http://www.replypro.net - description needs change

My site: http://www.replypro.net is a site dedicated to autoresponders. My editor did not include the word "autoresponder" in my description (actual: ReplyPro - Provides email follow up system, email list broadcast and member login area. HTML and Text email, Web based account setup and user options.-- http://www.replypro.net Computers: Software: Internet: Servers: Mail: Autoresponder Services

I tried to have the description edited so my site would appear in the Open Directory Sites when the user types in 'autoresponder' but I have received no reply.

Can anybody help me?

Thanks.

As the site is listed in a category which has the word "autoresponder" in it, it will not be possible to put this word into the description. This is ODP policy.

The current description appears to be compliant with our guidelines (although I have no reviewed the site myself).

Re: http://www.replypro.net - description needs ch

Since the site is in a category that contains the word "autoresponder", it would be incorrect and redundant to repeat the word in the description. All descriptions that contain that word [in my opinion] need to be revised to remove it.

It also is not an editors job to make the description work in a search.

However, if someone types in "autoresponder" into an ODP search, then the first item that appears is the category --- Computers: Software: Internet: Servers: Mail: Autoresponder Services - which will bring the user to your site.

Re: http://www.replypro.net - description needs ch

so what you are saying is that if I do a search for computers, and get Open Directory Sites (1-20 of 7240), then all 7240 of those descriptions are wrong and need to be changed?

Robert

Re: http://www.replypro.net - description needs ch

Depends what sites came up for you. I just did the search, and of the first 20, I would probably have changed about 15 of the descriptions.

The rule about not using the category or path name in a description is not absolute -- if the description would be awkward without the word, it is sometimes ok to use it. However, if a good description can be written without using the category or pathname (as in your case), then that's what we editors are supposed to do. We don't keyword-stuff descriptions.

There are many reasons why descriptions may not be up to current standards. One is that the guidelines have changed over the years, and many of the descriptions may be old. Another is that mistakes are sometimes made -- humans may do it better, but nobody is perfect.

For your purposes, though, the answer you have received is correct. We try to update and correct those older noncompliant descriptions as we see them. We don't use them as justification to ignore the guidelines when writing new descriptions, so we aren't going to add the word to your listing.

Please don't concern yourself with ODP search. Very few users of ODP data ever use the search (many are probably using the Google directory, which as far as I know, ignores ODP descriptions), which is mainly intended to help editors find categories for sites.

Re: http://www.replypro.net - description needs ch

I'll defer to more experienced editors to fully answer this, but it does seem that many of those descriptions need correcting and some editors will kept busy dealing with this. I also see descriptions where the title of the site is repeated - another redundancy.

(However, it is allowed for the title of the site to contain the keyword, if that is the title that displays on the site.)

There are cases were it is difficult not to repeat a keyword in a description without making the description convoluted, but this should be the exception.

Thank you for bringing up this issue - the incorrect entries in http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Internet/Servers/Mail/Autoresponder_Services/ are being corrected and you will see them in the public view of ODP when the server upgrades are completed.

Re: http://www.replypro.net - description needs ch

An additional note - I went back and audited my own categories and found in some areas the descriptions did not follow the rules I stated. As a results of some reorganization and combining of categories, some (Art) category names recently got changed to include a keyword used in the descriptions. So originally it was very good to have the keyword, and now it's incorrect, and they have to be corrected.

So this thread that you started ends up improving the content of ODP in unexpected areas.

Re: http://www.replypro.net - description needs ch

Nicky,

Thanks much for your detailed response to my questions.

I understand the problem you face.

From my point of view though (biased as it may be), given the title and description listed for my site, it is not apparent that my service offers free and paid autoresponders, despite the fact that my site is solely dedicated to just that...autoresponders.

Perhaps the title could be changed to Replypro Autoresponders or Replypro Autoresponder Service.

Would this still be within ODP guidelines?

If so, how do you suggest that I get this changed?

Kind regards,

Robert

Re: http://www.replypro.net - description needs ch

If your company name is Replypro then your title in dmoz will be Replypro, not Replypro Autoresponders or anything else. If you were to choose to change your company name to Replypro Autoresponders then the situation might change.

The relevant part of the guidelines is here:

Guidelines for Titles

Re: http://www.replypro.net - description needs ch

From my point of view though (biased as it may be), given the title and description listed for my site, it is not apparent that my service offers free and paid autoresponders

Click to expand...

However, from our point of view, it is perfectly obvious that your site is about autoresponders. Otherwise, we wouldn't list it in an autoresponder category.

The important distinction here is that the ODP is a directory, not a search engine, so how keywords in titles or descriptions influence searches is not our concern. Our concern is to figure out the best ways for users to find information when browsing a directory -- and adding redundant keywords will not help us reach that goal.

By the way, I was remiss in not thanking you for pointing out the problems with many of the computer listings. Good thing editor bobrat was more awake than I was this morning.