Building a niche human-edited web directory

[Webnauts]

I am building with my team a niche human-edited web directory with categories and subcategories for Web Accessibility, SEO & SEM, Usability, Web and Software Development.

Our directory site is going for valid and warning free markup, using XHTML Strict 1.0 table-less CSS and we are striving to meet the requirements for the Priority 3 (AAA) of the W3C/WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

We are also working on having 100% relevant document titles, meta description and keywords (if available) to the pages content, and much more...

We are aiming to achieve a human and search engine friendly, accessible, and usable web directory.

For submissions, there will be some requirements to get approved and indexed, which are so far:

* Site should be in English or have an accessible English version.
* Site content should identify (be relevant to) the content and categories/subcategories of our directory.
* Site should have a correct URL. No redirects, mirrors or folders off the domain root.
* Site should not have a limited life or have a temporary redirect, like Redirect 302.
* Site should display an email contact or contact form, but not Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or any other kind of free email address.
* eCommerce sites should clearly state postal and trading address.
* Site should not require registration to be able to be viewed, excluding discussion forums.
* Site should not have all or part of content under construction.
* Site markup (such as HTML, XHTML, CSS, etc.) must be conform to valid specifications.
* Site accessibility must conform at least to the requirements the W3C Web Accessibility Guidelines (WAI) Priority 1 (Level A).
* Site should be easy to navigate.
* Site should be compatible with the most recent versions of the major browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera).
* Site pages may not exceed a weight of 100 Kb total (including graphics).
* The homepage title relevancy to page content should be 100%.
* If the homepage has a description meta tag, the relevancy to page content should be 100%.
* If the homepage has a keywords meta tag, relevancy to page content should be 100%.
* Site content or URL should not be flooded with typical spam keywords.
* Site may not link to „bad neighborhoods\" and/or not banned by any of the major Search Engines as Google, Yahoo or MSN.
* Sites may not try to download anything upon opening or have popups.
* Sites may not try to change the user\'s window or cause a crash on opening.
* Sites content may not be primarily affiliate marketing.
* Links to multiple pages from the same site are possible for an extra fee. Prices upon request.

Fee: US $90 per year including one editor's review. If a repricocal link is provided back to our directory, the cost is US $45 per year.

If a reciprocal link should for any reason be removed, the user we be notified to add the link, or to pay the remaining US $45 fee. In the event that these conditions are disregarded, the site will be removed from our directory.

Relevant non-profit organizations, non-profit associations, etc., may be included in our directory at no cost upon their request and upon meeting our standard approval conditions as indicated above.

How submission and indexing will work:

The submitter must read our guidelines and then submit his URL. Our directory contains links to free online desktop tools which our customers can use to verify that their site meets the guidelines for indexing in our directory.

When a link is submitted, the submitter will receive an invoice per email to pay a non-refundable editor's site review fee of US $10. If the editor's review determines that the site meets our requirements and criteria, the submitter will receive an e-mail requesting payment of US $80 for the first year's listing in the directory.

Each successive year shall cost $90 which includes a new editor's site review, but fees will not be recurring.

If a site does not meet our requirements and criteria, it will not be indexed in our directory, but sites can be submitted again at any time, and will be again viewed and considered for possible indexing by our editor\'s review process.

When all fees are paid in full, the submitted URL will be indexed in our directory. The indexed sites will be monitored by our editors, at an interval of three to four months, to ensure that the they still comform to our quidelines and policies.

Besides the above mentioned violations which can lead to deleting indexed sites, a site can be disabled (not deleted) from our index any time if any changes are implemented on the listed site which cause it to violate our requirements and criteria.

In the event that such changes are indicated, the owner of the site will be alerted if their site is to be disabled in the directory.

Accidents happen, and editors can make mistakes. They will be certain to provide the site owner an oportunity to rectify such problems, but the submitter will again have to pay again a non-refundable fee of $10 for editor's review, before the site will be enabled in the index again.

We also will provide services in making candidate sites conform to the specifications which meet our requirements. Meeting these criteria is also beneficial in that the site is accessible to a wider audience, and more easily indexed by other search engines and directories.

These services will be available upon request for an additional fee.

We are aware that we are probably working against our own wallet having such guidelines as above, though it is just to demonstrate a future-oriented web directory, which is findable, accessible and usable.

And not only that. And pages included in our index, will also be findable, accessible and usable too.

If potential customers web sites do not meet our requirements, we also provide them our optimization services for an extra fee.

Any suggestions or thoughts?