beebware

Then in the smaller city they will be listed. My main customers come from the USA (UK revenues amount to less than 20%), but that doesn't mean I can get a listing there - I'm stuck in UK/England/Leicester... Sorry.

Or even say that they are based in the States - that'll be a start!

Your website has nothing to do with Christanity and is not suitable for listing in http://dmoz.org/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Christianity/Businesses/ . The religion (or lack therefore) of the site owner has no bearing on where a site is listed. However, as >> Your submission has been redirected to the misplacd submissions folder. << indicates, we have received your submission and it will be moved to an appropriate area of the directory for review. Therefore is no need for you to resubmit.

Mostly agreeded with dfy. Concerete Maintenance Systems are based in Huntington Beach, California. I'd add the detail to the ODP site logs myself, but my connection to the main ODP server is a bit flaky at the moment. But it may be an idea to put the site address on your contact page anyway. After all, I'm just assume that you _are_ based in the USA - the 714 area code could be for anywhere at all (+1 714 however is US only). (fx: beebs slouches away muttering something about 'mercians forgetting there's more of the world then just that former colony)

Your site is awaiting review in that category with over 300 other sites.

Personally, I'd look for a contact address on the Contact Page - but that's probably just me.... Oh, it's worth reading our guidelines on affiliate sites, specifically the section that reads >> Sites consisting primarily of affiliate links, or whose sole purpose is to drive user traffic to another site for the purpose of commission sales, provide no unique content and are not appropriate for inclusion in the directory <<. Your site appears to be mainly (if not all) affiliate links. Off-topic: Nice selective editing on the "What is Shop-Links.net?" page - no mention of the free submission system to Altavista or any mention to Google <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

Re: Category Updated/Listing Removed? A brief look at your site looks to me that its primary purpose is to sell bathroom orientated products - that is probably the reason why it was moved.

>> I didn't know that will take more than one update cycle << Eh? The ODP doesn't have "update cycles"...

Re: DesignHaus site submission Your actually submitted to: http://dmoz.org/Business/Business_Services/Design/Industrial_Designers/ Your site submission date stamp is "17/January/2003 00:39:10 GMT" - less than an hour ago...

That was probably your notification of acceptance <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" /> The editor account "agouti" became active on the 16th of January at 02:31GMT. If you have forgotton your password, please go to the password reminder page. Welcome to the ODP and I hope you enjoy editing! Once you log into your dashboard (via the link to http://dmoz.org/editors/ on the front page shown as "editor login"), take some time to familarise yourself with the guidelines and then, if you have any questions feel free to go to the internal editor forums and post in the 'New Editor Forums' and we will try and help you. If you just want to settle down and get a feel of the community, then have a read of our "social forum" the "Penguin Cafe". Congratulations and welcome to the ODP <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well, the category has been renamed to Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/User-Contributed/ as the secondary "Directory" was redundant. However, even after a very very brief spam clear up, the unreviewed queue quantity of that category is still quivering around the 60 site mark.

I can tell you that the statement >> Therefore, when we are being denied a listing in the directory, we are actually being denied a high ranking in Google. << is totally false and untrue. An ODP listing _helps_ but it is NOT the "be all and end all". And, as an ODP editor, we do not care if Google lists your site because we do or decided to exclude it. All we care about is the content on http://dmoz.org/ . The ODP guideline on affiliate sites is strict for a reason - otherwise practically every category would be crammed full of the same "site" with just different branding (as that is practically what you are doing - just 'rebranding' someone elses services). We are not "picking" on your site because it has an affiliate link (as, as you say, that would exclude the majority of sites) because we are excluding it as it falls foul of our guidelines . Basically, the guidelines were designed and discussed by ODP staff and senior editors and we have decided that we don't want "sites...whose sole purpose is to drive user traffic to another site for the purpose of commission sales" to be listed in the directory. Editors have looked at your site and found that that is the prime purpose of your site (to drive traffic to Insweb), therefore it is not suitable for listing. If, however, you find sites in the directory that you feel have the prime purpose of driving visitors to other affiliate services - let us know and we'll review them and probably remove them. The guidelines have evolved over time and many sites have been "grandfathered in" but that doesn't mean we can't remove them.

Your site was 'published' on the 11th of January and can be found in Shopping/Gifts/Gift_Baskets/W as "White Willow Creek - Handcrafted high quality gift baskets and gel candels at affordable prices for every occasion." Your site will appear in the ODP search system as soon as the RDF generation is fixed (see other threads on the forum for details of _that_ problem).

You only submitted _4 days_ ago! It is waaaay too early to even think about asking for a site submission status - we recommend a MINIMUM of a month after a submission (3 months is the best figure). Asking too often/too quick a frequency just wastes editors time...

You'll have to tell us which category first... On the other hand, you could just go to the category in quesiton and go to the 'Update URL' link in the top right hand corner and make the request "the proper way".

No category is "editor-less". For example, http://dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/England/Leicestershire/ can be edited be every editor listed in .../Leicester/ every editor listed on .../England/ , every editor listed on .../United_Kingdom/ and so forth (and that list excludes 'editalls and metas' who can review sites in any category): if fact, the "deeper down" the category tree you submit the larger the number of editors that can review it.

