DMOZ troubles

I've been working for a startup for over 1.5 years. The site is useful, well-organized, and long established...why won't DMOZ list me? I've submitted twice - once over a year ago and again two months ago

 

A few tips:

1. List your site in the appropriate category
2. Your site "looks" unique, as in it doesn't look like all the other sites in your category with the same info. If it doesn't look good at first glance then the editor is gonna stop looking right there.
3. (important) List your site in a category with an editor in it or in a category above it. If you list your site 3 categories down with no editor then nobody's gonna look at it for a long long time, if ever. This is only wise if your site is in between categories, and could easily fit in another.

Their are alot more tips you can find on the DMOZ forums (forget the address), but those are the important ones.

 

Please stop give all those false advices.
If you suggest a site to a category just because an editorname is listed for that category and not because that category is the one category your site belongs to you will only increase the 'waiting' time.
Someday an editor will look at the site suggested to the wrong category. He will move it to the right category and there you will have to wait for some other editor to review the site. Now you have waited twice. Maybe the first editor only moved it into the right direction and some more moves will be needed before the site has reached the right category.
Suggest a site to the ONE BEST category.

 

pagode, you are a moron.

He did not advise the OP to list in an inappropriate category with an editor. All he said was try to find an appropriate category with a listed editor (see #1 and #3 above).

It is evident that you have trouble thinking but at least learn to read.

 

Which site are you talking about? I should not cogitate without looking at the correct site.

 

i think you are able to submit your site twice if it had any sort for offices or brick and mortar address.

once to the general directory for the site
and once to the regional/geographic directory

usually the regional ones get approved faster and at least get you in there somewhere

 

It's still a bit dodgy advice I'm afraid. The key is to find the most appropriate category. A category that might fit is a big gamble. Only an inexperienced editor would accept it if there is another one closer matched. If an experienced editor comes across it then it will be moved to the closer match category and start the wait over again.

Quite true. Usually, not guaranteed. And if the site is truly outstanding I will actively seek out and list it in the appropriate topical category at the same time as listing it in the Regional branch. Never ever try the gamble above with a Regional category - it will never ever succeed as the first thing a Regional editor learns is what sites are appropriate to what level.

Don't submit again. A new submission overwrites an older one and if the editor is one of those who looks at unreviewed sites in date submitted order the newer submission will force you to the bottom of the pile.

It isn't a case of why won't DMOZ list you. We will list all sites that meet the basic guidelines and have sufficient quantities of quality unique content relative to the category submitted to. Why haven't DMOZ listed you is one of those questions it is difficult to explain. The simple answer is that you only made a suggestion and in all honesty it carries no more weight than numerous other sources of DMOZ site listings - you are in competition with hundreds of millions of other sites for an editor's attention. I'm sorry the submission information isn't very clear at sending that message. The facility to suggest an URL isn't what you think. It was there for non-editors, anyone, to suggest a great site they had found and wanted to share. Webmasters saw it as something else, a free listing service. They are wrong but we have a responsibility to make that clearer. I don't think it was ever anticipated that we would get webmasters suggesting their own sites and not ordinary surfers letting us know of something they found useful. At least not as much as the 99999 to 1 ratio it turned out to be.

 

PS if you provide the URL I am sure someone will take a quick glance to see if there is anything obviously "wrong" about it from a DMOZ angle. Also what category are you trying?

 

brizzie is both wise and helpful. Let him teach you the secrets of the ODP.

 

I think some of the DMOZ opinions here are alittle off the beaten path of DMOZ practices.

If you should truley only have your site listed in the one best category, then why do many sites have so many listings in the DMOZ?

I foward your attention to:
http://www.whois.sc/internet-statistics/dmoz-listings.html

where even the 9,000th ranked "most listed website" has 20 separate listings in the DMOZ.

So, what your saying just doesn't add up. Oh, and thanks for the red rep telling me to stop making inaccurate DMOZ posts. I appreciate it.

