Category suggestions please

Hi, I'd like some advice before submitting my site to the dmoz directory.

When searching for the best category to submit my site, I came acros some problems. First of all let me describe the site i'm working for.

The url is PerfectFlower.com.

The site is dedicated to international flowers delivery, and it is just a couple of months old. The site will grow in the next months to 140 deliveries countries, with diferent products for each.

Now, when searching for a category at DMOZ, I'm not sure where to place this site.

If I search for International Flower Delivery, the first site is placed in World > Español > Países > Uruguay > Economía y negocios > Compra, where the category has nothing to do with international flower delivery, altho the site specialices on International delivery. (the searchs are in directory.google.com as dmoz is not working right now for me.

Now, I navegate to Top: Shopping: Flowers and then I can't go on, as there is no suitable category for this site. Let's say I use Florists, then I should select one of the subcategories, which would be a world region, and this just doesn't make sense, as this site has "no nationality". Althow offices might be in a specific country, does this makes the "site's" country?

For this, I think "flowers" should have an "international" section, but this is just my opinion and I don't know so much about DMOZ anyway.

Then, the same will be for the lenguage, but for what I've read here on the forum, once I find a category, I'll submit to the diferent lenguages of that category.

Well, I hope I've made my self clear with my basic english.

Any advices will be much appreciated.

Choosing a categroy for you - would require someone look at your site and start to review it. Therefore we don't not provide that service.

So choose the best single categoey - an editor who is familiar with flower shops will eventually look at it. Note that the standard for unique content for flower shops is high, since we are swamped with fake flower shops being submitted.

May I suggest that you read the submission notice for http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Flowers/Florists :

Submissions must be directed to the most appropriate regionally-organized sub-category and must substantially feature unique products and not just widely available arrangement images.


The location of the establishment should be easily found on the web site. Failing to have proper location identifying information on the site may greatly increase the time to be listed in the appropriate category.

Click to expand...

This suggests to me that, if you put your location on the web site, it might be listable in that subcategory of http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Flowers/Florists .

But I'm not our expert.

my bad

arubin, my bad.

Thanks for making me notice this. I've read it before, but didn't get it.

bobrat, thanks for your advices too. First of all, this site is not fake, and it's till in beta, that's why there are some things missing...
I knew it always takes too long to enter the directory, so we will finish up the site a litle more and then submit it again.


well, I'll have to work some things before submitting, but I'll do it right from the start.

thanks again, and any other comments are wellcome!

so we will finish up the site a litle more and then submit it again.

Click to expand...

Free advice:

Please make sure that it is substantially complete when you submit.

This is a very competitive area of the directory you are submitting into, and a site that is perceived as less than complete would stand very little chance of bieng accepted.

Hi again!

well, after some time, I'm now decided to submit my site to the dmoz as I belive now is complete.

For anybody who knows about flowershops, we really have a good service and I belive including our site in the dmoz is a service for customers.

anyway, I'm back here for the same old question, that the dmoz don't seem to solve yet.

in any direction I search, or navegate the dmoz for the right category, the most suitable category, is always not enough, why? becouse our service is "international flower delivery". Although we are fisically placed in Uruguay, our service won't reach the people who really use it if we place our listing in
http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Flowers/Florists/South_America/
or here
http://dmoz.org/World/Español/Países/Uruguay/Economía_y_negocios/Compras/
as this listings would be right, but are not the only ones. Let's say our site would have to be in this category for each country we deliver flowers to, but this dosn't make any sense although it would help us with the link pop , but I beleve the site should be placed in a more comprehensive category, like
http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Flowers/Florists/
I could also make one site for each continent, then submit each to the corresponding category, but is again the same.

Anyway, I'm just looking for opinions, and posible solutions, for my site and other sites that have the same issue, like the big ones like ftd, teleflora, etc., while others just work for the local.

I'd like to here some opinions, then I'll just go and suggest my site to a bad category like Top: World: Español: Países: Uruguay: Economía y negocios: Compras

Thanks.

You really got the best advice anyone can offer you from Arubin back in post #3. Please read it again, and suggest your site, just once, to the one single best guess you can make at the correct category. The editor who eventually reviews your site will move it if you get the wrong category - as long as you have just made the one submittal.

Now, if you submit several times to several categories, or several sites all related to each other to several categories, you will be spamming the ODP. The consequences of THAT can be very severe, up to and including banning ANY listing for your site.

I do hope this is clear.
Bill

Hi Bill.

I'm not willing to spam the dmoz, I would like to make that clear. I wouldn't be writing here in that case.

