Dmoz Lottery

Thanks for all the insight... Seems to me one of the biggest factors are just the links created by DMOZ sites when you get listed in the actual directory.

But I am still learning.. I just kept seeing so much value put into DMOZ in some quarters, and it made little logical sense to me. If nobody actully uses it, who cares what it says or what is listed in there?

 

Exactly. It's is just a link after all. The human edited description really isn't going to mean much of anything except to DMOZ editors. Even the category it ends up in will mean little, other than possibly the PR of that particular page and even that means less and less as time goes on.

 

Jim,

I think you make some very valid points, and to me, this last one is a key point as to why Google uses the ODP.

While it has flaws, my standpoint is that there is nothing out there which better gives some sort of human review of sites. Google is constantly trying to review its algos to remove the possibility of having search results skewed by those that want to promote their sites. Having a directory which (given the number of compliants by website owners) tries to ignore such persuasion and potential manipulation, even if not perfect, is a decent source of informatin for them.

But I also tend to agree that the perceived effect of a DMOZ listing is far greater than actuality shows.

 

Quiet interesting 2 persons voted negative points to me 4 this thread. I just wonder why there in no rule in digitalpoint for posting negative points. Now anyone comes in and rate negative points just in order to take out his frustration on anyone. Before counting the negative points moderators must take into account why was it rated. If there is no reason at all than they should take some necessary actions But surprisingly despite of being such a huge forum this is completely uncontrolled.

 

Yes I have also seen bad sites get listed. One of my sites, with a uni.cc domain was listed, but my good sites never get in

 

See, here's something that I struggle to try to explain....

20 sites get submitted to different categories. An editor in one category reviews one of them. The other 19 haven't been looked at yet. This situation may go on for a long time - does that make that one site somehow better (or more listable) than the others?

No, it just means that the other suggestions have not been reviewed yet.

Of course, the other posisbility is that what you regard as good sites doesn't match with the ODP's idea. I'm not sure what criteria you use to say "good sites", I guess.

Care to post some examples?

 

I think dmoz should start a training session explaining the differnce between good or bad sites. And it will be very interesting to know how they add the worst sites considering them to be following the editorial guidelines and reject good ones which according to them stand nowhere against the listed worst sites.

I am sure even if they start a paid online classroom on this everybody will go for it as after all we all are ready to make worst sites to be considered as good ones and than listed by dmoz.

Earlier on there was a forum where one could know the status of a submitted site but now those they donnt have time for that as well. May be they are thing of making a online paid site for the same, where you will have to pay through Paypal in order to know the status of your site.

I guess they add paid listings in dmoz as well it will end all these discussions.

 

One of the hopes I had coming in to this forum was to try to explain the differences in thinking and culture between ODP editors and Web Professionals.

Suggesting anything to do with paid service in connection with the ODP will get an immediate "no" from everybody concerned (unless you can find one of these famous, and supposedly common, corrupt editors, of course!).

The information about what makes a site good or bad as far as the ODP is concerned is readily available - editors use that to make the judgment call on listability.

If you are making sites with the objective of being listed in the ODP, then I suggest you rethink your site marketing strategy. It's just not worth spending all the time trying to optimise a site so that it can get listed. Because you do that, and your submission of that site could still wait for years to be reviewed.

Make a site that has unique information - in the case of businesses that is often summed up using the phrase "who are you and what do you sell?" Make sure that that is prominent on the site, and you have already done the best you can to make the site listable. The hope is that also by doing this, you have also helped serve the needs of your potential customer.

I get the feeling that people are desperately searching for some magic method to get their sites listed in the ODP. There isn't one. Certain types of sites will tend to get reviewed quicker than others, usually due to editors being more interested in those sites. Ones with a very definite "brick and mortar" business presence prominent on the site, that get submitted to categories in the Regional tree, tend to (and that is purely a statistical average - don't quote me with specific horror stories) get reviewed quicker. Some areas, like Computers/Web Design and Development, and areas in Shopping have less editor interest and are more spam-prone.

Trouble is, usually your web site is your web site - you can't change that in order to make it listable.

The best thing to do is to is just design the best website you can for the purposes you need. Submit it to the ODP, and then get on with other ways to market the site.

Not the answer you wanted to hear, I know, but it is the truth (at least from my perspective)

 

If you would like to give an example of what you consider a good site which has been rejected by the ODP for a listing, then maybe we can do a little tutorial right here, right now, for free. I would invite anyone - not just ODP editors, to look at the site and let's talk about it.

But mind you - you need *proof* that the site was rejected - just having one that has taken 2 years to get reviewed isn't going to cut it - as I have said before that may well be a listable site.

I am not going to get into the business of site analysis, nor am I going to start doing status checks - seoindia, post ONE site which you know got rejected, and we will use it as a learning exercise. Also provide the proff that the site was rejected, please.

I am not going to look at any internal documents in the ODP about the site - we'll look at it together using publicly available information.

 

Sounds like a nice learning exercise if s/he takes you up on it, Alucard.

On a more general note, though, this is another part of the problem with current practices at DMOZ. We all have by now read hundreds of horror stories about submissions waiting in queue for a year or two unreviewed but we also occasionally hear the ones about submissions approved in two weeks or a month. The usual answer is that reviewers choose which sites they review or whether to review any of the submissions at all or just go out looking for new sites on their own.

