10 % approval is really very low. I want to know what is the niche of your site and did you many keywords in the title while the submissions ?
Great points there and hopefully some submitters will read it. Regarding 4. Thats one thing that will make me wait a while before submitting a new site to directories, naturally i want to get backlinks but know i increase my chances if theres some content already built up. Regarding 5. When i had free directories i had someone argue the point with me because i wouldn't accept his submission, it looked like the website was from 1995 and never redesigned, for some reason he acted like i was obliged to grant him his listing. Regarding short descriptions, as a submitter i actually have the small problem sometimes of my description being too long and not being able to fit it all in, or its approved but with the description cut off half way through and not edited by the directory owner. I did notice a trend in some german directories of a minimum description of about 400 characters and up to 1000, creates content i guess.
I think it's directory owner's discretion for approving/rejecting submissions. They are free to reject submissions from 'competitors' Descriptions are often painful, some directory owner's don't like descriptions longer than 200 characters and others would make you write 250 or 500+ characters description. List on Addurl.nu has some remarks where he notes the 'limits' on description. I have seen REALLY good acceptance rate on new directories announced in DP. I see lots of messages like 'All submissions approved' in solicitations forum.. So these are another set of directories where one can get approved easily. 10% acceptance as mentioned by the thread owner looks REALLY low though.
I agree with you. For higher success rate keep filtering your directory list. With every submission get the dead ones out and you will end up with a very high quality list. And post it on Internet if you feel you can help others
You have to consider another factor. Some directories accept links in the beginning and later their owners get drifted. It's very difficult to keep track of those. Dan is doing a good job with info.vilesilencer. He even ensures that directories are not accepting 'junk' sites.