Have Been submitting my site for 3 years now

Hello, I have always been a big fan of DMOZ and thing it is a great project, but I have to say that I am disappointed from my own experience. I run two very qualified and reputable sites. One of which has been listed for a couple of years. THe other website which is very high ranking, very popular, and very complete and professional has not been even looked at my an editor in since we started trying to list it 3 years ago. Every 6 months or so I try to re-sumbit it and apparently my category is just abandoned or something. There is no reason I could think of for the site just being ignored after my attempts for THREE YEARS. Can anybody give me a better way of going about having my site listed? The site is called <url removed> if anybody can help. Thanks in advance for your help.

No, there's no way to get a site listed. There is a way to suggest a site for review (and you apparently found it), but there's no way to ensure that there's anyone, anywhere on earth, with a public spirit and an interest in that topic.

And priorities are set by individual editors based on (1) their own interest in topics, and (2) their own estimate of where work on "uninteresting" topics might be most useful for surfers.

As neither you nor we can predict or control priorities of anyone except ourselves, we can't know when that category might be next worked.

I can tell you that you did not mention anything about either of the sites that would suggest they would contribute to the ODP mission -- which might be something for you to think about. (Maybe you don't want to contribute to the ODP mission after all, which would be fine: there's no point in wasting both our efforts.)

Contributing

Of course my objective is to contribute. Isn't this the entire point to beilg listed.. I know that I use ODP system all the time.. I know it is a reputable place to find quality sites regarding ANY topic. This is why I want me site to be a part of it.

I also submitted my site over 4 years ago. My best advice is too not drive yourself crazy, submit the site and walk away...maybe lightening will strike but almost certainly not.

There's no guarantee that a site will ever be listed, as there is no "right" to be listed, and our purpose isn't to list every site that exists.

You also shouldn't assume that your site deserves to be listed, or that because you find it of value, that we will also find it of value to the web surfers we're trying to be of assistance to.

You should also not assume that there is something wrong with your site that you can fix, and agonize over how you can make it more acceptable for listing.

The truth is usually that an editor either just hasn't gotten around to reviewing the suggestion yet, or the site is not listable (from our view), and will never be listable. (One example of that might be two URLs that have basically the same content, from the same site owner, only with a different design, a mirror). It's not listable, and will never be listable, no matter what design change is made. It's the same content and there is nothing unique about it, no matter how it is packaged or tweaked.

Dmoz will soon be Old School as the Major Search Engines start entering the markets to compete with google. I've tried for a long time to get listed as well but since 85% percent of traffic now comes from Google Search, and with the fact that there is PPC Advertising, there really is no need to be listed in DMOZ for all the hassles that you have to go to in order to get listed. Eventually, DMOZ will be a thing of the past as it's going to fail sooner or later simply because it offers no real value anymore for site owners.

An open directory project should not be so hard to become an editor of. But they Discriminate most people who want to become editors simply because they have a site or service related to the category that they want to become a editor of. Or you have the problem of 90% of the categories not having an editor which renders DMOZ useless for anything other than historical purposes.

Yep I kinda have to agree. The very founder of DMOZ was qouted as saying its time for DMOZ to pass on, though he doesn't have a direct interest in it anymore. Open source, open directory is great. DMOZ was at the tip of the spear, but I think either that its time for this experiment to end or be purged and rebuilt with lessons learned.

Then, I'll have lots more free time to spend on my other interests, instead of editing, . So where's the problem?

As far as becoming an editor goes, the banks have a similar policy, only take on people that, in your experienced opinion, show that they might be trustworthy and have the ability, and then give them limited responsibilities until they prove it by their actions, one way or another.

I don't believe suspected criminals, or people who hang out with them, act like them, or sympathize with them would qualify as good candidates.

I think any relevancy the Directory has to search engines is very much outside of our control and always has been. We collect data, sort it, and organize it the way that seems best for our purposes, nothing more.

That data is then offered to everyone else, including search engines, other directories, and web surfers, free of charge to use as they see fit. We neither tell them how to use it, nor request that they tell us how we should build the Directory, one has nothing to do with the other.

How the data is used has nothing to do with the data collectors.

Which data gets added and when it gets added, is totally up to the editors who volunteer their time, and we are under no obligation to anyone, we're completely independent.

Best Ways to Contribute to DMOZ

What is most valuable to the DMOZ Open Directory Project? The content throughout my site is completely unique from that of any other site on the web, as I have written it myself, however, my site has still not been accepted...is there anything in addition to unique content that may be valuable to DMOZ that may facilitate acceptance of my site? Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in Advance.

You seem to be assuming that it's been declined on the grounds of poor content. It's far more likely that no volunteer editor has yet chosen to evaluate it.

