Choosing among many possible categories

Hi everyone,

First, thanks to whomever created this forum, it's great to be able to interact with all of the ODP members.

I'm developing a site for a friend's retail bicycle store, which is located in Cooperstown, New York state. FYI, the site is at http://velosophy.com

We're hoping to target two different audiences with the site, first the local audience, which would ideally fall under this category:
Top: Sports: Cycling: Bike Shops: North America: United States: New York

More importantly however, we hope to target a more global audience, or at minimum, a North American or USA audience. Some of the following categories might be relevant:
Top: Sports: Cycling: Bike Shops: North America - currently this doesn't have listing
Top: Sports: Cycling: Bike Shops: North America: United States - this has a dealer membership listing, but nothing else
Top: Shopping: Sports: Cycling - This might actually be the best area category overall.

I'm hoping for any suggestions you might have about the best placement for the site. I'm also wondering if it is possible to be listed in more than one relevant category.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Take care, and keep up the good work!

Cheers,

Cameron Booth

To start with the easy one, the site can be listed in Regional/North_America/United_States/New_York/Localities/C/Cooperstown/Business_and_Economy.

In addition, it can be listed either in Sports/Cycling/Bike_Shops/North_America/United_States/New_York or in Shopping/Sports/Cycling (or possibly one of the subcategories), but not in both. According to the category description for ../Bike_Shops, that category is only for bike shop sites which do not provide online shopping, while the Shopping tree is only for sites which do provide online shopping. (See the Shopping FAQ for more info.)

I'm not quite sure if the site has enough online shopping focus to fit in Shopping/. It has ordering by phone, which is sufficient (ref. Shopping FAQ 1), but I can only find prices for parts of the product range. Looking at the site, I can't find out how far they'll ship products either. To be listed in Shopping, an online shop must deliver to several countries, or to all of USA (ref. Shopping FAQ 1.3).

Sorry I can't be clearer. Hopefully some editors with more Shopping/ experience will chip in here. /images/icons/smile.gif

Hilde

Thanks for your suggestions hildea.

Just to clarify though, you've alluded to the fact that I can submit the site to two different categories, but it would be nice to know that I can definitely do that.

As for the shopping capabilities, we will be greatly expanding the product range, and adding a shopping cart system as soon as the funds allow it (we don't have a .com budget!), so maybe we'll wait a while before submitting to the Shopping/Sports/Cycling category.

Cheers, Cameron

In my opinion, at the moment you are okay for listing in http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_York/Localities/C/Cooperstown/Business_and_Economy/ . As for http://dmoz.org/Sports/Cycling/Bike_Shops/North_America/United_States/New_York/ , I'd say it is worth a try. It's not my area, but we do have a sort-of rule whereby a site may be listed in Regional and in Topical (the other top level categories besides Regional), so this may apply. One declined submission isn't going to get you marked as a spammer.

As for Shopping, I agree with hildea - you should wait until your online service is up before submitting.

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr><p>Just to clarify though, you've alluded to the fact that I can submit the site to two different categories, but it would be nice to know that I can definitely do that.<p><hr></blockquote>
Yes, you can definitively submit a site to two different categories.

This doesn't mean that we want all sites to be submitted twice, of course. /images/icons/crazy.gif Most sites will only be listed once, but there are exceptions. "Once in Regional/ and once somewhere else" (for sites with both a regional and topical aspect) is the most usual one. And it takes a lot more than a double submission to make us groan, write four-letter-words in the editor notes, and reach for "chainsaw delete". [where's that evil grin smiley?]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr><p>To be listed in Shopping, an online shop must deliver to several countries, or to all of USA (ref. Shopping FAQ 1.3).<p><hr></blockquote>Just a quick correction to what I wrote above: It's now "...or most of USA." (Shopping guidelines have been updated.)

Hello Everyone,

I posted a comment under RE: How to change my sites title and description and was very pleased with the help I recieved. In that same post, I addressed the issue of a second listing that was requested in Novemeber under the update url in in ODP. Our description has been updated and am very thankful for that. A reply was posted that a priority for some is performing updates which I completely agree with. At the same time, I also believe that adding listings that directly correlate to an existing catagory should be considered important and added as well. This would add credibility to the ODP catagories and validate ODP search results.

When I submitted a request for a description update, I also submitted a request for an additional directory listing due to the nature of the content on our site. I was hoping that someone could point me in the right direction to get a second listing under Recreation : Outdoors: Snowmobiles: Touring. for our page www.moooseheadcabins.com/snowmobile_rentals.html

Thanks again for allowing me the oppurtunity to post this message. Any suggestions on what I should do next would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your help. I've now submitted the site to the Cooperstown, New York regional category, and the great news is that it was accepted in less than 24 hours!

I don't know who was the editor for that, but thank you very much for your prompt work.

I will be submitting the site in the future to the Shopping/Sports/Cycling category, but I plan on waiting a month or so, so I can get a wider variety of products up on the site, set up some kind of shopping cart, and specify our shipping area....

Keep up the good work everybody....I'm off to try and apply to become an editor!

Sincerely,

Cameron Booth

Thanks, and good luck in your application. We'd be happy to have you on board.

Good luck! Hope to see you on board! /images/dmoz/penguin.gif

Hilde