How to submit a site with 5 subdomains

Hi,

Could you please provide some hints as to the best submission policy for this site: http://www.titiland.com/

It has several subdomains:
http://dictionary.titiland.com/
http://english-learning.titiland.com/
http://nutrition.titiland.com/
http://law.titiland.com/
http://library.titiland.com/

What I did till now is:
1. I submitted the dictionary subdomain to reference/english dictionaries
(One month ago)
2. I applied to became an editor in some English learning category.

What would you suggest? Can I submit all the other subdomains to topical categories, or this will be considered spam?

Only the root URL should be submitted, and that to the single best category.

Spectregunner outlines, clearly enough, the submittal policy.

I'll look at it from another perspective: and experience with a few (well, not so few) tens of thousands of websites strongly validates this logic.

The fact is, in this world of specialists, there are very very few people who can speak authoritatively on any TWO of (law, nutrition, linguistics). To imagine that someone would possess expertise in all three, and still be so limited in opportunities to do good -- to descend to the level of pilpul-picking for the sake of self-promotion -- simply beggars the imagination.

The reviewer's first thought isn't going to be, "here's the Leonardo da Vinci of the twenty-first century here." It's going to be, "ugh, I wonder where he plagiarized from."

That may seem cynical, but in 9999 times out of ten thousand, it's the RIGHT thought. And I have to bet with my experience. The chances of such a range of content NOT being plagiarized are far far lower than the chances of it BEING plagiarized for some source I can't find. So you know what I'd HAVE to do reviewing the site: look till I found the source or until I got tired of looking. If the former, delete the suggestion with extreme prejudice: if the latter, admit you outwitted me, and leave the plagiarism investigation for somone more clever. And the editing community does include professional lawyers as well as professional linguists AND professional nutritionists, so we DO have those more clever people.

So: if you're looking for search engine spider fodder for some spammy advertising banner farm -- dictionaries and food lists is pretty good. But if you're trying to contribute something to the sum of human culture, start out with what YOU know better than the next hundred well-read professional people. And stop when you get to the end of that.

It's your website, of course. You build it to suit your goals. Now you know what the ODP goals are, and you can tell whether there's any overlap at all. If not, no point in frustrating yourself and wasting your time submitting at all. And if there is overlap, remember that no matter what your goals, in the information society you can't CONTRIBUTE what you don't KNOW. And focus on the possibilities.

Well, thanks a lot spectregunner and hutcheson for the replies.

The core business of the website is English-learning. We build a database of EFL resources and hired actors from several places in US, UK and Canada to record the audio.

The rest of the subdomains are based on public-domain databases. Nothing is plagiarized - the sources are aknowledged where this is compulsory under the terms of the organization that created the content.

The dictionary, law, library and nutrition subdomains are attached to the English learning database because from our tests big sites look better to Google. We are not involved in link farms and we don't sell xxx subscriptions, viagra or anything like that. We sell subscriptions to our EFL database.

Now, if I get you right, these helper subdomains are unlikely to be added by ODP editors to their categories because they don't contain original content. Is that what you mean?

The suggestion to focus on what we now best is just great. What if we expand the EFL subdomain into a multi-lingual subdomain? I mean, if we have some people translate the database descriptions and the navigation stuff into their native languages (not the EFL resources, though, this would be too expensive), will this subdomain be elligible to being added to the ODP Word categories under all these languages?

webworker2 said:

Now, if I get you right, these helper subdomains are unlikely to be added by ODP editors to their categories because they don't contain original content. Is that what you mean?

Click to expand...

Yes.

webworker2 said:

The suggestion to focus on what we now best is just great. What if we expand the EFL subdomain into a multi-lingual subdomain? I mean, if we have some people translate the database descriptions and the navigation stuff into their native languages (not the EFL resources, though, this would be too expensive), will this subdomain be elligible to being added to the ODP Word categories under all these languages?

Click to expand...

Probably not. The content (which as I understand are the EFL resources) must be in a language to be listed there.

Probably not. The content (which as I understand are the EFL resources) must be in a language to be listed there.

Click to expand...

But then how could a French learn English if the EFL resources were in French!?!

If there isn't significant content on the site in the language of the category a site is going to be suggested to (and that means more than just the navigational elements), then the site shouldn't be suggested there.

If there isn't significant content on the site in the language of the category a site is going to be suggested to (and that means more than just the navigational elements), then the site shouldn't be suggested there.

Click to expand...

Do you think that, let's say, 5 database description pages with about 300 words each, plus navigational elements, plus resource title, level, category, etc. etc. would qualify as "significant content" in that particular language? If not, could you please give a hint as to how many such pages would do?

And thanks to you all posting here, this forums seems to be a real heaven to get ODP editors feedback.

There isn't a sekrit formula.

Please don't try to design your website to achieve extra ODP listings. Instead, focus on what your potential customers need.

Jim is absolutely correct.

Turn the chess board around for a second and play our pieces.

If we said (and I am making up a number here) it took "7 pages of no less than 308 words each" to get listed, within 24 hours, hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of spammers would auto-generate 8 pages of 309 words and would be demanding to be listed because they clearly (in their mind) exceeded the advertised minimum.

I know that it is frustrating for you when we cannot give definitive guidance -- and life would be a lot easier for us if we could -- but we have learned the hard way that anything resembling firum guidance (with the exception of submit once to the signle best category -- which is universally ignored) is turned around and used against us.

A jaunt through the archives shows this in action. Eons ago, when we still did status checks, we did them whenever prople asked. Then we had a class of "lovely individuals" who asked daily. So we developed the 30 day rule. these same "lovely individuals" began asking every 30 days, then 29, then 28, then 27 -- always pushing our rules to their benefit. So we went to a six month rule. First status check no sooner then 30 days after the submission, and then every six months thereafter. We thought that was pretty straightforward. Were we stupid! We had to clarify that it was 30 days from the most recent submission, because they would resubmit on Tuesday and ask for a status check on wednesday, then as for a follow-up six months from the original submission date, not six months from the most recent submission. Or htey would resubmit monthly, as ask for a status check 30 days after each resumission -- loudly proclaiming their following of our rules.

Now, there are no status checks, but we still get bombarded by status checks -- and almost all begin with loud praises of our efforts followed by an attempt to get a stealth status check.

So, getting back to your question -- which is a fair one from your perspective -- we simply cnanot give you a hard and fast answer, because it will be used against us. So what constitues sofficient unique content -- we can't explain it, but most editors know it when they see it.

Hope this helped.

It's not about number of words: or rather, the fewer words, the better. One webmaster once told us that he had over 200 pages of content. I actually LOOKED at the site. I coulda fit it all into five VERY modest-sized pages without using a shoehorn. Should that webmaster have been rewarded for otiosity above and beyond the call of nature? Or is especial honor due to those who can deliver the same amount of information with less chaff? (This is a rhetorical question.)

No, nobody ever counts words here. Why would we? We actually READ them.