Self promotion is not welcome here, you are going to have to try something else.

You only brought up one other issue. People using a post office box as a corporate address. "It is quite a common practice for people doing business strictly on the internet to not post their actual physical address to the general public." No, it is not common practice. It is common practice for people who are working in a corner of their bedroom, not for real companies. I can not think of a single company with a 12 square inch "suite".

I have not "slandered" you, in order for me to do that I have to make something up, tell an untruth. I have not done that.

I will post an example of your "content" later after I get it cleaned out. If you would prefer a differant example of what you insist is not a doorway feel free to post it. It would be interesting.

Also - Im not sure how many small business owners you talk to on a daily basis, but several of our clients have thriving businesses but do not have big office buildings... especially in todays economy. Its ok to disagree, but my opinion is that it is quite common for people to use mailing addresses separate from their physical address, and I would suggest that all companies do it - as long as you're completely honest and straighforward with all legitimate prospects or clients.

As for this site you found that you think is our site, why not just post it right now? I dont mind if you do.

I suspect that you're waiting to post the site because you're not sure if the site is in violation of Yahoo's terms or not yourself!...

Doesnt this prove that there is a very thin line between what is acceptable and unacceptable if you're not even sure enough yourself to just post it right now and tell everybody straight up that it is in violation of Yahoo terms? Why do you have to wait to hear from Yahoo?

Assuming the site is ours, perhaps it IS in violation of Yahoo's terms. If it is, and you know what Yahoo does and doesnt allow, go ahead and share with us your knowledge and post the site now and tell us whether it violates their terms or not.

But surely that means you think you would lose, no? Few people turn the possibility of a libel action if it is available and winnable

btw, if one wishes to sue for defamation, always try Libel first. Libel is actionable per se, Slander is not and one has to prove actual damage in order to recover other than nominal damages, unless the slander is called "slander per se", then that would be a different ball game

quote:

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As for this site you found that you think is our site, why not just post it right now? I dont mind if you do.

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Oh, I am sure. I am not newbie, nor am I an idiot.

The site is yours. I found it through you, not the other way around.

I am not posting it now, because as I stated, I suspect that it was a bait and switch (it is really really bad). It is also cloaked, but they care less about that.

I will post it, regardless of what Yahoo does or does not do. I added it to the staff room here, if I forget they can remind me.

I am not waiting for Yahoo to tell me it its trash. I know trash when I see it. Some people just decorate their trash well, it is devoid of decorations at the moment and should stay that way.

All of the moderators here have access to the doorway, perhaps some of them would like to post their opinion. They might agree with you.

I admit that in very rare cases long ago, we used a redirect when the situation seemed appropriate, but never cloaking... and we haven't used a single redirect in 6 months.

Again - if you're sure that the site is ours and that it violates Yahoo's terms of service... why not just post it?

I just want to make the point one more time that this proves that it is NOT a black and white issue here... or else you would have posted it and just told everyone it violates the terms. It proves that each site needs to be looked at on a case by case basis to make sure it has good content that adds value to the index and isnt justa doorway.

Every affiliate site will be weighed by Yahoo and Google on the strength of its content. We have had some of our sites get rejected in the past and Yahoo said they didnt have enough content... however... as soon as we added more good content, they were accepted. I admit that our first sites long ago did not have as much content as they should have, however, over time, our sites got better and better with more and more good quality content.

All Yahoo and the other engines are asking for is that you take the time to provide good solid content to users. If you spend the time and resources to do this, than Yahoo is happy, the user is happy, the advertiser is happy, and we are happy... the only one that is not happy is Janet Berg... why is that?

That is so true and it is not rocket science. Anyone can build their website with great content and there is no need to try to trick the SEs & Directories with backdoor pages or domains. (They simply do NOT like that!)

It is also a very good idea to own your own Internet presence, taking responsibility for it and having control over it.

More than I can name use them. It is much simpler to outsource your mailroom if you get lots of mail and deliveries or infrequent deliveries.

I worked for another huge company where the bank used a private mail box for all check deposits to be sent from their larger corporate accounts.

We have four of them depending on the type of mail and which department it is to go to. Faster sorting, quicker distribution, saves space, and we need only one person to handle it all.

Both small and large businesses use them. So you can't just assume it is a fly by night operation because they use a mail box.

Three of our largest vendors use one for us and other clients to send in checks on invoices we are paying. Makes sense now that we are doing the same.

It is just like the dry cleaners. Drop it off and pick it up. Mail, deliveries, etc. Nice and easy.

However... before going any further, can you tell me why you would add me to your spam filter and ban me from this forum? All I have done is respond to your accusations about our company... and tried to discuss Search Engine policies here.

I have not tried to promote our company, so please tell me what I am allowed to say and what I'm not allowed to say on this forum when it comes to discussing what we do and responding to your accusations?

