DMOZ creates unhealthy competition for Hard working businesses

I am the owner of shopping/ecommerse store, which also provides a lot of useful and valuable content to the public. When I started this business, I was working off my basement and then expended and grow my business every day of the week. I am single mother and had to work at nights to grow this business. Now I sell over 10,000 of unique items, which are gemstones and crystals and I make them my self. I have been searching for most popular keywords on google and always saw this one site, that is always on top of search results. 5 years ago I was not educated about any SEO what’s so ever, and of course I wondered on how this site is top listed for like 200 most expensive keywords.

Guess what. I just did search on DMOZ for this site, and it returned 43 results for this site (BIG WOW)…and what is even more interesting that it is listed under so many different categories, which are really so far a part from each other. And I have been trying to submit my site once a year for the past 5 years, and I am not listed, however, Please trust me that my site is in full 100% compliance with DMOZ listing guidelines.

I have been reading posts here, and it is impossible to communicate with moderators, as even dough they may understand your point of view, they act like they are from another planet and provide answers that conflict with each other. For example: when someone ask on why site is not listed after 3-4 years of trying, they reply that you Must choose proper category and follow all guidelines of DMOZ. But when this same person replies and states that it is legit site and everything has been in compliance, then they reply that they are Not advertisement company and add listings when they feel like it. SO, Why they wouldn’t post this NICE Message right on Confirmation page after you submit your listing??? This way every Honest business would know that there is no reason to wait 2 weeks, 2 month or even 10 years…

My major point on this post is about this site that has 43 listings in DMOZ. This site is not an .org site or educational, but privately owned ecommerce/shopping site. I wonder who is that Moderator or Editor, who was so NICE and has so much spare time to do all these listings there? This really creates Unhealthy completion between other similar kind businesses, and at the same time provides lack of choice for internet shoppers, as first 3 results on Google belongs to this site, which is at some point may be called MONOPOLY!!! Everyone may have different point of view (especially editors), however, this is my point of view, and I feel that if one site owner of the same kind merchandise is Listed 43 times in DMOZ, and the other site owner can not get listed for 5 years, really creates uneven and discriminative opportunities for Hard working people. Hence, I can not list this site, I can certify, that this site is listed in many unrelated categories, which is against DMOZ, and millions of Honest and Hard working people can not get even one simple listing.

Even dough DMOZ is trying to avoid any responsibility and claim no obligations for what they do, but if their activity hurts people and business financially, they may be facing such claims for real. YES, Humans do EVERYTHING BETTER then machines, but people working in DMOZ are feeling that they were Hand Picked by GOD to do this volunteer work, and have no Respect to people who really deserve it.

AOL should reconsider the way they operate in DMOZ, so these volunteers will come down to earth, will become the same people like all of us, and at the same time, everyone will deserve exactly what they deserve. One day it might be a good and talented Lawyer, which is going to brake this DMOZ Myth of “Humans do it better”

Thanks You.

A lot of people share your thoughts, exactly. Yes, there is sometimes contradicting information provided by editors. Yes, editors are sometimes rude, antagonistic, or non-helpful.

And most importantly, yes, many sites that do not deserve it get listed numerous times. I've experienced that in another business I used to run years ago. As a result of this deep linking in DMOZ, this site has become an authority site in its niche with 10 times more traffic than the rest, without really having any unique content.

There is a lot of unfairness going on, but, remember a couple of things...

1) YOU are legitimate. YOU are honest, and fair, and being straight forward. Because of this, you feel you are being treated unfair, and you are. however, I have learnt that there are so many more people out there, saying similar things, acting nice, acting honest... complaining about DMOZ who are actually people who have created website after website with no original content spread accross multiple URLs trying to get their stuff listed with just as much seeming genuinity as you. You have to imagine the negative feelings that can be created in editors as a result of this.