Now consider these suggestions:

(1) stop the practice of allowing submisions altogether and go to a totally editor-fins-site-editor-adds-site system; or

(2) tag each submission by date received and require all editors to do SOMETHING with each site in the queue IN ORDER, first in, first out, BEFORE that editor can go out surfing to find his/her own sites. Do that, and a lot of the perceptions and criticisms of unfairness and preferential treatment may disappear.

 

I think that is a very very good suggestion. It's not the first time it has been made. The usual reason it is not done is that while there are certain types of category which are horrendously prone to "submission-spam" there are others where the editor relies on suggestions to find new quality content. Personally, I would like to have the "suggest a site" function turned off in the spam-prone areas, and left on elsewhere, but that doesn't seem to have found much resonance among the editing community.

I can also imagine the outcry among web professionals if the suggest a site function were turned off, because there would be absolutely no way to get editors to even look at a site they are working on.

OK, I'm going to wax a little philosophical, here.

First, one of the major reasons why most people edit at the ODP is that it is 100% volunteer. No-one is required to do anything - you do what you have the time and the desire to do. ok, that's the official line - truth is, if you started requiring editors to do specific things, you would get a lot of them upping and leaving, and the directory would be a lot worse off.

Here's a scenario - you have found, by looking in your local newspaper, a local company that does web design. You want to list it. You log in to the category (assuming you have editing rights there) and find 200 sites awaiting review. Is it fair to the guy who didn't submit his site to not list him, while you work your way through the 200 sites, most of which probably aren't listable in this category?

From a web professional's perspective, trying to promote a site, the ODP isn't fair. I completely understand that. It isn't designed to be. Sites get listed according to the whims of the editors. As long as those sites are listed impartially then the directory is a better place for those additions.
(Impartially, in this case, means that an editor isn't giving preferential treatment to their own sites at the expense of others).

From another perspective the ODP is very fair - let's say that there is a category that has 20 sites listed. There are 50 sites out on the internet that haven't been listed in this category yet. 10 people have suggested some of these sites and they are waiting review. An editor lists 5 of the sites which are out there but have no submissions. Is that fair? To the ODP editor's perspective yes; suggestion of a site to the ODP shouldn't be giving it any sort of preferential treatment over a site which has not yet been submitted.

The suggest a site function is there merely to give the editor another resource to find sites. In practice, I would say that a suggestion gives a site more likelihood of being listed than one that hasn't been suggested yet, but that is not the intent.

So - two perspectives - both (I hope!) understandable.

Directories which are geared towards website promotion and servicing the needs of that industry should definitely have such measurables. The ODP doesn't have that as its goal, and so doesn't use that.

I hope this makes sense.

 

minstrel,

the best post I read from you so far. Completely agree and sounds like a very good idea.

 

yea it does take a while to get listed i wish it didnt take as long as it does.

 

I don't. Why is it like that?

All our sites have gotten in, although some took longer than others.

 

A few regulations about how volunteers must do their work, policies and procedures to be followed, is common in all volunteer organizations. If this causes volunteers to leave, my guess is the organization is in fact NOT worse off at all. DMOZ has been dealing with a mountain of bad press for some time. If a change in policies could even start to change that around, losing a few editors is a small price to pay, I'd say.

I think so, yes. As long as everyone knows that it is first in, first out, and editors abide by that, what's unfair about it? Everyone is treated the same. Besides, from what I have read from you and certain other editors, I suspect that many of those waiting in queue ARE not going to be accepted -- and that editors know from a brief glance that this is likely. From a public rtelations point of view, it would be far better for editors to work their way through this backlog (in order) BEFORE adding new sites -- that could probably be done very quickly -- fire off a quick email saying, "Your site did not meet our criteria for inclusion - see {url to criteria list}", and delete it from the queue.

 

The problem is that a lot is dependant on the category.

I have one category where there are over 150 sites. Maybe 20 of those were submitted, the rest I found by searching around, subscribing to Google news alerts, finding links from other sites. I would guess the owners of at least 90% of these sites do not even know they are listed in ODP, don't even look at the access logs and would have no idea why visitors turn up at the business. Anyone who actually does find that categroy and submits a site will get reviewed and listed within a day. 100% of submiited sites get listed, and I would not want submissins turned off.

I have another category with over 250 sites listed. The truth is that no-one needs another site listed there, there are too many listed already. No one will ever go to ODP and look in that category. The only benefit is having a link for PR. I will never bother going looking to add sites there, so the only way is to submit a site, I'm never a rush to review, but nevertheless most sites submitted will get listed within in a month. 50%-75% of sites wil get listed, the rest will get moved to another category. If submissions were turned off I would be fine, but then no new sites will get added, I would just be removing sites as they died.

 

macdesign, this illustrates another easily fixed issue: you believe that category doesn't need any new sites (the logic of that escapes me but I've heard it from other editors too). Why hide that information? Why not just post "category closed" or something so webmasters don't waste time submitting there?

It's all this behind-the-scenes non-editors-don't-need-to-know stuff that creates half the animosity toward DMOZ.

 

Whatever I believe is really unimportant - if it was my directory I would remove half the categories completely, but it's not my directory.

I don't believe that the category needs new sites, so I won't exert myself to go and search for new ones, but that does not stop anyone adding them and I will then review them and add them in a timely manner. If I decide I'm not willing to do that, then I would resign from the category.

I cannot just decide to go and close a category for submissions, that requires discussions and agreement from other editors. I don't believe any category is ever closed for submissions because there are too many sites listed in it. Sites are closed to avoid submissions that belong in sub-categories or because no sites are listed at all in the category.