 

This isn't going to be that "wax on, wax off" thing again, is it?

I can tell you the "answer" I've received in the past: You are only allowed to "submit" to one category but editors can decide to list a site in several different categories.

I know - it doesn't make sense to me either.

 

Actually, the general rule is that you should only suggest your site to the one best category. An editor can then, based on the site, decide that additional listings are best for the directory.

However, if there is a regional aspect (you have a store in Anytown, Country) and a topical aspect (you offer online widget shopping), you can suggest to both the one best regional category and the one best topical category.

Additionally, if you have multiple languages (human translated), you can also submit the the World categories for those translations.

In respect to the list you gave - a lot of those are hosts like geocities, freewebs, yahoo etc; others are .gov and .edu which are typically very informative sites.

 

Ah, easily explained.

There is a limit to the number of categories a site can be suggested to. Generally one in Regional, one in Topical, one in Kids and Teens, one in each World language. Each one is dependent on the site meeting the criteria for the branch and it may only qualify for one. Most sites qualify for 2 at most.

Then there are listings of deeplinks within sites. A site with a particularly useful specific sub-section might get a separate listing at an editor's discretion but the guidelines do not provide for it being submitted from outside.

If you look at the top 100 you will find many are free/low cost hosts, many are big news and resource sites which have been given a green light for editors to list deeplinks from. The top one is a defunct experiment to list CNN archives and they are ages old and long overdue for weeding out. Why CNN - who does DMOZ belong to? The 9000th site is W-SUSSEX.SCH.UK which looks like a host for West Sussex, England, school sites to me. There are other .edu sites and as you may know we have whole categories devoted to an individual college or university. We may list sites for each of the faculties for the institution, hence a common root URL.

In other words that list is not of sites but of root URLs. It isn't the same thing.

 

It is to discourage spamming. For example someone putting up a second rate IMDB and submitting it to every movie category. If you take the hosts out of that list of multiple listed root URLs what is left will be mostly multiple deeplinks from respected resource sites that are very unlikely even to have submitted their own root URL. If someone comes up with a fantastic IMDB alternative just as good then it too will get the green light and be automatically considered every time a new movie category is created.

If there are multiple listings of things like hotel booking sites then please draw our attention to them and we'll investigate.

A more practical reason for a submitter not submitting a site to multiple categories or multiple deeplinks of the same site is that there is a possibility of them getting trapped by our spam filters and if it looks like a pattern then there are various blocks that can get put into place.

 

Okay. Now THAT does make sense. Thanks, brizzie.

If that were made more clear at the DMOZ site, you might find you have to fend off far fewer attacks. As I've said before, at least half the problem is poor public relations strategies and lack of open information.

 

I agree. Trouble is a lot of the guidelines are out of date or clear to editors but not to the rest of the world. The good thing is that there are projects going on in the background to address some of these things. The bad thing is that the wheels of DMOZ bureaucracy sometimes turn very slowly.

 

That's interesting. When I suggested posting the URL and the category I got an anonymous red rep saying "NO!"

Why no? Is that a no to giving the URL and category, in which case I'm not the one to give the message to. Or no to someone taking a look. Not being Resource Zone there is no prohibition on telling someone they may have picked the wrong category or their site looks OK. Whichever way it is then it would be far more meaningful to leave your name and an explanation - there is a PM system for that here isn't there? "NO!" is a complete and utter waste of time and energy!

 

I don't get it either brizzie. I got an anonymous red mark in MountainLife's thread when I mentioned a URL would be needed to do anything more than speculate. MountainLife shared his URL and a quick look turned up the problem. Just a few broken links that he was able to fix in 10 minutes. Good site actually, once it was fixed.

I don't understand the negativity; seems some people want solutions but others just want to complain.

 

Yes grasshopper, it is.

 

So many helpful responses here... the website is http://www.destination-u.com

the company has a physical address at this point...should I go ahead and resubmit to regional category even if the physical address isn't relevant to the service offered?