2) The existence of DMOZ is generally flawed in my opinion, and creates the exact problems you are specifying - it creates unfair competition. But this is not the fault of DMOZ. DMOZ is a free organization that chooses to create a directory and chooses to run their organization by whatever rules they have fit. Even if they do decide to be biased towards certain sites and not others, even if this is for corrupted reasons (I'm not saying it is), they have the right to do so. DMOZ in itself does not make your site popular in search engines - search engines do this. Google chooses to lease DMOZ's information. If DMOZ's information is flawed, biased, unfair, Google should deal with it to purify their own search results. Your complaint primarily should be towards Google then, or Yahoo, or whomever else gives importance to DMOZ results.

The general outcry from editors in here (as far as I have seen) is that they hold no responsibility towards the general public because their service is free, and that any sort of submission is solely a suggestion and that editors are allowed to make their own decisions, within reason. This is legitimate as long as they would be just as interested in working with DMOZ even if it wasn't such a powerful effector of web popularity. And in my opinion, this is partially the case.

3) The main problem is that DMOZ is a very important web resource as stipulated by most search engines yet there is no official or efficient way for DMOZ to distinguish between spammed sites and legitimate sites. I personally think most editors on here would be glad to list each and every site that comes their way if it is pertinent to their category - however, as I said, most people are not like you.

I've suggested and read suggestions about all kinds of things, from minor submission fees to email verification etc to purify the submissions, at least to some extent, but none of this has been implemented since I've known. The reasons behind this are alien to me, however, the realistic stance is you just need to try to do your best given the state of affairs.

There are a lot of unfair situations out there, and your situation is one I sympathize with, yet don't offer any substantial solution towards. All I can say that I hope helps is empathize - empathize with the fact that there's probably a 10-1 ratio of spam to quality site submissions on DMOZ, and this is the source of the difficulties.

Myworld, if you know of a website that is not listed according to the guidelines than please tell us about that site in the quality control section of this forum. http://www.resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showforum=12

Dear Decius!

Thank you for taking your time to reply. I can not blame DMOZ that every single editor is the way I described in my post, however, 5 years of waiting really makes me wonder on what may be the actual case of being not listed. Sometimes, it makes me feel that the site that is listed 43 times in DMOZ is the actual editor of DMOZ, and simply does not add sites that are Nice looking and offer something unique and special, and just want to keep all potential customers for it's self.

You are absolutely correct that it is Google that makes DMOZ so important, and I think this will last forever, as AOL is using Google results to offer search, and in exchange, Google makes AOL owned directory to be so important. AOL will not afford to have its own search results, especially such as good as Google, so this scheme will stay forever with DMOZ.

In real world, every editor including owner of DMOZ realize the fact of their importance, and even being free directory, they should consider to take some responsibility for it's actions. It is the same if I would offer free gifts with addition to my order, and would include poisoned apple, which would lead to some bad situation. So, even free services are under legal and statutory requirements, which can not lead to loss of income for internet owned businesses.

I just wish that editor in my category would not be careless person, and would give a chance for other businesses to stand out. In any economy, no business can ever stand out without HEALTHY competition...there are always one bank standing across the street from another bank. Everyone compete with better service, products, etc...however, if one is out there in multiple locations, and most of others are not, it creates huge discriminations. I am more then positive that NO FREE Service has no Obligations what's so ever...DMOZ is different from any other directory in the WORLD, and it is the time for them to realize that they are Not just simple directory, but place which makes some businesses suffer, and others to stay in business without any hard SEO work, like I explained about 43 listings for the same exact site. They don't need to do a thing any more to be the First one out there, but are they really the First ones???

Any way, 5 years of waiting just made me do a little research and when I saw this site in DMOZ in 43 different places, it made me post this thread.

