Matthew Pollock

We started our site in late 2006, and immediately submitted to DMOZ. But although we are large, non-commercial, and highly-respected, and have a large following of admirers, we have never made it into the DMOZ category we wanted, viz:
http://www.dmoz.org/Business/Investing/Real_Estate/Guides_and_Calculators/

During the last 3 years, there has been no new listing in this category.

We are actually linked to 3 times in DMOZ, as enthusiastic users have suggested our site in local categories. But local categories are really not the right thing for us.

I was going to say, there is no category for us! But in fact, since I last looked, an appropriate category appears to have opened up, by the look of the other names in there.
http://www.dmoz.org/Business/Real_Estate/Residential/Directories/

So what do we do? We are told not to resubmit. But I have not submitted for over 2 years, and I assume that my original submission has been lost, or ignored, because the category I submitted to is not monitored.

What to do?

OK, you have a good site, you claim. But ask yourself: how many real estate "guides" are out there, created by people who've never bought or sold so much as a carport (blind paraplegics offering themselves as Nepalese tour guides!) and yet, these sites are heavily promoted to places like the Open Directory (because they were created by webmasters, not real estate professionals).

Imagine what it would be like for a genuinely curious volunteer to spend all day weeding through that spam--and getting absolutely nothing productive done, because productivity is measured in "number of good sites found"--to get to your site.

It's not a pretty picture. And that's reality.

What to do? Focus on promoting the site through people whom you know professionally--include the URL on your business cards, on the side of your business vehicle, on your newspaper ads--and thus use your reputation as a professional real estate agent to add authority and plausibility to your online presence.

Matthew Pollock said:

We started our site in late 2006, and immediately submitted to DMOZ.

Click to expand...

Which would be very strange as DMOZ was down at the end of 2006.
If you have suggested the website in 2006 or earlier the suggestion is most probably lost. You can savely suggest it again.
But .... If you suggested the website in 2007 or later there is no need for you to suggest it again.

But although we are large, non-commercial, and highly-respected, and have a large following of admirers, we have never made it into the DMOZ category we wanted, viz:

Click to expand...

Sites are not listed in category because the owner wants it to be listed there. We use our guidelines to determine where it will be listed.

We are actually linked to 3 times in DMOZ, as enthusiastic users have suggested our site in local categories. But local categories are really not the right thing for us.

Click to expand...

Or maybe an editor has moved your website to these categorie because it is the right one.

I was going to say, there is no category for us! But in fact, since I last looked, an appropriate category appears to have opened up, by the look of the other names in there.
http://www.dmoz.org/Business/Real_Estate/Residential/Directories/

Click to expand...

This is a category so completely different from the one you suggested that it is impossible you used the best category when you suggested it.
Did you read the description of the category. "This category is for web sites that offer international searchable databases of residential real estate for sale in multiple countries on multiple continents"

Most of R-E sites are listed within Regional (that is if they are listable as most R-E sites are not listable at all). See our special guidelines in http://www.dmoz.org/guidelines/regional/realestate.html

To avoid confusion, I've moved the above posts to their own thread. There was no need to bump a 7 year old one written when our modus operandi here was entirely different.