Does it make sense to re-submit with the changes I made?

Since submitting the two URL's below, I've read a lot in this forum and learned about "submitting only the root URL", "deeplinking", "editors being the ones to assign categories -- singular or plural", and that it's _almost_ never a good idea to re-submit. I have also read about the pros and cons of different types of hosting, site organization, etc.

(Status check requested on April 5, 2005)
Please let me know the status of http://www.swcp.com/~montefin/pottery/POTTERY.html submitted Feb. 15, 2005 to
http://dmoz.com/Arts/Crafts/Pottery/Potters/North_America/United_States/. djdeeds responded same day that it was received and was awaiting review.

(Status check requested on April 28, 2005)
Please let me know the status of http://www.swcp.com/~montefin/RECIPES.html submitted Mar. 27, 2005, to
http://dmoz.org/Home/Cooking/Special_Diets/Low_Carbohydrate/. No response.

Since then, two things happened: 1.) Submission Status checks were curtailed. 2.) I made major changes, not specifically for ODP submission considerations, but certainly taking them strongly into account.

On August 3, 2005, I upgraded the hosting arrangement so that now the root URL is simply http://www.montefin.com. No more ~montefin after my hosting company's (swcp.com) domain.

I also re-organized from a flat to a hierarchical tree structure, switched to a more informative file naming convention, and added a lot of new content.

The site services a variety of subject areas: Low Carb Recipes, Original Pottery, Zen, Submarine Games, Stories & Screenplays, and a Comic Strip. But now I know it's not my lookout to submit to each category. That's the ODP editor's call.

Should I sit tight? Or, figure out "my one best guess" category for the new root URL and re-submit? If yes, when? Now? After October 5th?

In any event, thanks to everybody, question askers and question answers alike. I learn more every time I come here.

montefin

The site looks like a "personal page" to me -- it reflects one person's wide range of interests and activities. As such, we'd typically list it in the one most suitable "personal pages" category. (Don't talk about the "population you're servicing" -- that's just marketroid cant. It's really about who you are, what you know, that you believe, what you'd do for money or for fun ... and anyone who can't take a joke can go somewhere else, right? ... Right?)

I'll let someone else comment on the possibility of deeplinking in Recipes -- as you've probably figured out, the category standards there allow for much deeper links than is "typical". If your recipes are really original, I don't think one submittal of the recipes home page would be out of line -- that'd be enough to get the editors there looking at it (and deciding how or whether to deeplink.)

Then we'd be thinking about whether the "majority of the other content" was pottery crafts, or still general personal page. That's something we might take your opinion on -- not here, not here: but the way you featured your content on the home page might suggest to an editor that it was alternatively a "pottery artisan site with a lot about the potter" or a "personal page of a guy who does a bit of pottery as one of his hobbies."

If the recipes are deeplinked, obviously they'd be ignored when making that decision; if they aren't, then that would be one more item making a stronger case for a "personal page."

Some editors LOVE personal pages, and I suspect this one would appeal to them. I would, however, suggest this, though: make the "about us" about the soul of the webmaster, not the skeleton of the mission statement. Why do YOU play with graphics of submarines? what do YOU know about cooking and where did you learn it? What got you into Zen? (and did you know there's a 2-step recovery process now ... the first step is to not want to change any more )

As usual, this probably wouldn't affect the listing -- the site seems to have enough content to list anyway. But knowing a bit of the context will, I suspect, help people make more sense of the site, and make like-minded people more likely to contact you.

As I said:

montefin said:

I learn more every time I come here.

Click to expand...

And this time I learned a lot more.

hutcheson, thank you. You obviously spent some time aboard before posting your reply.

It is a highly personalized site -- and may best fit as a personal page. Your suggestion for changing the About Us page is great -- as long as it doesn't turn into a blahzo Artistic Statement fluff piece.

And, yes, the site does have attitude. Thanks for picking up on that.

Still, I'm not sure about the next step.

Should I re-submit with the new root URL? Should I tender a submission for the recipes as a destination in their own right, as you half suggested?

Or is it pretty much out of my hands now?

Again, thanks.

montefin

Belated thanks to hutcheson, et. al.

While traveling out-of-state to my daughter's wedding, I discovered that http://www.montefin.com/pottery.html got listed in ODP's http://dmoz.org/Arts/Crafts/Pottery/Potters/North_America/United_States/ category the day after this thread was started.

Yipee. Thanks to all involved.

If I don't hear to the contrary, I'll follow up on hutcheson's thought, i.e.:

"I'll let someone else comment on the possibility of deeplinking in Recipes -- as you've probably figured out, the category standards there allow for much deeper links than is "typical". If your recipes are really original, I don't think one submittal of the recipes home page would be out of line -- that'd be enough to get the editors there looking at it (and deciding how or whether to deeplink.)"

Again, thanks to all.

montefin

Having waited a decent interval from my last post, I have gone ahead and, with fingers crossed, acted on hutcheson's notion of submitting http://www.montefin.com/recipes.html for deeplinking in http://dmoz.org/Home/Cooking/Special_Diets/Low_Carbohydrate/ .

Again, thanks to all. The more I see and read here, the more I begin to grok the methodology of open directory building.

montefin