Paid-to-submit commercial services?

Has anyone used any of these successfully?

I have found a company that (for a large fee obviously!) will give your website the once over and submit it to DMOZ with a 21-day money back guarantee if it's not listed. I am ready to part with my money as ALL of the website competitors the area have a DMOZ listing. The website is travel related, has PR3, is well ranked in all the major search engines and has unique, quality and relevant content - which is more than can be said for it's competitors!

Has anyone else used a paid service before? Care to recommend it?

Thanks.

 

No, I can't recommend to you such a services but...
I can recommend you name of very good Doctor who will help you a lot



fastreplies

 

You are paying to have someone suggest a site to dmoz, when in fact, suggesting sites can be done by yourself at no charge.

I would be very concerned that he offers a money back guarantee for listing, read the fine print, because absolutely NO ONE can guarantee a site will be included in dmoz. If the site is compliant it may be included in time, but no time frame is given and it could be one day, one month or one year, it depends upon when an editor volunteers to review sites in the suggestion pool.

Cheers.

 

snooks - It does appear to be a money-back guarantee if the listing is not successful, it's not just a submission service. If it's appropriate I will post the link but a Google search for "guaranteed dmoz listing" has them at the top. It's the $450 service and the refund is less the $200 submission service. It's a $250 risk but my client is desperate for DMOZ inclusion and I have hired a freelancer before who went through the website with a fine tooth comb (after I had!) and he said everything was 100% okay with it (no dead links, W3 approved etc. etc.) so I went ahead and submitted it about six months ago and still nothing. The category only has six listings in it and my clients website is 100x superior in content and quality so the freelancer had to conclude that the category editor may have had interests in other sites as it's a specific geographical area where he wants to be listed and he suspects that the editor may be their web-designer.

 

LOL. What is it with everyone wanting a link from dmoz. It is not a magical link, it dosent carry much pr, there are far more superior ways of generating traffic with that sort of money.......i just dont understand it

Just keep in mind that NO site is guaranteed inclusion and if a site is published and found to not comply with the guidelines, it would certainly be removed by any editor that sees it. (Bye bye money.)

I see no harm in posting the link for the submission service, but please DO NOT post the url in question.

Cheers

 

Is that guaranteed dmoz listing service itself listed in DMOZ?

If not, are you going to ask them why not ?

Oh, and a large part of the 'factual' content on the top half of their home page is, putting it kindly, interesting .

 

Well, they are listed on Yahoo!

http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_E...t/Promotion/Search_Engine_Optimization__SEO_/

 

If your site is high quality, then submit it yourself and it will be approved.

Being approved/listed by DMOZ WON'T make your site successful, only you can do that by providing something useful/fun/crucial for users...

 

I hope you understand that they are running win-win scam job.

If you are lucky and DMOZ list your site regardless who submitted it, they keep all purse,
and if not, they give you back $250 and keep $200 and then LOL all a way down to their Bank

Hey, I can do better that that deal.
Give me $450 and if I fail to submit your site to DMOZ in 24 hours,
I will give you back $400 and give you free inclusion in AMRAY Directory



fastreplies

 

Hi,

Thanks for the replies everyone. I agree with what you are saying but when you have a client with a business website who wants one, well, the customer is always right (or never wrong?!)

They are a geographically-based walk-in-the-door business (vs. say mail-order or services being delivered online) and we have identified two main competitors BOTH of whom have a DMOZ listing for their rather poor websites. Our client (rightly or wrongly) wants what they have. DESPITE my clients' website having a higher pagerank (PR3 vs. both of their PR2's). My clients website is definitely superior in terms of content and quality and it ranks above both of the competitors (who sell the same product in the same area) in ALL the searches applicable to their area. My client ranks between 1st and 3rd place for most of them - which they are thrilled about but, alas they keep asking about the DMOZ listing, what they can do, what did the competitors did to gain entry? I am at a loss what to tell them. Despite being obviously more successful (as seen in the Bing, Google and Yahoo ranking positions) they still want to be part of the DMOZ gang. I don't want to lose them as a client so I am trying to satisfy their need. I think they may well press ahead with the $450 service I mentioned above. The $200 loss is a couple of sales to them. I may be able to convince them to spend their money on another fine-tooth-comb job scrutinisation instead so to really make sure the website is 100% worthy of a DMOZ listing and re-submit it myself. Or I may hit them over the head. It could go either way!

