Do editors only add submitted sites?

Do editors only add submitted sites or do they also sometimes look around for good sites that fit in a specific category?

Editors are encouraged to find websites for themselves and not just rely upon the listing suggestions put forward by website owners.

johnjohn said:

Do editors only add submitted sites

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No.

johnjohn said:

or do they also sometimes look around for good sites that fit in a specific category?

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Yes, they are expected to do this. Many editors review more sites that have found on their own than sites that were submitted - and that includes editors who can edit in categories with thousands and thousands of submitted sites waiting for review.

So would you say that a site that is suitable for DMOZ and can be found on the major search engines such as Google or Yahoo would be most likely found by an editor at some point and added to DMOZ without that site ever submitting?

Does an editor have to ask the webmaster of that website for permission to add their link?

And...

I know this probably varies greatly, but what would you say was the most common method used by an editor for searching for good quality sites?

So would you say that a site that is suitable for DMOZ and can be found on the major search engines such as Google or Yahoo would be most likely found by an editor at some point and added to DMOZ without that site ever submitting?

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Eventually, yes. But since that may be a long time in the future, suggesting that site most likely decreases the time it takes.

Does an editor have to ask the webmaster of that website for permission to add their link?

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No.

I know this probably varies greatly

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Exactly. ;-) Some weeks ago I read a thread in a different forum, where editors of different directories came up with their way of finding sites. The range was from "Looking at local shops" over "the las URl I added was on a truck I have seen on the street" up to common ones like "the site was linked from another site I had listed" or "the site was suggested by a user of the directory".

So I would guess that just plain searching on Google may not be very effective for an editor due to the amount of rubish that finds its way onto there.

Like many editors, I keep a notepad and pen within easy reach when I am in the car, and my wife gives me a look that I could never describe when I grab all the free newspapers/magazines at every stop when we take a day trip or longer journey.

I think many newer editors, editing in general topics, rely more on submissions. New editors editing in specializing categories often bring a lot of knowledge of where to hunt for good URLs.

When I do go hunting for sites, I love to dive headfirst into the free webspace sites like yahoo, geocities, tripod and the like. Those sites, which are generally noncommercial, are usually labors of love and while their design leaves a lot to be desired, they are quite the treasure trove of information. And, since then are not professionally managed sites, the users rarely submit to search engines or directories.

With the thousands of active editors, representing every possible demographic and geographic variance, it is difficult to generalize.

Like many editors, I keep a notepad and pen within easy reach when I am in the car

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Actually, most editors have equipped their vehicles with a voice-activated, wireless, editing interface. There is an optical character recognition system under test, for bumper stickers and such, but apparently there has been some negative response from the public when having their Tshirts scanned.

Actually, most editors have equipped their vehicles with a voice-activated, wireless, editing interface.

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Yah, my bike tends to attract a LOT of attention!

I use Vivisimo / Clusty for researching new sites mostly. Google still works, but the damage to its listings done by Black Hat SEOs and poor quality specialist directories makes it quite hard to find certain types of site. Yahoo results are as good as google and better for some stuff.

MSN results I find are pretty poor. I no longer use Altavista (which used to be my favourite SE) since they use ODP content without complying with our content license.

The major SEs I find especially bad for geographic stuff. e.g. If I want to find sites for a small town in the UK, I have to wade through pages of content free junk where that town name has been used.

The drilldown on vivisimo is helpful here because it tends to group a lot of the spammy junk together and you can pick off hopeful stuff from the remaining cats.

Often the best source of new geographic urls is other sites from the area. If you find a decent local portal site - they've often done a lot of the research for you - including stuff that may not even have been submitted to search engines.

I also find excluding terms in search using minus signs is good for refining out erroneous results.

Just my thoughts though,
Andy

I pick up business cards in stores I enjoyed shopping at.

I check other related links on sites I review, if the site was good it often links to good related resources.

I subscribe to Google alerts for some very specific phrases that get me sites for some categories where I get next to no submissions. Maybe one out of 100 of those Google alerts gets me a new site.

Articles in magazines.

ODP itself, sometimes I can search ODP, for a site that was listed in Regional but not topical or vice-versa.

To put this in better context, the question should have been, "do editors only use their own resources to find sites, or do they sometimes use the help from submittals."

To which we could answer, "we strongly encourage editors to develop and use their own resources, but the ODP user interface includes software support for several system-wide resources, of which submittals are one. And the health of the ODP critically depends on editors who contribute and use their own effective resources. Because any single resource -- even the best -- has systemic flaws; and only by putting the best from many sources together can we build a world-class directory."

This explains why the frequently-repeated peremptory demand that we should "fire our editors and get new ones who can do their job, which is keeping up with the flood of spam" is so off-target. That's not anybody's job. So long as editors find or add good sites, or remove bad listings, or accept new editors, or help other editors improve .... they are doing an important part of the total job. And whether they are or are not, we don't NEED to fire them to make room for more editors. It's not a hog-trough where there's only so much room to root. It's like the first bee swarm on a new continent -- so many flowers, so little time.

I actually got a link for a Regional category off the back of my shampoo bottle the other day . Wasn't even looking for it, but it drew my attention because it was in a suburb near where I live.

Nikki

jimnoble said:

Editors are encouraged to find websites for themselves and not just rely upon the listing suggestions put forward by website owners.

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That is very good to hear, unfortunately in the reality of things that happens very rarely.

>in the reality of things that happens very rarely.

I'd be interested in seeing the raw statistics that's based on.

My own sampling, based on nothing more specific than actual experience (and that on only a few tens of thousands of sites) would suggest that it's not "very rare" -- but in the reality accounts for between a third and a half of the site listings -- that is, two million or so times in five years, or more than twice as often as it's happened on any other site on the net. On the other hand, if it had been four or five million times, (based on my samplings), we'd be pretty close to complete for the web sites within our scope.

But I wouldn't presume to argue the point with those really active editors who've sampled (or edited) multiple times more sites than I have -- that would be a level of arrogance I can't quite muster. If I'm wildly off on this, I'd prefer to find out about it. In my experience, reality doesn't respond well to prescription.

My estimate for me:
Big city or popular commercial category - 99% from submittals, 1% search and find
Small town or specialist category - 99% search and find, 1% from submittals.

Sliding scale inbetween.

oneeye said:

Small town or specialist category - 99% search and find, 1% from submittals.

Sliding scale inbetween.

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Are you serious?

Yes, this is serious. And this is, I believe, typical for active editors.