P.S. Volunteer work does not mean that they do whatever they like and whenever they want. Imagine what would happen to you if the Nurse in the Hospital is Volunteer and does whatever she likes. It clearly states on Editor submission that you need to Dedicated your self to what you do, and this is how Editors should behave. Instead of arguing over how their job is Hard to do, and spend this time to make people feel like they are ALWAYS Wrong, they should really concentrate on what they suppose to do as Volunteer, as they committed to this Hard Work when they applied to do this.

My friend, I read your frustration and empathize with it absolutely - but you can't enforce rules on any organization or entity. There is biased unfairness everywhere, and you can yell about it. But if they are not willing to change themselves to suit a better ideal as per your vision, you must set the example or learn to work with their rules, or change them.

I suggest you pursue contacting Google or other organizations. Google, I believe, has purposely demoted Wikipedia links so that it does not become a resource that is in so much demand for SEO purposes and that has worked wonders. Take your energy and force it where it can go.

In my experience, yelling out loud here doesn't get you anywhere.

In fact, the only real reason you can yell at DMOZ is because they have an open forum. Google seems like such a large and scary beast that it's easier to redirect that anger and frustration here - but isn't it Google that is promoting this other site you mention?

Dear Decius!

I do understand and appreciate your kind reply. It's been 5 years of collected energy which actually blow up here, especially after viewing real unfair situation with one sinle site, and it is my major competition simply because of these 43 DMOZ listings.


Yes, we can not force or change rules on any entity or organization, unless these rules are fair and comply with current laws of discrimination. We all live in FREE Country and may whatever we like, love and care about at any given time, however, all of us should follow the rules which are set by authorities, and it looks like DMOZ is Not USA based organization, but operates on the Moon, where no rules apply what's so ever.

Of course I DO care if I get listed in DMOZ and did everything you can possibly imagine to comply and get listed. Most importantly, my site is very Friendly, Very Nice looking ( I have Web Designer Education) and at some points is Educational. But I guess some businesses are a bit luckier to get Listed, or what I think it is, they got in to the Business, which falls to DMOZ category that has Editor that really cares for what they dedicated to do.

There are always excuse such as " imagine on how editors feel when they get tons of wasted sites to list"....but, no one care at DMOZ, on how Real Humans feel when they don't get listed for 5 years when they really deserve it.

I live in New York state, and our Mayor, Michael Bloomberg is also Volunteer. He does not collect anything for his work and simply works for FREE for ALL New Yorkers. Does it mean that if he fails to do the right thing, he can simply say: " Oh, my work is so hard and I am the Volunteer"??? and there are so many criminals and so much more, that I can not keep New York safe???, so if it happens, it happens”...NO!!! Regardless if you are Volunteer or Not, the Responsibility is the same when you are out there helping others, even if it done on your own will. There is no need to complain about bad sites, instead, Do you work responsibly and DO IT ONLY IF YOU CARE!!!

Thanks.

I just did search on DMOZ for this site, and it returned 43 results for this site

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That would be very unusual for a commercial Shopping site. Unless it provided quite a bit of additional information on the topic(s). In that case, various editors throughout the directory may have found specific sections that they felt added some value to their particular category. It is highly unlikely that it would be added that many times by one editor if, as you stated, there are listings in different areas of the directory.

However, if you feel that it is listed inappropriately, you can report it using the link that pvgool gave in a previous post. Someone can then take a look to make sure these are legitimate listings.

I'm not going to comment on the volunteer aspect of our project. We have tried many, many times to explain how we operate, what we do offer and what we do not offer, but it generally falls on deaf ears.

You may want to rethink the importance placed on a DMOZ listing. It is not the magic bullet that will give you top placement in Google. If more people realized this fact, believe me, our editing lives would be much easier.

Dear Artisan!

No real work is easy, especially when you are dealing with Humans just like you. Even if you are Editor, it does not mean that you never fail on certain things, etc...However, any normal and respectful business KNOWS your RULES indeed, and arguing the fact that DMOZ listing is Not that important is really against the reality in World Wide Internet World. I personally know and followed everything in your guidelines. But it does not matter, because based on statements of DMOZ editors, you are FREE Service and Editors are working whenever they want, etc...No one forces any Editor to make listing to be available immediately, however, the time frames specified on your confirmation page should not exceed at least 1 year of waiting on really important and useful sites.

