category updates

El Paso Rugs · Mar 22, 2004

I was recently moved to a category which states that it was last updated 11-03. That is a long time ago. Will this category be updated soon, or is that just some kind of mistake? shopping/regional and ethnic/north american
I was moved there from a category that my company had been under for about four years and when we changed Url due to ownership changes we were transfered to start from scatch. Why was my site not updated in its original category after being there so long? Now the site is waiting review once again. New url :www.elpasorugs.com old url : www.elpasorug.com
The old URL is filled with dead links no use to us, but is still listed.
Our original category was Shopping: Home and Garden: Floors: Carpets and Rugs: Handmade
We were doing great under this listing.
I can use any feedback to help me understand.
Thanks
El Paso Rugs

thehelper · Mar 22, 2004

oldelpasorug.com is currently listed in

http://editors.dmoz.org/Shopping/Home_and_Garden/Floors/Carpets_and_Rugs/Handmade/

The old url works. There will be no url change allowed on that site because the oldelpasorug.com url works. If you submitted an update request any editor looking at it would reject it because the old url works. If you want to change the url you are going to have to put some kind of note up on the site or do a 301 permanent redirect to the new url which our link checking software will catch the next time it runs.

Best Regards

El Paso Rugs · Mar 22, 2004

Url Works But Links Don't

I know the url works, but there are a lot of dead links. Shopping cart for example. The new site that was to be updated in its place was moved over for review to another category, why? It is the same owner just not working out of that site. That site is incomplete as many pages do not have images.
When you update the url, does that mean you can only update the site not the name. Maybe that's where we went wrong, thinking I could update the sites name after I had completed the new site. Well I hope it is removed soon as the editor is aware the site is incomplete. He was nice enough to get back to me on the site trasfer issue and I let him know. He then informed me about this site.

Alucard · Mar 22, 2004

If the two sites represent the same business then I would assume that it is your interest to shut one of them down, especially considering one is so incomplete (as you noted).

The problem we have had in the past is people CLAIMING to be the "same site" as another site, in an effort to get the other site delisted.

Therefore, in order to get an old site delisted, it is VITAL that some proof is put on the old site that the new one is really the one we should be listing - no amount of dicsusion on this forum or submissions will take the place of that.

The most effective way (and which would help potential customers) would be to put a permanent redirect on the old site so that surfers are steered to the new one.

Once this is done, THAT is the site that the ODP will list.

Hope this helps.

El Paso Rugs · Mar 22, 2004

not updated since 11-03

sorry for the new thread, but here is my question:
The category Shopping: Ethnic and Regional: North American states that it has not been updated since November 03. Is somebody updating this category? I am asking as my site was sent for review to this category from another one. This seems like a very very long time. Will my site www.elpasorugs.com be reviewed soon in this category or should I try to resubmit in something similar?
Thanks
El Paso Rugs

hutcheson · Mar 22, 2004

El Paso Rugs said:
The category Shopping: Ethnic and Regional: North American states that it has not been updated since November 03. Is somebody updating this category? I am asking as my site was sent for review to this category from another one. This seems like a very very long time.

It's not a very long time at all, as you can easily see by doing the math. say 3000-5000 sites edited a day, and 500,000 categories. Assuming the edits are evenly distributed, which they aren't, what's the minimum possible average amount of time between category edits?

El Paso Rugs]Will my site [url]www.elpasorugs.com[/url said:
be reviewed soon in this category ...

There is no possible way we could know that.

El Paso Rugs said:
or should I try to resubmit in something similar?

Read the submittal policies. Submit to the ONE most appropriate category. The long wait you see is solely a result of thousands of people thinking -- wrongfully -- they had a better way of getting their own site reviewed quickly (and thus submitting inappropriate sites, or multiple submissions, or submissions to the wrong category.)

El Paso Rugs · Mar 22, 2004

all categories updated soon

I'm sorry but it is along time 11-27-03 to be exact. Any other category that I view is updated if not this month the last month latest. Five months is way to long, I could do the the math but that's a lot of math if I have to go back that long. I now you are all intelligent individuals, but we are all due to a couple of mistakes. I think this may be one unless I am not getting something.

thehelper · Mar 22, 2004

OK - here is the deal.

1.) Your new site will not get a listing in the dmoz.org directory UNTIL you either put up a notice on the site that it has moved or do a 301 permanent redirect to the new url from it.

2.) After you accomplish that you would do an UPDATE URL request in the category your old URL is currently listed in.

That is what you need to do. We are all volunteer editors here and we choose what categories we want to work in. Due to the voluntary nature of the directory it is impossible to predict when a site review will take place. It could be 2 hours it could be 2 years or more. You just have to be patient. Nothing that you can say or do in this forum is going to faciliate that review.

With that said I hope that you decide to follow the directions I have laid out in this post because that is the absolutely best thing, and only thing you can do to facilitate the process.

Good Luck!

hutcheson · Mar 22, 2004

To add to what thehelper said: the "301 redirect" is just about the ONLY thing you can do that will set an upper limit on how long you have to wait. See, when our automatic-link-checker runs (as it does every month or three) the redirects get flagged, and then everybody gets busy and fixes them all within a week or three -- because that is a quality issue.

