I've got a new baby related site I need to at least *attempt* to get listed in DMOZ. People can bash DMOZ all they want, but having a listing there for a few other sites has resulted in some nice deep crawls so I can't complain. Anyway, it seems that every reletave category I've come across has no editor and it makes me fill out all of the editor crap when I try and submit. Am I doing something wrong? How do I submit to a category with no editor, and if I can submit to it, what are the chances that my submission will ever even be looked at?
Every category can be edited by someone - as editors are assigned a category and all it's subcategories. Their name just doesn't get repeated ad nauseum. Now, take Auckland as an example. There are hundreds of subcategories but you can't tell which will get the most attention. An arty editor may focus on the arts sub categories, and I have my own bias. So if you're submitting to the totally entralling Waitakere Society and Culture you may hit the jackpot and get a quick edit, or you may not! However if you submit to the wrong category you are playing the lottery over and over as you have to wait for the first edit. That editor then passes it on as (chances are) they don't have rights in the category they are sending it to. It then sits waiting for the next editor - and so it continues until finally an editor decides that it's in the right place, and is suitable for listing. The moral: Don't mess with looking for a named editor, look at the submission and get that right.
While it's true that every category does have an editor with permissions for it, when you climb up the ladder high enough, the fact is, the vast majority of categories are abandoned ghost towns that haven't been touched for years. A few categories here and there are laboriously breathing. That's why webmasters think that signs that an editor visited their sites are worthy of a brand new thread in the forum. A listing is generally accompanied by joyous emoticons. All this hoolabaloo stems from a persistent misconception that ODP links have extra value for ranking purposes. Apply to become an editor if you fancy being rejected promptly and rudely.
Pleased to make your acquaintance, Crazy_Rob... I am only half as cranky as I sound. Don't let appearances deceive you.
That doesn't seem to play any relevance to my post and I'm going to have to open a can of red rep on you for it. If you go back and read my post you will see that I merely enjoy the deep crawls I get from a listing. Fuck the rest. Simple really.
That may be a dumb question, but how do you know the "deep crawls" have something to do with ODP links?
If you want to argue, why don't you head on over to P&R for a while. I'm sure you'll go far on that forum.
Example of the worth of DMOZ data. Keyword McComb - small city in Mississippi. http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/Mississippi/Localities/M/McComb/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McComb,_Mississippi http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-06,GGLG:en&q=McComb The Google search does not return any DMOZ data and whilst it does return a couple of sites listed by DMOZ it is not consistent suggesting that it is coincidence only (bear in mind that editors often get their listings from Google searches in the first place). In fact numbers 3 and 4 in the Google results are also linked in Wikipedia, itself the number 1 result. What I find interesting is that if you were a McComb business would you submit to DMOZ, or would you try and get listed in the number 3 listed site, which contains a directory, and which is also linked from the Wiki page. And as an added bonus is also DMOZ listed for what its worth. And the cost of getting an ad on that site is $15 a month and I bet you get listed instantly. It is all very well DMOZ being free but essentially a waste of time if no-one will see it.
Why? It was just getting interesting You have a great answer from sarah and then you have a completly irrelevant comment from helle (who from what I have read really doesn't like the dmoz at all) that has fired up the thread. <-- sitting back to watch the progression