And about your doubts in regards to Site that is being listed 43 times in DMOZ.

First: this is Commercial Site offering various products to the Public
Second: This site also has some content, however, in my opinion, my site has 3 times more content then this one. I have informational pages, and provide interesting and education information to the public, which I learned by visiting many libraries and reading about 300 of different books and making interesting and truthful content.
Third: My site is 10 times more attractive and useful then this site (in my opinion)
Forth: How one site may be listed under such categories like: computers, sexuality, spiritual, arts, comics, health and there are many more including personal pages.

My Point is Not about reporting this site, but the actual fact that it is listed there so many times. Are you Blind there? or you can only see what you like to see!

Trust me, I will continue to submit to DMOZ regardless, even if I don’t get listed this year, I will continue with another listing next year. YES, it is Important for me to be listed. And I feel that any competition must be fair, and DMOZ is Part of every Online business success, so if they deserve this listing, they should be listed without hearing unreasonable excuses, such as “This work is hard to do” and “don’t expect much from FREE Service”. Any Free service is a Service any way, and if it may benefit one person, then it should be equal opportunity for everyone who deserve it.

I had 5 years to learn your Policies, etc…and following your rules, reading it, learning it, trying to come up with best possible category, listing, etc…and then at the end find out that you are FREE Service, and don’t expect anything from us, is simply NOT Normal practice, even for Free service.

Thank you

Hello!

Since you disabled my postings and people will not see what I post here, then I will provide the site I referred to:

it is LuckyMojo.com

Does it deserve to be listed in 43 categories? and similar shopping site to this one does not even deserve 1 listing?

This Planet is Round, and we all go in circles, and we all cross each other ways at some point.

Thanks

And why did you not follow the advise I have given your previously?
Such cases can be brought to our attention in the Quality Control section of this forum, and ONLY there.
Most probabaly the url will be removed from this thread as it is against the R-Z guidelines to provide urls outside the QC section.


And as Artsan already wrote
"I'm not going to comment on the volunteer aspect of our project. We have tried many, many times to explain how we operate, what we do offer and what we do not offer, but it generally falls on deaf ears."
You can read all our previous answers on similar questions. Just go and look for the threads, they are not to difficult to find.

Since you disabled my postings and people will not see what I post here

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The reason one of your posts didn't show up at once was because the forum software automatically flags posts containing certain words for moderation - a moderator has to mark those posts as approved for them to show up. That is not related to who wrote the post.

Any Free service is a Service any way

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Please note that the only person other than yourself who used the word "service" was Decius, who, like yourself, is not an editor and is critical to the ODP. Perhaps one of the reasons why the two of you don't like the directory stems from a misconception of what we are trying to do there. We do not offer a listing service for website owners. The "service" we provide is entirely directed at the web surfers. No editor would ever deny that we could serve the public better, and improve the directory - which is why thousands of sites are added every week, and old, dead sites removed, outdated descriptions are rewritten, new categories are created, etc etc etc. But all the demands made on us to "improve the service to webmasters" do fall on deaf ears, I'm afraid, because we never did perform a service to webmasters. Other people do that, but not us.

Myworld said:

I personally know and followed everything in your guidelines.

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Which you yourself proved to be not true.
Earlier you wrote
"And I have been trying to submit my site once a year for the past 5 years"

Either you did not read the DMOZ guidelines or you do not care to follow them.
Everytime you suggested the website you acknowledged to have read and understand the guidelines at http://www.dmoz.org/add.html
On there you could have read

Please only submit a URL to the Open Directory once. Again, multiple submissions of the same or related sites may result in the exclusion and/or deletion of those and all affiliated sites.

