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My Story:
After loosing ranking
on Google I decided to investigate. I found that
my DMOZ listing has changed. My title became my
website address spelled in one word: mysite.org instead
of the three separate words which is my exact name of my
website and the exact nature of my website, these words
also represent the most popular search phrase for the
nature of my website.
I found that
cape letting took the title "cape town accommodation"
I wanted to know from the DMOZ editor why he does not
change the cape letting title to capeletting, like he
changed mine (and gave my title to cape letting).
After some discussion on the corrupt DMOZ editor forum,
they removed my listing from DMOZ completely.
I could not understand
this aggressive stance until I found out that the editor
for my category: Tourism/travel/cape town is in fact the
owner of capeletting
"The Sister Sites"
who own several listing sites in may category.
These sites belong to one person and rank No1 to 4 on
Google for the relative category. Conveniently,
the person also own a web SEO company that is well
listed in DMOZ. The editor of my travel related
category also allow other owners of SEO businesses (the owners of some
accommodation sites too) to be editors, even after I
presented evidence. You have to be a fool, a stupid fool
if you can't see that he is part of this illegal abuse
of the DMOZ open directory. DMOZ stand a change of
loosing its license as they are no longer a non profit
organization. DMOZ belongs to Netscape.
All I ever asked was to
be listed correctly on DMOZ. They advised me that
I should never have been listed in the first place as
the property owners that advertise on my site also
advertise on other sites and the my website is thus not
unique. Why then does he allow "the sister sites"
to be listed on DMOZ? The people that advertise on
any of the sister sites often advertise on all of them,
or at least two. Most of the advertisers don't
know that these sites belong to the same company.
Advertisers are only impresses by the high Google
ranking of these sites and look no further.
I did a Google search
on "corrupt DMOZ editors" and found the similarity to my
concerns and the contents of these forums very
disturbing:
www.corruptdmozeditor.com
http://www.searchguild.com/printer/fm6/20865/
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum17/2610-13-10.htm
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?threadid=5999
I once again applied to
get listed and they continue to ignore my requests.
This obviously harms my ranking and my ability to offer
a good service to my clients/advertisers. My whole
aim was to list only 10 properties per category in order
to give my advertisers maximum exposure. All the
other sites list everybody, as long as they are willing
to part with money. This is also a unique feature
of my site and the fact that I have a WAP section.
My site is thus unique and comply with listing
guidelines. My site is non commercial. I
found that there are some sites that are 100% against
the guidelines as they have affiliate programs and other
non-complaint features. They still got listed
(they paid the SEO company/DMOZ editor in one way or the
other) What often happens is that they swap
favors: "list my site and I will list any site for you
in my category"
I have decided to take
action in many ways. I first collected all my
evidence (forensically), incase they decide to tamper
with it prior to our day in court. This is done by
experts that save the pages and "date stamp" them so
that it can be used as evidence.
We contacted our local
Department of Trade and industry to find out if this was
against the law in our country: It is most
illegal:
Competition Act, 1988(Act No. 89 of 1998)promotes and maintain competition so that
consumers are provided competitive prices and product
choices
Consumer Affairs (Unfair Business Practices ) Act, 1988 (Act No. 71 of 1988
protects consumers by providing for the prohibition and
control of certain business practices.
What these DMOZ editors are doing is
against the law in almost every country. Check BBB
and Cyber Law.
There are a number of ways to report
their crimes:
Local government. Ombudsman.
Better Business Bureaus (International)
www.cyberlawindia.com/article.htm
http://www.iccwbo.org/policy/marketing/id1141/index.html
It is also against consumer interest
if they are being forced to advertise with the Companies
listed on top of the search engines as a result of not
being listed on the ODP.
How important is it to be listed on
the ODP and the guidelines:
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