My DMOZ Strategy

Been lurking around here this morning trying to dodge the Jagger melee in aisle 9.

I've been faithfully submitting sites to DMOZ since 2003 with terrible results.
My strategy this year has been to submit a listing to an appropriate category, add it to my calendar, and check for it on a monthly basis (For 12 months).

Am I exercising futility in continuing beyound 12 months? Should I re-submit?
Should I shake some bones and sacrifice a chicken?

I don't (and who does) have the time to personally interact with DMOZ day after day until something happens. There's no notice of approval/rejection and last I heard, no longer a way to inquire (ODP Forum).

Voodo has failed me...DP Forum comments stat...

 

I guess editors do no pemanently delete sites from backlog unless they are unlistable such as mirrors, spam sites, sites with illegal content, etc. (read their guidelines).
Your best bet is to improve your sites by adding unique content and pray.
If you followed the guidelines when suggesting the site (selected correct category, title, and description), there is no point in resubmitting. That's what I think.

 

vlasta, your advice is very good. SOmeone somewhere else said that the best strategy when it comes to DMOZ is "submit it and forget it".

 

DMOZ has been defined on the Alternate Webmaster Glossary (Google it) as a place where you submit a site and forget about it... and they forget about it too.

 

vlasta's spot on. Submit to as approriate a category as you can find (or it'll just get bounced around loads until it finds a home), make your description as neutral and accurate as you can, include the correct url to your site (and not some .tk redirect), give it a correct title, and forget it. Spend any time you're thinking of spending checking on it, on improving your site instead. Any time spent on improving your site, however small, improves your chances of getting listed. Oh, and pray you've submitted to a category which gets checked by an editor fairly often!

thankfully, too, for whoever edits that cat!

Good luck, anyways. I'm working through a backlog left by a predecessor (if there ever was one) at the moment and I kinda feel sorry for all the sites in there deserving inclusion, but that have been swamped by the countless spammy sites. E.g., people submitting forums with 15 posts ! Bah, they'll get proper attention soon enough

 

Your search - "Alternate Webmaster Glossary" - did not match any documents.

 

Substitute Alternative for Alternate -

http://www.experienced-people.co.uk/1099-webmaster-glossary/

 

So the amount of content on a site is a defining factor? Or is it relative to the editor's judgement of how much content is the norm for the site's theme?

Most of the sites I submit are small business owners and have from 5 to 20 pages of content with standard home, about, contact, services, etc...

A 15 post forum does seem embarassing, but how does the submitter know when it might be appropriate to submit? 100 posts, 1000 posts ?

 

I don't know if you guys saw it but there was recently a DMOZ ed account for sale on eBay. That's one way of getting in I suppose

Sorry about the alternative glossary/alternate glossary mistake. Here's the quick link

 

Ah it's satire, not serious. There are some good ones there. Very funny!

wiredawg, yes, content is most definitely a defining factor as to whether a site gets listed.

There are no hard-and-fast rules, though (the premise being that humans do it better) - i.e. it is left up to the editors to decide if a site has enough content to be listed. (A pet peeve of many on this, and other boards.)

As for how many posts in a forum are enough - the standard answer "that depends" applies. It depends on what the posts are - it depends on what the subject is. If you have 100 posts of people saying "hi", then chances are that's not going to be deemed enough good content for a listing. If you have 5 people posting long articles about some subject, odds are that it will be enough. But again, it depends on the category, and how many similar sites there are out there.

For businesses, the bar tends to be lower, in general - if the site adequately tells the surfer who you are, and what you do for money (and often WHERE you are, for a listing in Regional), then often that is enough.

 

Sorry about that, I should have explained further. As Alucard says, if there are few/no better alternatives, i.e. this forum is an authority in its niche (fairly unlikely with 15 posts, still unlikely with 100 posts, and in my particular cat, nigh-on inconceivable sub-1,000), then it ought to get in, as it would enhance the quality of DMOZ for its users, and generally for web users as a whole - effectively, listing this site flags it up as the authoritative site, a flagging Google picks up on (though many here will deplore that), so that it will do better in the SERPS vs. sites with less relevant content but more SEO.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=376386&postcount=21

 

Bradley, my thanks for the clarification and to all others for the other comments.

 

That's funny and unfortunately true..

 

I'm an editor of a very minor catagory. The smaller the catagory the better chance you have of being listed. Also check to see if the catagory has an editor, if not then you will have to wait until a super-editor gets to it and that will be a long while.

Andy

 

I've never heard of a "super-editor" could you please explain what you mean by this? I know you're trying to be helpful, but with all due respect, this is not good advice. Are you really an editor? If so, for how long? You may want to go back and read the guidelines and internal forums to learn how things really work before spreading misinformation.

 

Not the first time I've heard the term. I've also heard of the so called boss-editor. I have an image of little slaves all working in a dungeon with a guy with a whip. Another DMOZ myth.

Also, looking for categories with editors is one of worst pieces of advice you can hand out.

Without knowing an editor's current activity [whcih can only by acertained by spending a long time lokiing at the internal editor logs] it is not useful information and is more likely to cause sites being sent to the wrong category, which is one of most common reasons or delays in review.

Most of the sites I review are in categories without named editors, and I'm not a super editor.

There is a concept of an editall editor - but that's just someone who can edit anywhere. I'm not one, I'm named as editor in maybe 50 places, but I can edit in thousands of places.

 

I'm a supper editor. Does that count?

Because sites generally get listed in the one most specific for them. More specific = smaller.

Higher level editor? Submit to a category because it has an editor and if the site is not right it gets moved to where it is right, or worse, sent to a misplaced pile (like the section of the Post Office that deals with mail with incomplete addresses). So at best it gets 2 reviews not 1 and at worse it is stuck in a mountain of crud sent in from every corner of the directory for re-sorting.

 

If you are the supper editor then I guess everyine should submit their sites to http://dmoz.org/Arts/Movies/Titles/L/Last_Supper,_The

 

Can you be more specific? Which DMOZ category is that? Would that be one of the adult categories perhaps? You know... the "best of the web"?

 

sites are listed/rejected and de-listed at the editors discretion...what they are looking for is unique content based sites. the site does not have to be pretty or well established. if there are already a handful of sites similar to yours listed in whatever category then your site is not what they are looking for. build sites with interesting content and information and you should be able to get in without a problem.