I don't think I've said anything that would deserve being banned so I hope that you would not do such a thing. If you did, people reading this thread might think you were just trying to silence me.

Can you both review what we do and than tell me SPECIFICALLY how this is spam (please - just facts and no personal attacks).

You have also told my client that he would be smarter to just design and build his own site and optimize it for the search engines and do it himself since he would own the site than.

Along this line of thinking, do you think everyone who rents a home rather than buy it is unwise? The reason they are renting instead of buying is because they dont have to pay for all the expenses involved with buying as opposed to renting.

Yes - the tradeoff is that you dont own the house at the end of it all, but you also didnt have to pay to build it, or maintain it, or pay all the property taxes on it.

I don't see any difference here. Our clients understand this rent vs buy concept, and the search engines understand it too since they allow affiliate sites in all the time and classify them as such.

In the end, Yahoo determines what is spam or not and our sites obviously are not considered spam... so your opinions, while appreciated, are somewhat irrelevant I guess.

As far as what is and what is not spam, it does not matter what any of us here say. The search engines and directories define what they want in their indexes and what they do not and a wise person will look to them and work with them and not against them.

If anyone chooses to relate my words to their business that is there concern, not mine, as I am just speaking in general here.

As far as there own trafficlogic site being listed, many seo sites aren't listed. Many started out making cloaked pages, then doorways, and now you must make sites with content. All seos know this. So if they now make sites with content and 1 link out, why trash them. You will always be able to find pages by seos that may be cloaked or redirect, doorway or whatever to trash someone. That doesn't mean that is how they build there sites today. The internet has changed a lot since the infoseek days and so have seos.

Janet you are way out of line here. This is very unprofessional.

I took a quick look at the recent listings which includes:

"Japanese rabbit known for balancing objects on his head".( Excell gets her clients page in at last )

"Contains information about a Filipino and his gay life"

"offers fantasy swords, knives, and weapons, including Gothic, Celtic, Japanese, and Ninja tablets that contain five homeopathic remedies for countering the effects of a hang over"

"athletic and muscular men posing in g-strings, lycra shorts, underwear, and nude".

It is interesting also to see that all titles indexed by Yahoo start with a lower case letter rather than an upper case letter. Could that mean many of the submits are approved or otherwise by a computer rather than a Human?

tell me SPECIFICALLY how this is spam

All I have done is respond to your accusations about our company

If you did, people reading this thread might think you were just trying to silence me.

our sites obviously are not considered spam

quote:

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all titles indexed by Yahoo start with a lower case letter

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Where are you seeing this?

--Steve said
but in any case I dont agree that it is the norm to get 2 or 3 categories. [in Yahoo] I think that norm by far is to only get 1.
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Most of the sites I've submitted for clients have 3-5 listings. But maybe I'm just really lucky.

--Steve said
You first told people that Google and AV banned us and I replied that we score very well with AV and Google.
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How can you score well when your site isn't even listed? Janet wasn't talking about client sites, she made it quite clear that she was talking about your company site.

--c4hairball said
Just for the record, he is right that many legitimate companies use private mail boxes.
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I'll agree with this. I worked for a Chemical Company for awhile. They used a P.O. Box for all corporate mail. Just too dangerous to have the physical address out there for all the world to see when you are manufacturing highly volatile products.

---Steve said
Along this line of thinking, do you think everyone who rents a home rather than buy it is unwise? The reason they are renting instead of buying is because they dont have to pay for all the expenses involved with buying as opposed to renting.
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If someone was paying $7500 up front to rent a home that would only cost them $600 a month, then yes, I'd think they were nuts. For the fees that you charge, most companies COULD get a full-scale site built and designed for them to own and keep.

--Steve said
If you have a site, however, that has a lot of good content that is unique and valuable, that cannot be found on the parent site, and have just one link among many which leads to another site, how is that a doorway? The content is providing valuable material to the user that they could not find on the other site.
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--Excell said
It is also a very good idea to own your own Internet presence, taking responsibility for it and having control over it.
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That's the real issue folks. Even if Steve's company DOES build out a full scale site with content and everything, he still retains all rights to it. You're simply "renting" YOUR site from him. $7500 is a pretty good chunk of change. So long as you are a small to medium size company, you should have no problem finding a company that will create an entire web site, SEO campaign and all for that price. The added bonus? You would own it...forever and ever. If you go through a company like Steve's, you only own it as long as you continue to write checks.

On an added note...I just can't fathom why someone would pay you so much money to build a completely new site with NEW content that "cannot be found on the parent site" when they could simply hire a copywriter to create that additional content and post it on the parent site. That just doesn't make sense...

Whether or not it is a *scam* is beside the point for many would-be-customers. It's my opinion that a purchase like this is simply not a wise business decision or investment. I think that's the main point that many folks here are trying to make. After all, it's legal to rent a Yugo for $25K a year, that doesn't make it a wise investment.

Perhaps a bad example to use, but you get the point.