I'm currently in the process of creating a high-quality directory and I'd like to hear from those other owners of a quality directory on some guidelines and standards that a site must meet to be accepted. Thanks!
This is a guideline Submission Guidelines » We only accept top level domains. No deep linking, folders, referral urls or subdomains allowed even if you are buying a featured listing! » Do not submit listings in top level categories, if you don't see a suitable category for your web site, suggest one! » No Adult, illegal, hate, violent or racism related sites. If you try to submit such site, you will be pernamently banned! » Only legit, developed web sites will be reviewed. Do not submit web sites "under construction". You will be rejected! » Do not submit eBay™ or Amazon™ stores. You will be rejected! » Do not submit web sites with excessive advertisements/pop-ups, or any web sites created for advertisement purpose. You will be rejected! » Do not submit web sites with poor graphic representation. Variegated, bright and unprofessional web sites will be rejected! Web sites filled with flash, java, activex or other features that make them hard to access will be rejected! » In case of purchasing a featured listing and not getting approved, the payment is fully refundable! » Please do not abuse this service; any listings that don't follow the above guidelines will be rejected! This is only an example Please do not copy (or use on another directory copyright 2006-2007 forplex TM) this is only a guideline each directory in our opinion should have it's own set guidelines
Thats the point I iwshed to say here I would never accept a site which has a bad design as bad design means loss of visitors to a site Also ban those who use autosubmitters to submit
Design and Pagerank have nothing to do with guidelines imo Site must not be under construction or missing a huge portion of it's content. Site must not be full of ads nor affiliates. To create a high quality directory you must be ready to take time reviewing each sites, it's not up to everyone to maintain a quality directory. If you own a linkfarm you don't need guidelines! Linkfarms doesn't last long though...
autosubmitters are evil. I suspect it I delete it. Usually they are in the wrong category. If they have more than one site I will just not accept any, this is for my Free directory. On a pay directory i'm more than willing to move the site to a proper category if I need to.
I have simple rules if people don't respect them i reject sites instantly and then olso don't like sites with adsense 80% and content 20% Just my 2 cents
i manually check all the requests and then only i will accept them. at first i do get a lot of advertisement sites,lot of them are medical related.
Excellent answer britishguy, the problem with offering advice is that whilst it is meant in the best of intentions it is often take too literally. You are so right when you say that each directory should have its own 'unique' if possible set of guidelines. It goes to help eliminate the dupes out there.
High Quality = High Standards High Standards only work when they are consistantly enforced. That's all there really is to it. Sorry, didn't address the question posed in the thread title . . . With me, it's one of 5 options: If the submission follows the rules - it's in, submittor gets custom email. If the submission is close and maybe just needs a little tweaking and I'm feeling generous - I'll fix it and list. If it looks like an inexperienced webmaster and their site/submission needs a little guidance - I might email and offer suggestions (this option is rarely used) There was one case where the person's submission simply didn't fit MY definition of the category while fulfilling 100% of the guidelines. I emailed the person explaining that my idea of Home Decor was not a Realtor offering decorating suggestions for a particular style of home only found in California. (That was an early submission - not sure if I would bother today.) If the submission runs totally foul of any of the guidelines - it gets deleted PERIOD! I don't care if they own a directory, MFA site or are the top resource on the topic; they get deleted. I also don't waste my time sending an email.
How do you detect these autosubmitters? Also, do any of you go review the sites after a few weeks since its approval? Just to see if they are a top-notch site worth listing in your directory.
You might get lucky and catch thier IP when your online depending what script you have, then if you do ban the IP. If you dont use a script like phpLynx then you can always check via cPanel, although I'm not sure if you can check on IP's like you can above? Perhaps someone else can help on that? It's always good to re-review a site, as they can change content and often do, its very time consuming and depends on your level of committment to quality. Someone posted on another thread recently, 'it ain't aasy running a succesful directory', that's very true. But if you work hard at it the rewards can be worth it.
Design imho has nothing to do with the quality of a website and shouldn't be taken into account when reviewing a site. Of course that's just a personal opinion.
Design is such a subjective thing and running a directory takes enough time and effort without becoming a design critic. The only time I would factor in design is if the site is so terribly designed as to make navigation impossible for all but the psychic.