Four Time a Charm for DMOZ Submission???

Hello to everyone at the Resource-Zone. I'm really starting to get into SEO. I just finished the Sitepoint Search Engine Marketing Kit and I'm pumped. I just submitted my website, <url>, into the DMOZ Directory at:

http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Designers/Full_Service/M/

This will be about the fourth time I have submitted my website in the last three years. I never received a reply or response about why my site has been rejected. This is what I used for my listing:

[website description removed]

Can someone tell what is wrong with this submission? Thank you in advance.

Hi, and thank you for suggesting your site to the ODP! Unfortunately the ToS for this forum forbid the discussion of specific sites that have been suggested to the directory (the only exception is quality control posts, with reports of dead URLs or changed website content.)

There is no reason to suspect that your site has been rejected. Site suggestions do not expire or go away until they have been reviewed by an editor, but that can take anything from two days to several years after the site has been suggested - and many of the sites that are listed have never been suggested to the directory at all. This is because the ODP does not offer any service to webmasters or website owners; editors are concerned with building a directory of sites in categories that interest them, and if nobody is interested in reviewing sites for full-service web designers starting with M, that category will not be edited until somebody takes an interest in it. There is no mechanism for forcing editors to work where they don't want to. This is a volunteer project, a hobby which we do in our spare time because we enjoy doing it.

Editors almost never communicate with website owners to let them know that their site has been listed or rejected. They are warned not to respond if website owners or webmasters contact them (although it is obviously up to each editor whether to respond to email or not) because it has led to some very ugly situations in the past. Having suggested your site for review, there is nothing you can do to speed up the review time.

Almost every suggested description is changed by the reviewing editor, so there is no need to worry about that - in general, a site with a description full of hype and exclamation marks could very well have to wait longer for review than one with a factual description, other things being equal. (Editors can review whichever sites they choose, there is no queue or FIFO system.)

Hope this has explained matters.

mrtechnique said:

I'm really starting to get into SEO. I just finished the Sitepoint Search Engine Marketing Kit and I'm pumped. I just submitted my website, <url>, into the DMOZ Directory at:

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I hope you didn't pay for that kit.
Websites should not be suggested to DMOZ for SEO purposes.

You should never submit your webiste for SEO purposes.

Yes, I agree that anyone would want their website on ODP because of the better quality of visitors you will get from there, but you shouldn't submit your site to try to boost your search engine rankings.

There's no point at looking at the suggestion for "things wrong with it." Why?

Anything wrong with the suggestion could be fixed by the volunteer editor -- if it was worth fixing.

Why would a suggestion be worthwhile? If, and only if, it points to useful information about a topic.

Usually, the useful information would be the presence of a website. But what gets a website listed is not a suggestion. What gets a website listed is what the website contains (in the form of "unique information").

So, you've made a suggestion. We don't know whether it was useful yet. If it turns out to be useful, it might even be some use OTHER than "telling us about that particular website."

Nobody knows when a volunteer will look at the suggestion. (That's not surprising: nobody knew ahead of time that you would MAKE the suggestion either. Everyone works at their own pace, on their own priorities!)

I submitted my site three time during three years.

Hello Editors! I submitted my site almost three years ago, in the meantime I submitted for three times. Unfortunately it never indexed on directory. Four years ago it use to be appeared on DMOZ. After I changed my web design, it disappeared then never come again. Now my site is made with Joomla source, does it make difference to be listed on DMOZ? Can someone answers me please?

How the website is made, doesn't matter.

What matters is what the website is made of.

Example: a music site might contain 1000 MP3 BIG-HIT files cribbed from various online sources. Another music site might use exactly the same website design, but contain 20 MP3 files from a no-name backwoods band nobody else ever heard of.

Which site is listable? The bigger site? The older site? The site with more attractive color scheme settings? The site with a higher Alexa ranking, or Google pagerank, or alleged visitor count? The site with more advertising revenue, or more SERP perp effort? The site with a more popular webmaster?

No, it's the site with 20 files nobody else has.

After reading the SEO Kit you should have also read the guidelines for submitting a site (the are displayed before you click the submit button) and the part where it said to submit once.

If you submitted prior to January 2007 one more submission would be fine as we had a technical problem that resulted in some submission loss at the end of 2006.

The best way to optimize a website for search engines is to fill it with interesting relevant and unique content. Anything else is just chaff.

OH, i also have this experience, but no method to deal with it. I have submitted 3 times, but no effect. Maybe my site is not very well, and could not match his standard.
My site is : <url removed>
Could you tell me the why?

Thanks for everybody's help.

In the SEM kit, I was told not to worry about my SERP results, but to concentrate on my content. I'm putting more information on my website through a blog, and it is really becoming an informative resource. If there's no editor for the M category, maybe I could apply for it?

It's too large for a new editor.

To the people that say "You should never submit to dmoz.org for SEO", why not?

a) It's a fact that google will rank a page higher if it's in the right category on directory sites like dmoz.org.

b) For any company x, there will be existing competing companies already listed, so to not list company x on dmoz.org when all it's competitors are is just unfair and doesn't make any sense.

IMVHO dmoz.org need to realise that a commercial company does get increased visibility and increased revenues if it's web site is listed in the right category on dmoz.org. Refusing, or delaying listing certain companies when other competitors are already listed is unfair and gives the listed companies an unfair commercial advantage.

IMVHO dmoz.org need to realise that a commercial company does get increased visibility and increased revenues if it's web site is listed in the right category on dmoz.org. Refusing, or delaying listing certain companies when other competitors are already listed is unfair and gives the listed companies an unfair commercial advantage.

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Given the nature of the volunteer system at the ODP, we will never reach the point where every site that is suitable for every category will be listed. It's just not possible when you have a system where editors choose how often and where they edit. So we aim for an overall growth in the directory -- as long as the directory itself is growing, we are doing all we have to and can do.

I see what you mean DMOZ admin, so to balance the unfairness can I just become an editor and approve my own listing submission?

searled8 said:

I see what you mean DMOZ admin, so to balance the unfairness can I just become an editor and approve my own listing submission?

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No.
People who only want to become an editor to list their own website(s) are not welcome.

If you actually wanted to help out and not just approve your own site, then we'd likely welcome you as a new editor. In the face of your admitted self-interest, I'd say becoming an editor is probably not in your future.

some submission loss at the end of 2006..?

If you submitted prior to January 2007 one more submission would be fine as we had a technical problem that resulted in some submission loss at the end of 2006.

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Thanks, I'd not been aware of this 'submission loss' - I may have to resubmit some of my 'oldies' ...

I think we'll have to agree to disagree about your concept of "fair". But it doesn't really matter. The ODP's defining ideal is "generosity", being "better than fair."

Also--and this is VERY important--the ODP's defined beneficiary is surfers. Any benefit or harm to website owners is pure accident. And yes, I can name commercial websites that were harmed by the ODP, as well as some that were helped. Either is OK. Only the surfers matter.