Is submiting to DMOZ a viable strategy for SEO

I would suspend the acceptance of new sites in a lot of spam magnet categories. But I am a former editall with no influence over such things even when I was active. I also think there could be ways of sending some form of feedback to non-spam submitters but whether editors should be spending time on that and not on editing is a good question.

The value of DMOZ in terms of what it sets out to provide (not what webmasters want it to provide, i.e. a link for PR purposes) is declining as other sources of information improve. DMOZ needs to find a way of re-inventing itself to survive in a form that is in any way useful to anyone. I used to use DMOZ a lot personally but find wikipedia far more useful these days. DMOZ has strengths in some areas which still outshine anything else, but it puts too much effort into areas where it may as well surrender to search engines for all the listings are worth.

 

reality offcourse.
Thanks again for the great deal of info passed on to general folks here.
If the time to clear up existing log is 5 years, then i would imagine the kind of luck needed for websites who have recently submitted or are waiting to be submitted later.

So, forgetting DMOZ is the only option left for now.

 

It is a personal opinion but I strongly question the value of submissions to DMOZ and to webmasters. Submissions are one of the poorest sources of good unique sites to add but take up a huge amount of time sifting through the crap to find the gems. At the same time it causes a huge amount of frustration and bad feeling in the webmaster world (that DMOZ does not care about). Counter to this is that many gems would have been missed if not submitted and it is a DMOZ sacred cow that will never be sacrificed. But the original intention was for surfers to suggest decent sites they had discovered, not for webmasters to submit their mirrors and affiliate to. So if it no longer serves the primary purpose of DMOZ effectively - cataloging unique websites - then dump it and don't look back. But then you have the prospect of editors being the sole adjudicators of what gets listed and what doesn't and the opportunities for corruption that would arise. Then again a lot of crap gets listed because editors have little discretion over listing a site that meets the criteria on the surface, which degrades the project. And plenty claim, with some justification, that since editors can simply refuse to review any submission without giving a reason, some editors are already sole adjudicators of what gets listed. I wish I couldn't see both sides of the arguments but on balance my current thinking is that submissions are more trouble than they are worth.

 

I'm not sure I agree, since a submission takes 5 minutes unless it's in a obsucre category, it is worth the 0.001 chance it might make it past the lazy corrupt editors and into a category with a good one and get listed after 2 years. I share the frustrations of the majority of webmasters though.

 

I'm looking at it from a DMOZ perspective - for DMOZ submissions are more trouble than they are worth. For webmasters it is 5 minutes and move on so why not have the option.

Editors don't get paid and are therefore not obliged to do anything, you can't call anyone lazy because they don't do what you want them to do in their own free time. Corrupt? Well in the vast majority of DMOZ there is very little corruption and a lot of vigilence and most of the accusations I have seen have been without foundation when investigated. That isn't to say there is no corruption but the scale is far less than others would have you believe.

Your frustrations are founded on a fundamental misconception of what DMOZ is and what you can expect from it. It doesn't exist to give you a free link and possible PR boost. It has zero interest in the interests of webmasters - it serves only the downstream data users and the general surfing public. When you submit you are making a speculative sales pitch for your site to be used as material in the project, you are a supplier not a customer. And this is the fundamental difference between the DMOZ approach and that of the pay directories. Do you promise to respond to everyone who sends you unsolicited mail and email pitching their product for your personal consumption? Do you give them a timescale in which you will let them know if you have read or binned their suggestion you take out their personal accident insurance? Do you worry that you may offend the insurance broker if you reject their kind offer and not give them a valid reason? To DMOZ editors you are the insurance broker sending an unsolicited offer and whilst you think of it in any other terms that frustration will never end. The problem is that DMOZ does not tell webmasters all this, that their submission will be treated as an unsolicited pitch, so it is its own worst enemy in that respect.

 

That is what you think. Just look at the cost of having a link in Yahoo directory, 300/link and 600/link for adult, multiply that amount by the number of sites and deeplinks for editors and it is a good pay for a little "volunteer" work. In case you are not very good in math, one of the porn sites that was mentioned here in DP had over 100 links. 100 links * $600/link= $60,000

 

IMO opinion editors are in a position of responsibility and are obliged to keep on top of the workload. If they can't then move out and let someone else do it.

