Or we could turn the model upside down - when a site is accepted, then the fee is returned. When the site is not accepted, the fee is kept.
I think we also have to distinguish the difference between: A. Refunding if a site is not approved. B. Refunding when a site is already listed. Personally, I refund when the site is clearly not going to be approved, but do not refund a site that has previously been listed.
The review time really depends; sometimes only looking at the description you get the picture: P other times you have to look to homepage and there are other times that you have to look inside the website. I think 1/3 of the submission fee is fair for example $10 review fee on a $30 submission and the review fee should be equal to regular or featured submissions.
I believe it's your duty to review every site by visiting it and reviewing it, otherwise, what's the point of even promoting a directory of "high quality sites" if you haven't even reviewed them?
100% refunds are the way i run my directories, unless after i refunded a fee that person kept up with the same thing, in this case i would make no further refunds...
For the listed sites I always do a deep review and periodically I visit them again, I was talking about the rejected sometimes you don’t lose a loot of time, you get the picture very fast .
Seeing that it's been about 10 months, I'm wondering if anyone has a different view to share or if they've changed their minds about how to handle review fees. Providing a review is a service; once the review is completed are services rendered? Should there be a refund if the submission is not accepted? I think submitters will always lean towards a refund, but how about those of you who are providing the service? Do you like providing a service without compensation? If your guidelines are clear that you do not accept affiliate sites and some one comes along and submits an affiliate site are you obligated to refund the guy's submission fee? Any further thoughts on this subject from other directory owners?
I try to be fair with everybody and for the most part if a site does not meet the guidelines then I just send a refund, as it is not really a big deal to do so. But I do have this warning on every submit page: "Warning: If you submit a website or webpage that you know other people will find offensive you will not receive a refund, for example if you submit a site that is clearly pornographic you will not receive a refund from index-it.net. As long as your site is clean and useful for others then it will be accepted." If someone does the above then they will not receive a refund regardless of how many they submitted. Other then that I am pretty cool when it comes to reviews, although I do still have a problem when people submit sites that are filled with adsense.
Send a refund. I don't like to keep money that does not belong to me and ceratainly just for opening up someones website to realise literally within seconds that the will be rejected.
If you have a good enough directory and some editors to back it up, there should be no problem in refunding the full amount. If the money isn't refunded, people would be afraid to submit the next time.
If site does not follow clear guidelines (lets say you state no PR0 sites) and still get the submission and you reject the site, I think refunding is just a personal choice (no refund, partial refund, full refund) .. If you reject a site for a non clear reason (lets say you think design is terrible or something that is a matter of taste) then I think refunding is a must.
Only truely aspirational directories can actually succeed with the policy of retaining review fee's Even Botw offers the option of revising submissions, or replacing the submitted site with a more acceptable site Yahoo also bends over backward to given applicants a chance to get listed So, if a directory clearly keeps review fee's an gives no feedback , well I for one would avoid it I even know a couple like that, they are not regulars here
Refund always still, provided the submitter does not keep adding the same site & keep expecting refunds.
I think you have to consider how many times an existing listing will get re-reviewed each year. If you do a 404 check monthly and a manual check quarterly, then it would be reasonable to retain a quarter or less of the review fee. I'd consider any more to be excessive. The fact is, no matter what the quality of my website and how carefully I read the guidelines, a 100% refund on rejection is more reassuring. Only getting a partial refund on rejection wouldn't put me off submitting if everything else looked okay, so long as it didn't go over a third of the overall fee. But if the directory had a policy that allowed it to take my money and give nothing in return, I'd steer well clear.
i think we should at least keep 30% of it for reviewing the site, and if rejected should allow customers to fix the problems and get listed...