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Continue submitting your suggestion and this might happen to you and your website(s).

OK the main point of the original poster is why has their site not been listed with a nice little spontaneous exchange about possible reasons. These manage to avoid the simple fact that there are 3000+ editors coping with 600,000 categories and hence things take a long time.

As for the rest, well the most interesting thing about search engines for editors is listing sites that the search engines have not found.

it is impossible to communicate with moderators...
... How one site may be listed under such categories like: computers, sexuality, spiritual, arts, comics, health and there are many more including personal pages.

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On every category page there is an update url link where you can inform the editors that a listing is erroneous, dead, misplaced etc. etc. Wherever there is a listing of that site, that listing must be correct for the category. If you went to the category where it had a listing under (say) sexuality, clicked through to look at the site listed and found nothing relevant, you could use the update url to question it's listing. It would be checked and, if found not to be relevant, it would be removed. Updates are handled relatively speedily.

Let us address the issue of the 43 listings generally.

…and what is even more interesting that it is listed under so many different categories, which are really so far a part from each other..

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What is interesting is where a site has several listings in the same or related category. If a site is selling computer parts but also has a section on the owners hobby of dog agility we would not be suprised if it had two listings one in a category somewhere under Shopping and another in one somewhere under Recreation. If a site was selling red, green, pink and purple hamsters, we would be suprised to find 4 listings one in each colour category as opposed to one listing in the main category.

There are some sites which are very old in internet terms and these often have more listings specifically because at the time they were one of the few resources on a particular topic. This can change over time and, when discovered, it can mean editors run through all the listings sorting them out.

There are instances where an editor becomes excited by the content and lists it, without taking into account that the site is already listd in a higher category, which they should have checked (possibly the editor had a 'duh' moment or needs a bit of training).

Sometimes sites inherit content from sites that are given up (during the blood baths of UK local government re-organisation distinct and separate organisations can be merged with a resultant merging of their websites).

Last week, by chance, I came across a business with 7 listings. People might wonder who is that Moderator or Editor, who was so NICE and has so much spare time to do all these listings. However I discovered that over the last few years, the business had bought up 4 other companies and took over their websites (fairly simple as they described their history on the website). Once the explanation was known, it was merely a case of removing the extra listings and updating those left to reflect the change in circumstance.

Since listing any site, the content of pages may have changed and/or the quality of the sites added to the category may have been far better so that that site is no longer the good resource it once was.

Thus there are all sorts of reasons for multiple listings, misplaced sites etc. Outside input on issues to do with a site are extremely important to get things like this resolved and hence both the update url link and quality control thread in this forum.

Specifically we do not comment on individual sites here, but certainly several editors will have had their curiousity piqued and be independantly examining the listings referred to in order to improve the directory.

The important thing for the original poster is that whether or not another site is listed or not, no matter how many times, has nothing to do with why another listable site is listed or not. It comes down to how many editors are available and interested enough to edit in any particular category and have the time to do so.

regards

Yes, all editors just blame everything on site owners. I was told that you had crash after 2006, and need to resubmit. AND every year I submit ONE new listing, but few times it was to a different category( NOT THE SAME), as my store is VERY UNIQUE and does not sell and/or offer information about ONE SINGLE Subject. So, Yes, I did submit one listing a year in 5 years, and waiting for 1 year before you go ahead and try another one deserves punishment?, especially if the same category was used only once in 3 years?

Yes, all editors just blame everything on site owners. I was told that you had crash after 2006, and need to resubmit. AND every year I submit ONE new listing, but few times it was to a different category( NOT THE SAME), as my store is VERY UNIQUE and does not sell and/or offer information about ONE SINGLE Subject. So, Yes, I did submit one listing a year in 5 years, and waiting for 1 year before you go ahead and try another one deserves punishment?, especially if the same category was used only once in 2 years?