I think you'd be surprised

I expect them to link to quality unique wesites. Their remit after all. Something they don't seem to be able to do at the moment.

 

not worth it. There are other directories or link partners that would suffice. I stopped submitting my client's sites years ago and I still maintain to get them high rankings.

 

On top of it, DMOZ is getting spammed too..
Most recently i have pointed 10+ links in DMOZ whose websites have long been discontinued or are bad links.
This clearly shows that no one is running link checker utility to see if the existing links are valid.

 

When editors move out there is no-one there to replace them. Remember that more editors are leaving than joining. One new site added is better than none. There is no concept within DMOZ of a "workload" any more than you have a personal workload and obligation to deal promptly with and respond to all the unsolicited sales pitch letters and emails you get daily. There is no service being offered to webmasters by DMOZ. Are editors in a position of responsibility? If they are then it is not a responsibility to webmasters, only to downstream data users and web surfers. At the current time is DMOZ meeting those responsibilities? Probably not and it will take some radical thinking and rapid change to turn things around. But radical and rapid are not things that come to mind if you were to analyse the DMOZ culture.

 

The spam levels are incredible in many parts of DMOZ, such that the lists of unreviewed submissions are often a waste of time - 100 reviews to get a single listable site. Why bother if you are an editor, you'd get better results from a Google search.

Link rot is a serious issue but automated link checkers can only do so much - many dead links don't register as they have holding pages from the host or have been hijacked. This is where the human intervention is needed and there simply are not enough humans and their numbers are decreasing. No editor joins to delist dead links, they join to list sites. Same with existing editors - checking dead links is the most mind-numbing tedious job you can think of.

DMOZ technical gurus get ever more sophisticated with their checking tools but it may be that the directory has got too big to maintain. Radical answer - dump the highest maintenance categories and downsize into something editors can handle. Less radical idea - introduce a dead link report button next to each listing to make it very easy for directory users (and editors without the rights to do something directly) to report it. Such a link on the editor only version of the directory, with automatic unreviewing of notified sites turns every editor into a dead link processor wherever in the directory the problem is found - for those in tiny niche categories with no new sites to list and bored out of their minds it would be a way of perhaps increasing their interest levels too. Admins would claim that to work on such a solution would divert resources from other initiatives and, frankly, there are probably dozens of higher priorities than dead links. But if they asked for volunteers who might be interested in such a diversion I'll bet they could find untapped resources. Thing is, they won't ask.

 

No, finding out to which domain site X has moved is.

Good thing domains have become cheap but many are still using subdomains and keep moving around.

 

Perhaps that because of the condecending attitide of DMOZ to many webmasters that apply.

Well that's part of the problem then. Editors should be expected to spend a certain time on their category each week, it's what they applied to do after all. Like I said, if they can't do that then let someone else do it.

 

Yea DMOZ seems to be tougher than it was 2 years ago to get listed.

 

The powers in DMOZ don't want the webmasters anyway. In DMOZ, stupidity and lack of knowledge about Internet is considered a virtue and not a problem. The whole editor application process is designed to take out those who know too much.

 

According to you the powers in DMOZ are the webmasters, spamming away with their own sites. Make up your mind.

It isn't a problem really, DMOZ is about listing sites from a surfer's perspective.

 

They are very territorial and don't like a possible competition. DMOZ is a marketing arm of the few.

 

I see, funny how I missed it. Naturally you have documentary evidence to back this up as well. Don't be offended but I prefer to see the evidence and draw my own conclusion than take your word for it.

 

gworld might not be 100% correct, but it's pretty obvious to anyone that pays attention that there are some fairly fundamental problems with the way DMOZ is being run.

 

There are many posts that complain about not getting any answer to their DMOZ editor application or being rejected. I can write editor applications that will be accepted in 95% of time and the common characteristics in those applications will be that I am ignorant about Internet.
I think this proves that if I might not be right 100%, I am at least right 95%.