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Hahaha. Wishful thinking.

They’re just Sitelinks.

They have nothing to do with the status of any web site and everything to do with Google’s search results and their users - the surfers conducting searches.

Webmasters would like to think that the occurrence of Sitelinks bestows a certain status upon their humble web site and that some how, in some way, they’re directly responsible.

Arrogance?

Ignorance?

Maybe a little of both. :lol:

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What is Directory Spongiform Encephalopathy?

Directory Spongiform Encephalopathy is a common degenerative web directory disorder characterized by enlarged “directory” sub categories that give the directory a bloated or “spongy” appearance.

Research indicates that DSEs are caused by abnormal, excessive submission to and acceptance of useless web directories. The obsessive feeding of directories to directories mirrors the practice of feeding livestock slaughterhouse waste to livestock under the guise of milk replacers, calf starters and feed supplements.

Feeding ruminants to ruminants resulted in Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease), and the corresponding practice by directory owners will yield similar, fatal results.

Symptoms of DSE vary, but commonly include degenerative internal PR over successive updates, a gradual reduction of SERPs and the eventual domain quarantine (removal from index).

DSEs tend to progress rapidly and usually culminate in death (zero PR) over the course of a few months. There is currently no treatment that will halt the progression of DSE, and attempts to treat the symptoms with the injection of additional citations yield no results.

A few clinical trials are underway in an attempt at finding a cure.

Interesting concept.

You hear mention of this phrase quite often during discussions about web directories. It’s often said that you can judge a directory by its editorial integrity (or lack thereof).

Wikipedia gives the following definition for integrity:

Integrity is the basing of one’s actions on an internally consistent framework of principles. Depth of principles and adherence of each level to the next are key determining factors. One is said to have integrity to the extent that everything he does and believes is based on the same core set of values. While those values may change, it is their consistency with each other and with the person’s actions that determine his integrity.

Something that has really caught my attention is that most general topic web directories promoted at popular webmaster forums primarily feature other directories.

Editors and owners are quick to assure you that they have integrity while fraternal members slip in the side door without the least bit of scrutiny. Web sites that feature little if any content are quickly rejected with insolence but web directories with few listings are proudly accepted.

Directory owners suggest that submissions with keyword stuffed titles or improper capitalization of descriptions will not be accepted, yet listings such as the following are all too common:

Firefox SEO Friendly Paid Web Directory
FireFox Directory Add Your Site Get PageRank Search Engine Optimization [SEO] Search Engine Frendly [SEF] Directory Search.

How can a directory owner think they have editorial integrity when accepting such a submission (especially if there was a fee involved)?

Is it me, or is it becoming easier to distinguish the link pimps from the directory owners?

Yeah, I’ve about had my fill of the crappy link exchange offers and the webmasters looking to get over on others for a link.

It’s seems some are so desperate for a link they’re willing to defraud others to promote their garbage sites. Here’s a typical example from today:

From: Richard Bean
Date: June 01, 2007 9:02am
To: Us
Subject: Get quality PR 4 home page link (Link Exchange request)

Dear WebMaster,
We are looking quality link partners for our site and your site
http://www.linkbook.org  is ideal for the purpose.

We will add your link on the home page of http://www.ucepnepal.org/ (Page Rank 4)

Please add our link at home page or a good Page Rank internal page (not a link page) of your site.

Here is our link information:

Title: Richard Bean

URL: http://www.beautyfeast.com/makeup-tools/makeup-tools-main.htm

Descriptions:
Makeup tools assists in applying the makeup in the correct and precise form.

Or copy paste the following code:

a href=”http://www.beautyfeast.com/makeup-tools/makeup-tools-main.htm” mce_href=”http://www.beautyfeast.com/makeup-tools/makeup-tools-main.htm”
 target=”_blank”> Makeup Tools  looks shabby, funky and rough and has cool cuts and is very popular among young guys and girls in the present world.

Please let me know once our link is up and and we will add your link back in 24 hours.

Regards

Richard Bean
P.S.: If you want us to link to your site first please reply to this email with add first in the subject and place where you will place our link.

Wow! They’re offering to place our link on the homepage of a PageRank 4 site for a link to another site. Some webmasters must think that others are idiots.

For one, ucepnepal.org is a dropped domain with toolbar PageRank. You can look at Archive.org and see what this site used to look like when it was set up for the Underprivileged Children’s Educational Programs  (UCEP) Nepal.

So now some webmaster/promoter has grabbed up a dropped domain to use to obtain links to a crappy made for AdSense site at BeautyFeast.com. Either for a client or themselves.

You can look at the Whois to see that the owner of the dropped domain is not the same person owning the MFA site.

Registrant Name:Vaibhav Kakkar
Registrant Street1:H. No. 709
Registrant Street2:Sector 31
Registrant City:Gurgaon
Registrant State/Province:Haryana
Registrant Postal Code:122001
Registrant Country:IN
email: vaibhavkakkar@gmail.com

vijayowl@gmail.com is the email address that “Richard Bean” used to send us this crappy link exchange offer; maybe he thought by using a made up name we’d have more interest?

The suggested title makes no sense and the code is incomplete.

What’s really sad is that the owner of the MFA site is likely paying for link development. Hey buddy, you get what you pay for.