Very Nice...

and it is my first time posting here, so I thought my notes were blocked for yelling out laud and I posted that site there, sorry about that, as my only intention was for other editors to see it and view it's content...I guess that site is so important to DMOZ, that has 3 times more listings then Buy dot com.

It is impossible to make you a better place if you continue to blame every single site owner. I know that my Very first submission to DMOZ in 2004 was probably not as perfect...because I just started my internet business and did not even realized back then what DMOZ is, etc....however, all these records were crashed in DMOZ after 2006 any way, and at the same time every other listing was done professionally and within your guidelines. It is NOT against your rules to submit site to various categories if it is applicable, AM I CORRECT? And I know it was applicable to my site, as I only used two different categories, which made my submission to one single category ONLY once in 2 years.

Keep going and Good for you…I am sure you enjoy more to tell site owners that they are WRONG, then list the sites that really deserve it. I guess that editor that made 43 listings for that site was Really in LOVE with it, to spend abnormal amount of time to make so many listings, and in so many different categories…

It is impossible to make you a better place if you continue to blame every single site owner.

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Nobody has blamed every single site owner. Site owners are like lawyers -- the ones who lie, cheat, deceive, steal, prevaricate, torture cute cuddly animals, and, um, misrepresent other people ... give a bad reputation to the other 1%.

Simply because all editors are volunteers, they feel they can judge honest business on the fact that they are not happy with the entire process of DMOZ. You may come across something in your Life that may become as Important to you as for site owners to get listed in DMOZ, and once you get treated with the same “No Respect”, ONLY THEN you will realize on how we all feel. There might be the same “DMOZ” situation in every persons life, where you neighbor gets the share and you are not, when you both deserve it…Yes, it happened to be that DMOZ is part of AOL, and AOL is in Partnership with Google and so forth, and honest companies work hard and deserve to be included in search results, so the public can choose based on better service, products, content, etc…but, at this point, entire population choose between sites that were picked by DMOZ to be listed, and many others are just ignored without any good reason.

In 2004 I paid $299 to Yahoo, and I am happy I had this choice, as they made my listing available to the public on Yahoo search. Yahoo also reserves a right to deny any listing, however, they take it responsibly for real, without making honest people feel guilty for nothing. Trust me, it is a Punishment to not be able have a listing in DMOZ, as it does creates Unhealthy competition for hard working entities across the web.

all editors just blame everything on site owners.

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Can't quite see how pointing out that there are a limited amount of editors covering a huge amount of categories,several million unsuggested sites and who knows how many billion unsuggested sites, equates to that.

All a site owner can do is ensure their site is listable and suggest it.
It is then waiting for review and the site owner is no longer part of the process.

When it is reviewed,
a) if it is in the wrong place it will be moved to another category where it will wait for review.
b) if it is listable, it will be listed

..entire population choose between sites that were picked by DMOZ to be listed, and many others are just ignored without any good reason.
.. it is a Punishment to not be able have a listing in DMOZ, as it does creates Unhealthy competition for hard working entities across the web

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um, you are not seriously suggesting that we have an obligation to list each and every website on the planet immediately?

Hutcheson, Are you trying to say that there are ONLY 1% of HONEST Editors in DMOZ? it really feels this way to me, and that is probably the main reason on why this 1% is Not able to process millions of listings...and what is the other 99% are doing out there? I guess we all know it, they just go and accept offers on Odesk to list sites for $500...there are hundreds offer out there, and many get bids, so if you make your DMOZ editors to work in reversal, where 99% is Honest, and 1% is hanging, we all would not have to post these unhappy notes here...

Eric-the-Bun...No, I am not expecting immediate listing...As I stated, I waited for 5 years before I came to this post and made my opinion about this to the public. So, 5 years is NOT immediate. 5 years ago, my Baby was just born, and Now is going to Kinder Garden taken Home work home and grow up from being 7lb, 11oz, to be 42 lb…this is not immediate, and if you read my notes, you will see and understand my point of view in its entirety…