engine - how much value would you assign to a directory that was trying to skew your results? Hold on what you feel is right for you - everything else will fall in line. It may not be the same line that others follow, but hey, that's ok. A little diversity is a good thing, isn't it?
@alistair80: Never compromise your integrity/ethics for a fee. The moment you do, your most valuable commodity becomes worthless. So many others do it and make the quick easy buck. Don't do it, choose the other path. It's harder but the rewards are greater in the long run
So I the problem I see thus far in this thread is the same problem I see in directories adhering to guidelines of any kind. Most owners don't follow quality guidelines, but rather some skewed internal moral compass. What I mean is that a typical directory owner will say - Oh my site does not have spam, or we have very strict guidelines we follow because we don't accept gambling or we don't accept porn or we don't accept a site that links to porn, we don't accept pharmacy etc. You get the drift. They state those things about general niches of websites without referring to the quality of those websites. There can and are in fact high quality websites on the net that deal with the topics of gambling, pharmacy and other niches called taboo by some directory owners. Now all one really needs to do is hit just a few of the directories generally considered high quality by MOST people. Those like business.com, botw, yahoo, dmoz/google directory (yuck) just to name a few. Go there and take a look, do a search for online gambling, porn or any of the niches most here are describing as a symbol of their "tough standards or editing" because they don't allow them. You will likely find all the taboo topics well covered in any of those directories mentioned because a directory categorizes and lists quality internet resources. The keyword being quality.... Is it the directory owners job to let their personal biases guide them to determine quality by disqualifying certain niches automatically? There are quality gambling sites, I have been told there are quality porn sites, there are quality pharmacy sites etc.... Niche is not a determining factor of quality - quality is a determining factor of quality regardless of niche and a directories guidelines should clearly spell out the factors they adhere to when determining quality. Then they should stick to it in all cases. Creed pointed out a good quality factor with anchor text, though I am sure if you ask 10 different owners you will get 10 different answers on allowable anchor text. Personally I look at anchor text as - if I were walking by the storefront of that listing what would the sign on the street say? It should tell you who the business is. I don't buy the argument against featured listings though nor the deep links argument unless your talking only about the anchor text allowed in them again. After all you can go to a newspaper and get different types of ads, different placement and different graphics. Google itself uses navigational links to internal pages of a website so visitors can more easily find what they seek. To me quality is more about the site than the niche. Does it offer something unique to visitors they can't find elsewhere? Is the content unique? Is it well structured? Do the links work? Is there illegal content? And more.... Is the anchor text withing guidelines and the description unique? If not we need to re write... Now saying all that I still have biases that guide me in some cases. For example I don't list porn. But that is in the guidelines and as the owner I have that prerogative. Anyway family is calling so have to run. Did not really complete my thoughts but it will have to do.
I guarantee you there are some fantastic quality porn sites, lol Not listing some sites is not always about if they are a good idea or not in a directory, its about whether a payment processor will allow it.
yeah ... i found myself give in once, and i could just see my paypal account getting limited coz of dealing with casino sites! refunded the next day itself! but later i found a trick that would make me highly unpopular around these areas, and some would even give me red! ..... BUT works for me, .... sites which do NOT follow my guidelines usually stay away, which submit even then, ... what can i say,... im clear on my part! in bold text here (point #3) M.