So do the redirect, and hope Robozilla runs rampant soon.

giz · Mar 22, 2004

Just to clarify what thehelper said, the redirect should be placed on the old site and it should point to the new site.

You don't need to do anything on the new site to flag this. Only the old site needs to have the change of information.

El Paso Rugs · Mar 30, 2004

never mind the redirect

I will not be able to redirect the site but fortunately the site has been doing better on the web. The question that never got answered was - in the category "shopping/ethnic and regional/north american" - it is stated that this category has not been updatrd since November of 2003. I had a reply saying that this was not a long time for a category update, but I have yet to find another category with such an extensive update period. Any other category has been updated within the last month. Will an editor get around to this category soon? If I get an answer of eventually I will presume nothing will be done. I think this is a lagitement question, and something that may have to be looked at.
If you can - has the www.elpasorugs.com site been reviewed yet?
Thanks

El Paso Rugs · Mar 30, 2004

category was updated

The category was finally updated as I went to review it. Thank you. I do not believe our site www.elpasorugs.com was reviewed but at least there was some movement in the catagory. I hope you will get to my site soon. Thanks once again for the update. Can you let me know why it had been so long and is this category backed up because of the extent period for which it was not updated?

Alucard · Mar 30, 2004

There are many MANY categories that have not been updated in a much longer time, but I have better things to do right now than to go find them.

As for the sporadic updates - that has a lot to do with the voluntary nature of the ODP - editors edit whenever, wherever and whatever they want to or have time to. This means that some of the areas get more attention than others.

spectregunner · Mar 30, 2004

Can you let me know why it had been so long

We keep telling you that four months is not so long. There are 590,000 categories and many have not been updated in a much longer time.

The amount of time between updates for a given categories is not something that coners us, it is not something that interests us, it is ot something that we keep track of.

There is no weekly report generated from within the bowels of ODP that lands in the hands of our senior editor detailing what categories have not been updated lately. Thus, he does not send out e-mails exorting us to "work faster you fools, work faster" simply because a given category has not been updated in four months, in six months or even a year.

So my advice to you is to stop worrying about cateogry updates. We could do background work that wold show as a new update every single day of the week, and you would not move one iota closer to beng reviewed. There is simply no correlation.

And, to clarify what you should be asking: has my update request been reviewed? You were given an update on 3/22, you can come back again, in this thread sometime after April 22.

El Paso Rugs · Apr 9, 2004

301 redirect

I have finally got a hold of my old site and became the primary contact. I was able to redirect the site, well the server pointed the old site to my existing site. Is this what a 301 redirect is? Old site "www.elpasorug".com - new site "www.elpasorugs.com". Will it be a while till I am able to view it through the ODP directory? I have submitted a URL change but will this type of change just be fixed by your "crawler" or computer systems check, or will it have to be reviewed by the editor?

thehelper · Apr 9, 2004

If you did a 301 redirect then our automatic link checker will flag the url the next time it runs. Also, a 301 redirect will be picked up by Google, a whole seperate issue, and all the page rank from that site will be transferred to the new site. If it is not a 301 redirect but stills redirects to the new site that will be enough for an editor checking to verify it is the new url and they will be able to make the change if you submitted your Update URL request. From what I am hearing from you, you have done what you need to do and now all you have to do is wait. If you did a 301 redirect you don't ever have to worry about it again because everything will just take care of itself over time. Hope this clarifies.

xixtas01 · Apr 10, 2004

For what it's worth, the site is not redirected, but aliased. (The two different domain names point to the same IP.) As I understand it, our link checker will not return an error this case, and so the change will not be automatically flagged.

El Paso Rugs · Apr 19, 2004

no 301 now what

I was unable to establish a 301 redirect because of our servers being Microsoft. The two sites are pointing to the new one but I understand that this will not cause the change to be flaged. Our new site has been indexed in the OPD but has yet to be crawled as it does not show up when you type it in the search. It is indexed under Shopping: Ethnic and Regional: North American: Western and Cowboy. How long will it usually take before I see it in the directory search?

bobrat · Apr 19, 2004

Just to clarify, we don't crawl sites. The search in ODP, is a minimilist function, that only has the URL, the title and the description. Nothing from the sites itself is indexed. The search should never be relied on at the best of time, usually needs a full moon, and a meteor shower to help it. The results are unpredictable and not easily explained, since it's main purpose is to get you to a categroy of sites, not a specific site.

And these days it's worse than usual.

giz · Apr 20, 2004

The search is updated usually about weekly, but sometimes with gaps of about 2 or 3 weeks between.

As stated, it should be used to find categories, rather than site listings.

category updates

El Paso Rugs

Member

thehelper

Member

El Paso Rugs

Member

Alucard

Member

El Paso Rugs

Member

hutcheson

El Paso Rugs

Member

thehelper

Member

hutcheson

giz

Member

El Paso Rugs

Member

El Paso Rugs

Member

Alucard

Member

spectregunner

Member

El Paso Rugs

Member

thehelper

Member

xixtas01

Member

El Paso Rugs

Member

bobrat

Member

giz

Member