Editors work where, when and as hard as they wish within the scope of their permissions. There is no compulsion for an editor to edit certain listing suggestions within a timescale convenient to website owners. Essentially, it's a pretty random process over which we have no control - and neither has anyone else.

Thank you for responding so quickly.

Being that their is no time frame for when a site will be reviewed, would you recommend that i attempt to make improvements to the site, as well as to the listing submitted to DMOZ, at some point and resubmit for consideration?

Knowing that DMOZ is a free service, and that the editors are volunteering their time to maintain and improve the directory, i understand how important it must be for the site being submitted to be of great value in order to be accepted. As such, i also understand, and am willing to make additional efforts to improving the site, however, i do not want to waste the editors time by resubmitting. Are rejected sites ever looked at again (ie would improvements be recognized by their editors if i do not resubmit?)?

Thanks again in advance for your help.

-andrew

I'll give you a case in point. Presently, I an doing a lot of editing within Regional, primarily within the magnificant State of Arizona.

In the last month or so, the folks who edit in Arizona have been working hard to add enough sites to push the state total past 10,000. It was only on March 4 that the editing team pushed Arizona past 9,400 sites, and as I write this, the State is at almost 9,950.

While there are are 40 or so suggested sites awaiting review that can be worked, I've grown tired of working what we call "greens." So the last few nights I have been identifying small localities that have only or or two listed sites, and have been trying to bring the individual locality total to more than 5 sites listes.

This is definitely more work that just clicking on a submission, and I could probably add four or five suggested sites for every one that I am able to manually add.

But why do I do focus on tge hard stuff where there are easy pickings within sight?

There is a very high desgree of satisfaction involved in what I am doing, and I'm not in the "ODP Game" to see how many sites I can add in a short period of time -- I'm in the game to build a great directory. Thus, I would rather spend an hour of my time finding a single site to add in a dusty backwater town, than I am in adding 16 more real estate sites, three more car dealers, and yet another web developer whose site probably doesn't display properly with Mozilla.

I also get a kick out of adding churches, non-profit organizations and volunteer fire departments.

Not every editor makes these kinds of choices. Many of the newer editors rely heavily upon submissions while they hone their skills. Others seek to work on the directory structure. This is one of the joys of being an ODP volunteer. No one can tell me what editing I am going to undertake tonight.

The previous poster, jimnoble, is a meta editor. As such he has significantly more rights and responsiblities than I do. Yes, while I will certainly listen carefully to any advise or constructive criticism he passes along, he cannot tell me where to edit tonight, or what part of the directory I should work in. He is allowed to beg and whimper to try and make me feel guilty and want to help in a particular area, but as a rule, meta editors don't do the beg and whimper routine very well.

It is this freedom of choice that editors have to work when and where they choose that makes it impossible for a meta editor to look at a given category, note that there are "n" sites awaiting review, and make a prediction as to when they will be reviewed.

Thanks for the reply...I guess if every site that was submitted got accepted, DMOZ would just be another "search engine". It seems like a super cool and very rewarding project to be directly involved with.

With regard to my site, I will do my best to continue to make improvements, and remain conscious of DMOZ's guidelines...hopefully, it will eventually be deemed acceptable.

One other concern I had pertains to the listing that I've submitted. After further review of the project, I feel that my site decription may not be aligned with DMOZ's guidelines. What would you recommend in such a case?

Andrew

I would not worry about the suggested description. the vast majority of editors use that as a starting point and assume that they are going to have to rewrite/tweak/adjust/change 100% of all submitted suggestions.

thanks again for getting back to me. i will continue to the best i can with the site. would you be able to give me your opinion of how its coming along thus far (not sure of this is crossing any lines; please forgive me if it is)?

Thanks,

Andrew

... would you be able to give me your opinion of how its coming along

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I'm afraid we can't give individual advice on any particular site. We used to try, and the results weren't pretty. A few bad apples took the advice as a starting point for arguments and ruined it for everybody else.

You are, of course, aware that your site is already listed in the directory in two different categories?

Re: 'URL Removed" - i didn't know that entering the domain name in the format which i used (i.e. 'urlname dot com') would not be acceptable. I intentionally entered the domain in this format so as to avoid "link dropping". Out of curiousity, and so I know for the future, why is this format not acceptable?

Again, please forgive my ignorance...this is all pretty new to me.

Thanks,

Andrew

spectregunner, again, thanks for responding. when performing a search for my site on dmoz, I am not finding it at all. also, to the best of my knowledge, i only submitted to one category.

brmehlman said:

I'm afraid we can't give individual advice on any particular site. We used to try, and the results weren't pretty. A few bad apples took the advice as a starting point for arguments and ruined it for everybody else.

Click to expand...

i understand, thanks.