Why is my site removed?

I can't remember exactly - infolic maybe.

 

Boohlick:

I think you may have shot yourself in the foot...

A couple of minutes searching on Google turns up a case heard in the Supreme Court (the verdict of which was handed down on the 25th of October - only four weeks ago) concerning bad debts of almost $60,000 owed to Telstra. Perhaps that is the case being referred to?

If 'intense scrutiny' of your site caused DMOZ editors to come across the court case, and has led them to question the site's legitimacy and listability, then in terms of your credibility it may be more advisable to allay the concerns of DMOZ editors, rather than claim no knowledge of the case...

 

^^ Also a good thing to keep in mind when asking for another perspective.

-peter

 

Not necessarily.

Was that what the case was about? Depends whether it has any relevance to the business of operating an immigration consultancy. We could do the work ourselves but since the guy is around it is reasonable to let him answer.

That wasn't intense scrutiny, that was a basic Google check I and most other editors would perform every single time! The result in this case confirms the need to be very cautious and to do further checks. Hence the question whether it was related. What we wouldn't want to do is list a site when the owner has just been convicted of fraudulent trading for example.

I hope not. Nothing the webmaster does in terms of asking questions impacts on the listability of the site and should not be a factor.

 

I getting hopeless for my site to get a category update
Anyway can i just let my site be listed in the category that it used to be listed in?
Can I somehow cancel my request, so it can be placed again in the category it used to be?

 

No. If the process of scrutinising it reveals something that causes concern that concern covers all categories - we can't just forget about it. How about answering the questions posed to see if the concern is justified. If you are being honest then there should be nothing to worry about.

 

what is the question.. can you elaborate it more. so i can answer your question
and BTW what can you suggest about problem regarding my request? Thanks

 

The question is what is the court case about and does it have any relevance to the immigration consultancy business. I suggest the problem with your request is that it draws attention to a site that begins to kinda lack credibility. How does immigration consultancy fit in with premium rate psychic hotlines for instance. One is an activity that is quasi legal professional and the other is fun at best, possibly fraud at worst (depending on whether you believe in psychic abilities and whether they can be practiced over the phone). That isn't to say that whilst very odd as a business model it isn't entirely legal and legitimate - convince us by honest explanation please, we want to list legal and legitimate sites. If there are other things we are likely to find by simple Google search on key site information it might be best to anticipate and explain those too.

Usually a webmaster doesn't get the opportunity to reassure editors as regards their concerns about a site and the people behind it. You have a unique chance here. In the time it has taken to listen to you and throw questions back editors could have listed a dozen other sites. So no-one is dismissing your site out of hand, editors are willing to listen.

Another question has just arisen. In the site when you first raised this question your office address in Sydney was in Ultimo. Now it is in Pyrmont. Could you please explain that too. Thanks.

 

Brizzie, thanks for listening. We really appreciate it. I understand the situation we're in, and I would gladly

provide as much information to prove the site's credibility.

Please allow me to explain, first of all, Australian Immigration consultancy has nothing to do with the premium

rates of psychic hotline. - Nationalvisas.com.au is completely independent from any sites. There is no information

in the site that directly associates the site to the said "psychic hotlines".

Can you please tell me how you have associated nationalvisas.com.au to the "psychic hotlines"?

Please provide me the source of this information. As I do not recall that the site nor the company to have the case

you have mentioned.

The move was necessary because of the planned expansion of the service provided and for better mobilization of the

agents. I believe that every growing company goes through this phase.

 

The psychic link in my sig is not really related to me or to national visas. It just happen that my close friend has this psychic site and he ask if i can put his links in sig.I said yes and so I placed it

 

Your sig and some other easely to find information only triggered us to invest your situation. Brizzie wrote

You only get one chance with such an opportunity. Take that chance.

 

Being untruthful is not a good idea .... how come the whois data has your name and address listed?

 

I can see that hole getting deeper - stop digging!

 

Are you worried that the psychic link might actually work and that he'll find out your other identity?

 

Telephone, telephone on the wall, who is the worst idiot of them all? CBP

I bet he is not very happy that he can't delete the threads here, like he does in WPW.

 

OK, holes have been dug. Simple "editor tool" - Google - unfortunately very little is beyond the googlebots, especially when your game is publicity for your sites. You take one key piece of information, Google on it, and see what comes up. In this case premium rate phone numbers, the psychic hotline, the immigration consultancy, mortgages, home security, probably more if you pick another piece of core information. They share key business information displayed on all the sites across all these areas, not giving a mate a bit of publicity via a link. Pick one of those company names that come up in the first search and google on it and you get a court case that by all accounts has to do with a substantial debt. The associations are not via anything on your signature here. I could tell you which bit of key information links everything together but why should I - you know they are linked already and I am not helping you to erase the trail as you did by changing the Sydney address on the site when you realised it was a bit incriminating.

You will recall that old address, 2-12 William Henry Street in Ultimo where you were located in Sydney until a few days ago. I am not surprised you had to move from there to expand. Again a simple search turned up http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=414670 and that has been verified as a recent photo first hand but there is another one going back to August. That is pretty condemning evidence of something a bit more serious than simply trying to get a better placed listing in an Internet directory. It might have been simply an error on the site - an old address not updated but a matter of days ago you were giving this address out as the Sydney branch on Resource Zone. So you were trying to sell us a building site as a legitimate business address. What would have happened had I paid you thousands of dollars to sort out a visa then turned up at the Sydney office to meet a member of staff in person?

That is just the stuff on the surface that is available to literally anyone in a couple of minutes. And there is more but it isn't needed. But there might be reasonable and credible explanations even so, for example horrendous coincidence, taking over the business from another company that was into all sorts, a partner with psychic tendencies, the office blew up last week. The questions were asked but personally I haven't seen any answers I feel confident are truthful. And to be honest it is so typical of a large number of sites that arrive daily and so incredibly easy to uncover.

Based on relatively extensive experience I could have predicted this from the first post on Resource Zone. Instinct or intuition, I am not sure. But sometimes it is beneficial to challenge one's instincts and follow it through logically step by step with an open mind to see what emerges. Were my own instincts, and that of other editors who have looked at this case, right? I did think hard about whether it was fair to boohlick to do this openly - this type of discovery process is normally one carried out behind the DMOZ fortress walls. And whether we would be giving away information of use to spammers by revealing investigatory techniques. But boohlick opened the door so I guess that is fair, and on the second count all the info has come from 2 minutes on Google, which is hardly a secret - people would expect editors to make such a basic check on the authenticity of a site.

The question is what to do now. Do we have enough evidence to deny a listing in the national category? Do we have enough evidence to refuse to list it at all? Do we trust the webmaster's other sites? Should the lot be banned permanently? Bearing in mind that editorial decisions do not require the same weight of proof that guilt in a court of law requires, I am very interested in what non-editors verdicts would be on this one. I think everyone knows what an editor would do at this stage but especially the DMOZ detractors - what do you think we should do in these circumstances? And what is your reasoning?

 

Yep, this is typical. We get way more of this junk than good listable suggestions. These people are the reason good websites can sit unreviewed so long. But I wasn't gonna say it.

 

I think his office is in the yellow box in front of the generator.

Yes it really is typical, in one area I have have piles of "different" companies being submitted all claiming to be in different cities. But after a while you catch on to these tactics, and start checking them out. Eventually you find they leave tracks somewhere that give out the real information.

The unfortunate thing is that due to the games played by these kinds of sites, reviewed of honest sites [that submit once with one real address] get delayed.