Again, what makes you a) think your site has been rejected (it could still be sitting in the unreviewed queue), b) what makes you think it has been rejected for being an affiliate site and c) what is the URL of the site (so editors can take a peek an comment with some accuracy in this thread: if you could post a clickable link to the category as well - e.g. http://dmoz.org/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/ it would be useful).

>> I have edited quietly for years, but I am almost positive that the recent changes to my editing privelages were a direct result of your having drawn the attention of meta editors to this issue. << For those of you who panicked and wondered what exactly was meant by this statement (I did!), elwoodsharp received a "promotion" in the ODP late last year.

Sorry - this forum is for discussing ODP matters only. If you are looking for search engine promotion advice, either employ a knowledgable SEO company (I'm able to put you in touch with one if you want-private message me for details) or consult one of the many forums about the subject - such as http://www.webmastersworld.com/ and http://searchengineforums.com/ The ODP RDF production will be fixed as soon as possible.

Ok, the ODP is actually part of "The Mozilla Organisation" owned by Netscape Inc (who, in turn are owned by AOL Time-Warner). The ODP (Open Directory Project - the "proper name" of DMOZ) servers are located within the Netscape server center in California (to my belief). The entire ODP server(s) run on Apache webservers on a Sun Solaris machine ("Solaris" is a high-end UNIX operating system - Linux is a sort of "free" version of UNIX with a few differences). So - neither Microsoft or Linux. (I doubt Microsoft platforms would be able to cope with the load in a cost effective manner anyway - but that's my personal opinion). Database wise - they tend to use the Berkeley Database system - mainly because it's free and for historical reasons. The ODP search system runs off a very very highly modified version of Isearch (again because it's free and for historical reasons). More information about the ODP can be found on it's about page and the Press category - also here and here. Why would you want to know all that information anyway? <img src="/images/icons/confused.gif" alt="" /> You don't need to know any of it to either add a site or to apply to become an editor yourself...

Ah - that explains why I wasn't able to look at the site. All I got was a blank page. Obviously my ad blocker software (ZoneAlarm which is used by quite a large number of people) blocked the auto-resizing popup window - mistaking it for an advert. I would expect other ad-blocker software to do likewise... Of course, discussions about web design aren't really welcome here - but I thought I'd point out that the above reason is why some editors may just reject your site for being a "blank page" (as that's all we can see).

It is still awaiting review in the above category with around 40 other sites.

Correcting links: http://dmoz.org/Reference/Education/Colleges_and_Universities/Admissions/ (leave a space between the URL and anything else to make it auto-clickable) URL: http://www.collegedata.com/ Your site is already listed in the Admissions category (as CollegeData - Offers college and scholarship search tools, college profiles, an admission chances calculator, advice on choosing, applying to, and paying for college, and articles on admission and financial aid.) as well as the Guides one (as CollegeData - Contains college and scholarship search tools, plus articles and advice.). The ODP search engine runs off the RDF dump which has not been correctly updated since September (search this forum for further details). We are hoping this problem will be fixed RSN (Real Soon Now). But your site IS listed in the ODP - so there is nothing to worry about.

There are less than 75 sites awaiting review in that category. If you look at the bottom of the page you will see "Last update: 9:30 PT, Wednesday, January 8, 2003" which reflects the time that category page was last updated. Pages can be updated because a site is added to that category, removed from that category, a @link added/removed/changed, "Related categories" added/changed/removed, new category FAQs or descriptions added, new "Foreign Languages" links added, site descriptions changed etc etc - hence the "last update" date doesn't necessarily mean other sites were reviewed. I take it you have also submitted to the appropriate Toronto category (which, I'm guessing, is probably this one).

Re: submission not going through If a URL is submitted and it is already in the unreviewed queue of a category, it overwrites the previous submission. For example, if http://www.example.com/ was submitted 10 times to any category (even if it is or isn't "intercepted"), then only one copy will stay in the unreviewed queue. This is why we recommend only submitting once to a category - as further submissions will just replace your old one and, if the editor is processing the queue in "oldest submission first" order, it will push your site to 'the back of the queue'. The 'interception/security/anti-spam' system is a bit sensitive, but as time progresses editors are refinining it, but it is just knowing what details to add. Some people seem to experience the problem more when submitting with Internet Explorer than with Netscape, Mozilla or Opera... I believe most of the problem is orientated around ISP cache servers (especially when the cache server is not 'seemless' and presents more than 1 IP address to the "general internet" - a relatively easy problem to fix for any knowledgable ISP). I'm, in fact, in the UK myself - but when I've tried to replicate this problem - I have failed to do so. I've tried different browsers, turning my cache on and off, but I've yet to make it fail to me (and that's "acting" like the general public - not "editor" side). As regarding "open sourcing" the ODP source code, many editors would like this (and an ODP staff member has expressed the same) but the approval for the source code to be "open sourced" is out of the our hands (I know it'll probably have to be 'authorised' by higher-level employees within Netscape and then Netscape Legal, and then appropriate disclaimers etc will have to be drawn up, download area set up etc etc - quite a lot of 'red tape' and stuff).