Quality guidelines and
listing Marketing tips

Do not submit a site which markets especially to a particular political, social, religious or sexual orientation.

Do not submit a site which emphasizes or promotes the use of drugs, alcohol or tobacco, or which incites criminal activity, is libelous, is pornographic, or is known to infringe upon another's intellectual property.

Do not submit a mirror (duplicate) site or one that has similar content as another one you may have listed in the directory.

Do not submit a redirect site... a URL which sends the browser to another address.

Do not "disguise" a submission for multiple submission, such as <mysite.com> and <mysite.com/index.html>

Do not submit a non-English site or a site not in and/or serving our region.

Do not submit a site consisting largely of affiliate (commission-sharing) links.

Do not submit a site multiple times. Not only will it avail you not, but spamming us will almost certainly get your site disqualified by our editors.

Clearly state your product offering and/or your company name.

Your company name is just that -- it is not a line of advertising text, which would be deleted. Your town name and company name are already present (not counted in your description length) so you waste your own space by repeating them in the description. We do reserve the right to shorten long names.

Similarly, your listing will be presented according to your town, which -- even before your name -- is the very first thing to appear in your listing. You do not have to repeat it, as the reader knows that already.

Be specific, descriptive and informative. It wastes your valuable space to state that your site will post rates or prices, or to say that you offer on-line ordering, since that's already assumed for a selling site (ever see a grocery store newspaper ad that said they actually have "cash registers available?").

State your most important point of difference from your competitors. "Good cooking," for example, does not have the same emotional or sales impact as "fireside cooking."

Be accurate -- poor grammar or spelling may even delay your listing.

Descriptions are in plain text only... no artwork or typographical tricks. Use upper and lower case, NEVER ALL CAPS. Names in all caps will be altered to upper/lower case when possible.

Avoid superlatives such as "best," "the only," "the oldest," "the largest," etc. They will be edited out when caught. Even if one slips by, it's usually bad news for you... it reduces the reader's opinion of your truthfulness.

Also avoid other waste words... instructions like "click here," generic terms like "home page," or offensive language.

Running a string of keywords in your title or description is a waste -- this is a directory, not a search engine. People want to know who you are and what you do, not how "hard sell" you are.

If you serve several towns then you may list no more than three of them by name. Try naming your region, instead.

A 200-character detailed listing gives you far more impact than a 75-character simple listing.