Then, my point is that the dmoz is not well organized in this kind of services, like international delivery.

International delivery services should not be categorized by region! this just doesn't make sense if a site offers worldwide delivery to every country in the world.

I'm not trying to get a better listing, I'd like to make that clear too, I'm just suggesting a problem in the directory structure, can anybody understand that?

anyway...

have a nice day.

I haven't looked at your site, but I want to explore the concept of international delivery with you.

If someone in Brussels, Belgium orders flowers through you for delivery to Victoria, Canada are the flowers actually shipped out of your location?

If the answer is yes, then you may have a good case for international delivery.

If the answer is no, they get shipped from a florist local to Victoria, Canada, then the answer is no, you are not engaged in the international delivery of flowers, you are engaged in international order taking. Nothing wrong with that, but to a directory is a huge difference in the type of business.

hi again spectregunner.

You've got the point.

The delivery service is as you mentioned, and we don't trick the customers on this, we explain this on our website.

I now can understand a litle better the dmoz way on this. If you have a florist for each country, then the customer can navegate throug the directory and find a local florist, and this is great, but our service is diferent. Let's say I want to send flowers through a local florist in new york. Well, getting to a page with 30 florists, offering diferent products, prices, locations, services, asking for delivery charges, etc, etc, is a good thing, but our service is to do that job, find the best services, prices, products and then you just have to tell us where to send the flowers.

Now, my point is that at the moment, there is no place for my web shop. If you belive our bussiness is not respectfull, and that is not a service that deserves a category, then dmoz is just not for us, but I hope you understand the service we offer and why placing the site in a commerce category in Uruguay just doesn't make sense, here the dmoz is not being of much help for someone interested in sending flowers to diferent parts of the world.

Thanks again for your response.

Bote, remember that many visitors use the search box instead of drilling through the categories. In that type of search, your site will come up where it's relevant, regardless of which category you list it in.

I have no idea whether the search box is more or less popular than the drilling through categories option... I personally use the search box first, because the categories are so specific that oftentimes the type of site I'm looking for on any given visit could legitimately be found in several subcategories. The search box brings up a bunch of sites from various categories, and then I go to those categories to browse. Which means I would find your site in either category, as long as your site is keyed to the keywords I'm using.

... and therein lies a problem, umm, two problems really. The ODP does not DO keywords, so the advice is somewhat flawed; and the ODP search is not for finding sites, but for finding categories - the fact that the results also include a few sites is a "feature", not its main reason for being.

In this context I'd recommend the "Google Directory Search" as one option.

bote said:

I hope you understand the service we offer and why placing the site in a commerce category in Uruguay just doesn't make sense, here the dmoz is not being of much help for someone interested in sending flowers to diferent parts of the world.

Click to expand...

Bote,

We help users to locate the real florists that can deliver their gifts.

In http://www.dmoz.org/Shopping/Flowers/Florists we list florists that actually handle real flowers and also offer transfer/relay services nationally and internationally. The primary focus of the sites is to sell their own unique products while also permitting the wide scale delivery of orders.

Sites that primarily exist to sell via wire service/relay affiliation are explained in http://editors.dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#notinclude

Bonafide wire service/relay networks, such as those displayed in logos on your site, are listed in http://www.dmoz.org/Business/Consumer_Goods_and_Services/Floral/Relay/.

A Uruguay-based florist with unique content that also offers the ability to transfer orders internationally would be listed in http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Flowers/Florists/South_America/.

Our goal is to help users find providers, not affiliates of providers. I hope this answers your question.

Thanks camilla for your responses.

I totally understand your point and I agree thats the point is to take the user to the local provider, or at least the closest one.

We know that, as we've been in this bussines for some time now. We work with teleflora and ftd, but we also have lots of florists (mainly in south america and europe) with wich we work directly. This takes our service one step further, and we do not just work with the big networks, and we are trying to expand our own network as an extra service. This give us the posibility to have really good prices to many countries.

I also realice that I'm talking about what we "can" do, but our site doesn't reflects that at the moment, but we are just starting, and it takes some time to get "real" pictures (not just the standard ones of the teleflora cd that you see in most sites). In some time now we'll have the rest of world countries online (mostly with standard pictures), but we are already working with each local FTD Teleflora florist to have fresh pictures and products.

Anyway, I'll follow your advice and submit the site to the category http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Flowers/Florists/South_America/

And I have another question. Right now the site is perfectflower.com in english and in spanish, but the spanish site will now be florperfecta.com, and I gues this would go streigh to http://dmoz.org/World/...Uruguay/.../Compras/

Thanks again for your responses.