 

If they are willing to pay at their own risk, there is nothing to fear. In the end it's their money!

 

@tenthirteen: I hope you realise that the usual reason why a listable website isn't listed is that no editor has yet volunteered to process it. No amount of grooming, primping and keyword optimisation is going to affect that situation.

From your description, it seems that the site would be best listed in its locality. If you haven't done so already, I encourage you to suggest it to there (and I do mean locality, not the nearest honeypot city, county, state or country). An address on the Contact Us page aids credibility.

A Regional listing doesn't preclude a Topical listing BTW but is often more relevant to the business. When I'm hungry, I want to buy the best pizza in this town, not the best pizza on the planet.

 

I think no one can really guarantee a listing on any major search engines and directories.

 

I can better that; give me $400 and I will submit it within 12 hours.

 

I tell you what I will do if someone give me $10...
I will submit your site to DMOZ in under 1 minute.

Just email me what you want me to submit and deposit $10 in PayPal account
My offer has no time or amount of sites limit.

So, keep them coming!



fastreplies

 

caprichoso - Agreed, but they are looking to me as some kind of authority on DMOZ (hardly!) although I keep trying to remind them that their Google ranking is far better than the other businesses. Lets hope they start listening to me!

jimnoble - Re: The catgeory/editior. The intended listing location is something like this one (this isn't it but, it's the equivalent): http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/Spain/Autonomous_Communities/Canary_Islands/Lanzarote/Travel_and_Tourism/Lodging/Hotels/ - very specific and it only has six current listings in the equivalent one that my clients want to list in. As regards the editior, well that small category doesn't have one but two levels up does (for the region, so the equivalent in my example would be Lanzarote). When you click on the editors profile it says, no kidding, words to the effect that they are taking an extended break from DMOZ. No wonder I can't help my client get listed! Maybe we should try higher up than than the very specialised niche, e.g. http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/Spain/Autonomous_Communities/Canary_Islands/Travel_and_Tourism/Lodging/ - maybe then we can find an editor with a pulse!

 

LOL! I've just looked at your DMOZ profile Jim - my clients hotel is in the UK! You want to give one of your England editors a wake up call!

Oh and re: a contact us page - the Hotels website has their contact details at the top of every page!

 

I can promise you that soliciting inclusion from DP Forum, won't do you any good.
Asking Jim to do anything for you will fail on a deaf ear because if he wants to do
something for you, he would do that long time ago.

Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.
If you continue submitting your site from here, it will be removed from DMOZ pending bin
and you will have to start your submission all over again.

You made your case and now put it to rest.



fastreplies

 

fastreplies - I wasn't soliciting an inclusion from Jim, I was suggesting to him that there are editors on DMOZ who are hitting the snooze button too many times! Surely if I was trying to solicit an inclusion from him I'd have posted the desired category for the website, the site url or perhaps PM'd them to him? I haven't done any of those things, nor do I intend to. I didn't even post the editors username or the exact wording of his signature that pertains to him not intending to do any editing in the near future so your entire second paragraph is complete bunk. None of my posts here identify the website or the category in question. So you can direct posts at me implying that I'm stupid but don't expect me to behave like it. I wasn't making a case or trying to solicit an inclusion, I was asking a question about the merits of paid inclusion services.

 

@tenthirteen:

No category is without an editor because over 200 of them can edit anywhere that they choose - but choose is the key word because they are all volunteers who can do as much or as little work as they wish.

When I'm in editing mode, I tend to work at the higher category levels (because somebody needs to) and spend most of my time sorting websites down to their localities. I don't immediately list them there for two reasons.

- Discovering the exact subcategory organisation would mean opening up yet more tabs, consuming more effort and diverting me from my objective.

- I'd hate you guys to get the idea that deliberately suggesting a website to the wrong level could lead to an earlier listing.

Suggesting your hotel at Canary Islands level is thus just a waste of everybody's time and resources and slows things down rather than speeds them up. I repeat my urging not to do it.

I've never subscribed to the squeaky wheel principle. Somebody proclaiming loudly and at length that his site should receive priority is usually mistaken in my experience.

OTOH, we take legitimate QC reports in external forums seriously if we notice them. Humans are much better at spotting bad listings than robots. Using the update listing link at the top of the category page is more likely to be acted upon promptly though.