Everyone makes such a big deal about this directory, I mean look at this forum, it even has a section dedicated to it. I have 2 sites and none of them is listed. I submit one of them about a month ago, but it still haven't been approved. I have a question for all those who got approved by this directory. What is so special about DMOZ and what will you experience once they approve you? (increase in traffic or pagerank perhaps, although I doubt it) ??
the big deal is that if your site is indexed in dmoz, you will give a pretty high-valued evaluation from google
I got accepted about a month ago (I had submitted it back in June-ish) and haven't noticed any huge surge in traffic or links. Only get a few visits per month from DMOZ. However, my site is still young and I'm sure it takes awhile before any benefits can be seen. I keep hearing that directories pull their starting lists from DMOZ, so that seems like reason enough to me.
The big deal is that not all that long ago Directories were a better resource then Search Engines. In those days of yore DMOZ was the biggest and the best. Now they are just the biggest... but sadly many SEO blogs looking for content are still going on about how the ODP is still the best and that it SHOULD be submitted too. Now it's more like a Myth perpetuated by substandard bloggers. DMOZ editors themselves will tell you to simply SUBMIT AND FORGET, so do just that... it'll neither help nor harm your site. Though keep in mind that MANY editors today do not use the submission queue, so chances are that simply forgetting to submit can often result in the same wait time... so *shrug* Feeling lucky? The ODP listing is now not only a matter of urban legends, it's also a complete crapshoot.
It sounds to me like DMOZ could be benifitial to a website but the benifits could be 6 months or so down the line and ODP is more a lottery, you could win and get listed, but only end up with a tenner or you could miss completely. Are there any other options/directories that could get a better result quicker?
There are many free directories out there. Many of which have a faster listing time. I'll not give a link to any of them, but if you check out the directories forum here and search for FREE you are bound to find many threads on the subject and several threads listing hundreds of free ones. The best method for directory submission is to submit to as many as you can (take your time) and vary your keywords and your description text. This will help ensure that each directory is unique (one of the biggest setbacks of DMOZ clones is that they are duplicate content). Of course going through the lists of free directories some of them will never list your site, but then that is nothing new, the "biggest" directory (DMOZ) is known for never listing sites so the little ones are just following suit
It all depends, I check my submissons everyday and if the site has good content and offers something others sites in the directory cover I'll list it. so it usually takes a site to got threw spam filters in 48 hours,then I can see it. so six months to me usually never happens. its up to that editor.
Ha! Good Point! I've never thought of that... But it makes sense. All this time I've just been using basically the same description. Thanks a lot for the tip.
But as you now know not all categories have a named editor and relies on editors further up the tree and those who can edit everywhere. With some editors having thousands of listings showing on their dashboard, so it is not feasible for all editors to work your model and some editors also choose not to use submissions to build up the directory. Submissions, in some areas, can be very unproductive use of an editors time.
There is no big deal. They offer you a possible back link and now days that is the all they offer. They were once "The Directory". Now they are just one of many. I have been listed there for nine months and it has done nothing for SEO, PR, or traffic. Submit, forget, and move on.
Oh I agree, I don't think every editor has an hour a day to edit like I do, some may just do it on the weekends. thats what makes being an editor on DMOZ so good, its more like a hobby then a job.
Thanks Qryztufre, I'll do a search and see what come up. I've only recently started looking at directory submissions (SEO is still pretty new to me) so appreciate the advice
The approve time varies on the cat. I have had 9 sites added to the directory. My video porn site was approved in about 15 days. One of my old dating sites took about 9 months. the average wait for me has been about 30 days. I do have about 3 sites that were submitted over a year ago and still aren't in their database and i know they was submitted correctly . The heavy cats can take over a year and that not air talk. I have not noticed anything special on my approved sites i actually just do it because to be honest its a challenging task to get your site listed, But like said above submit and move one
Directory submissions are usless, unrelevant back links. Feel free to waste your time or money submitting to hundreds of them, and I'll take my 5-6 related niche back links over the crappy no purpose 100's or even thousands of directory links any day.
But I have thousands of submissions that I could look at not half a dozen a day. When you complain about the time length remember this is a hobby for us editors, we don't have to even look at submissions. Our hobby is to build a directory it is not to list sites for webmasters so submissions are only suggestions, we do not undertake to review or list even brilliant sites in any sort of timetable. But the more editors the more it is likely the queues will get less (bearing in mind that we only ask editors to do a minimum of 1 edit in 4 months, though many editors spend hours a day working, and we ask editors to build good categories from either suggestions, looking out for likely sites using search engines or even forums - their choice) so how about you volunteering and spending a few hours a day getting the lists down?
it's free traffic and of relatively good quality. The results are indexed in several search engines. So not a bad thing to have