I havent been able to get listed for 2.5 years

JudyVeeder said:

Maybe Google is the real problem putting too much wieght on the DMOZ? If people are not being reviewed for years it sounds like the early adopters are benefiting from the importance that Google is putting on DMOZ and there may be far better sites not even being reviewed.

I think it is time for Google to rethink!

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I think it is time for you to get better informed.
Google has stated many times that they do not put any special weight on DMOZ. For them it is just a link to a website, just like any other link.

pquesinb said:

So that begs the question, "what makes all of these related websites more unique than ours"?

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There is and never can be something like "more unique". It is either unique or it is not.

After reading your detailed post and looking at the sites which are already listed in the directory; I'm left wondering if it's mainly the website that needs to be unique, the product or service, or all of the above.

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None of the above. It is about the content. That must be unqiue.
If you have a website that describes who you are and what you do than that is in itself unique.

And to clarify since you mentioned it, I'm probably not alone in defining a "good" or "quality" website as one that looks professional, can be easily navigated, and conveys the information, product or service being presented in a clear and concise manner. I would also expect it to be free of ads and affiliate links. I think the ODP deserves nothing less.

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And those are all things we don't care about.
Professional or amateur looks: who cares. I know of many "bad looking" amateur sites that are much more valuable than those "good looking" professional sites.
Easy navigation. As long as it does not prevent us from finding the content any navigation is fine.
Ads and affiliate links. They are allowed, as long as they do not overpower the real content. Sites build for the ads will not be listed. Sites with real content and ads will be listed.

Look-and-feel - it doesn't matter
proper HTML - it doesn't matter
fancy graphics / flash - it doesn't matter
content - only that does matter

So that begs the question, "what makes all of these related websites more unique than ours"?

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There is no evidence that any of those sites are more unique than yours.

All we know is: those sites have been reviewed, and they were "unique enough." And your site (very likely) hasn't been reviewed at all.

Why were they reviewed first? For all practical purposes, review order is random. Editors try to skew the review towards useful sites, but in business categories there's not much to choose between "John Doe Corporation" and "Richard Roe Company". One of them was in the batch of 100 suggestions reviewed on some date, the other 99 of which were spam, the other is still hiding behind another 99 spam suggestions.

I could probably go on to say that our product is more unique than the others in that it's the only one that makes use of standard CallerID-equipped telephones and displays

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I'd suggest, then, resuggesting the site to the same category with a new description BRIEFLY mentioning that feature of your product. If the site hasn't been reviewed, this would just overwrite the previous suggestion.

hutcheson said:

Editors try to skew the review towards useful sites, but in business categories there's not much to choose between "John Doe Corporation" and "Richard Roe Company". One of them was in the batch of 100 suggestions reviewed on some date, the other 99 of which were spam, the other is still hiding behind another 99 spam suggestions.

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That has to be frustrating. I wonder what the true cost of spam is... has to be in the range of millions of hours and dollars.

hutcheson said:

I'd suggest, then, resuggesting the site to the same category with a new description BRIEFLY mentioning that feature of your product. If the site hasn't been reviewed, this would just overwrite the previous suggestion.

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I'm pretty sure that I mentioned that when I submitted the site recently (within the last few months) because I believe that I suggested the possibility of putting it under a disability/EADL category. With that in mind, I'll just leave it at that and try not to add to the spam.

pvgool said:

None of the above. It is about the content. That must be unqiue. If you have a website that describes who you are and what you do than that is in itself unique.

Professional or amateur looks: who cares. I know of many "bad looking" amateur sites that are much more valuable than those "good looking" professional sites.
Easy navigation. As long as it does not prevent us from finding the content any navigation is fine.
Ads and affiliate links. They are allowed, as long as they do not overpower the real content. Sites build for the ads will not be listed. Sites with real content and ads will be listed.

Look-and-feel - it doesn't matter
proper HTML - it doesn't matter
fancy graphics / flash - it doesn't matter
content - only that does matter

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Great info... that certainly sheds more light on your philosophy here. I thought our site content was pretty good so far but we would like to add a forum and helpful tips and info for customers and anyone else who happens by, so I'm sure that can only help our site and the community as well.

Thanks again to all of you who responded, we'll continue working on our site and let you get back to those piles of spam. As the old joke goes, "ok, coffee break's over... everyone back to standing on their head".

Cheers,

- Phil

pquesinb said:

so I'm sure that can only help our site and the community as well.

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That is the right attitude.
Create a site for your visitors.
This will make it a good site.
And such good sites are the ones we prefer to list.