my site - 8 months down the road...

Original thread here (ie, Dec 2004):

http://resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?p=146295#post146295

Still waiting for inclusion after 8 months....I was told to come back after six months so here I am....apologies in advance if this is NOT the area to request status....

Can an editor/moderator please give me some insight into the submission of my site......

Afraid not, status reports have been discontinued (see this post http://resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=39116 ).

Thanks wjcampbe....I see now

However, I do have an issue and I believe that can only be resolved by people at your end. In other words, if you don’t do site status' anymore, what services do you offer that I can use to eventually get my site listed?

George

There is no service that guarantees a listing at any time. You did everything you could when you made your original suggestion 8 months ago.

The only thing you can do now is continue to work on your site, keeping the content fresh and informative, so that when an editor does work in the category you suggested to, he finds something worth listing on the other end.

Your implying my site hasn’t been listed because of some subjective analysis.

Hmmm.....the functionality, content and aesthetics pretty much exceed that of similar sites already listed in DMOZ. No, that I don’t see as the problem (it could be but I doubt it!)….

But this I do:

so that when an editor does work in the category

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The point is - when? 8 months of editor inactivity? Come on guys, that’s grossly bad. In fact, there seem to be some serious shortcomings in the way that DMOZ operates.

DMOZ – what has become of you?

George

Classified ad site categories are spam-magnets and national sites must be truly very comprehensive and stand out from the crowd as editors don't usually find them very productive. You site is very sparse in terms of events listed, IMO nowhere near sufficient for DMOZ to consider it. If you want a reasonable chance at being considered you need to substantially increase the content. Its chicken and egg - how do you get the business if you don't get the exposure. Unfortunately we only deal with chickens not eggs, you need to promote and build it up using other methods and then we'll consider it. I don't know whether it has been reviewed yet or not by the way so when you have the most comprehensive possible site on the subject, assuming it has not been listed, then you could try resubmitting at that point just in case it has been rejected in the meantime.

Come on guys, that’s grossly bad

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We are not a webmaster listing service and we don't get paid to edit - sites are reviewed as and when an editor has the time and interest. That's the way it works I'm afraid, it is a volunteer project not a commercial venture.

the functionality, content and aesthetics

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Functionality and aesthetics are not factors in editorial decisions unless they make the site unworkable. Content is king, for several states you have zero events, for others one or two - that shouldn't exceed anything listed already or someone may have made a mistake. Sorry.

Classified ad site categories are spam-magnets and national sites must be truly very comprehensive and stand out from the crowd as editors don't usually find them very productive.

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1) It's NOT a classified AD site....its sole purpose is to cater for Garage Sale buyers and sellers in Australia who wish to list their sale online. And that's why I stand out form the crowd - I concentrate on one selling and buying medium. This is contrast to the plethora of classified sites on DMOZ, which ironically, contradict your very argument.

2) Find me any spam on my site! I pro-actively administer the content of all listed garage sales daily and any ad found to be promoting content of a illicit nature is deleted immediately. In fact, this occurring has always been far and few between.

You site is very sparse in terms of events listed, IMO nowhere near sufficient for DMOZ to consider it.

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That doesn’t make sense. 95% of my content is dictated by the end-user - they decide whether they wish to advertise their sale or not – I can hardly control their will to do so.

you need to promote and build it up using other methods and then we'll consider it.

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Google, Yahoo and MSN would disagree - I rank in the top 10 easily for all popular keyword phrases for garage sales in regional Australia.

Go on, type in garage sales Sydney, garage sales melbourne or garage sales brisbane or whatever.

And garage sale can be singular or plural – it makes no difference, I’m the king of the hill on most occasions – and I say that with utmost modesty as it has taken over 12 months of dedicated SEO to achieve these rankings. You can't get more exposure than this.

This raises a very important point that you should consider before laying judgement – online garage sale advertising is a new concept to Australia. In fact, it is probably 1-2 years ahead of the market. Thus, it is more an issue of the public’s awareness to the virtues of online advertising rather than any indictment on the ability of egaragesales.com.au to capture realistic sales targets.

Indeed, unless you’re a national newspaper who procures most of their online ads as an extension of their papers, then egaragesales.com.au is a pretty accurate indication of the amount of people advertising their garage sales online.

In conclusion, I see logic in your argument but I also see holes – like one big slice of Swiss cheese. Sorry, but I just don’t buy it guys.

I think its easy to pass judgment from ivory glass towers, but please don’t lose sense of how it really is.

George

Now that you've realized the problem you face, you might find it interesting to hunt up some of the forums in which I was posting a description of the dilemma that all content-agglomerators would inevitably face. (You can probably find them going back to 2001.) I had hoped by those posts to challenge people either to find some socially useful activity, or to make sure they had an answer to the real problem, which of course had nothing whatsoever to do with aesthetics. You might have saved some wasted effort.

But it is your effort and site, and you are within your rights to act according to your own priorities. But if they turn out not to be accorded social recognition, it is pretty specious to demand that someone else start acting according to your priorities on the grounds that their work HAS been widely recognized as useful. One might call such an attitude "ivory-tower arrogance", no? But let's not go there. Your site is your own, and you alone can judge whether it's worth trading for a dog that you'd have to waste a bullet on anyway. I can't make that judgment for you.

On the other hand, I have to decide what is worth my effort -- like most editors, I have options other than the ODP. And you shall not judge my choice, either, OK?

If you ever add substantially more content to the site -- enough content to compete with the obvious leaders (you've figured out who some of them are, I think!) -- then a resubmittal might be constructive. Until then, stick to spamming the search engines -- they are more susceptible to that kind of manipulation, and resent it much less.

hutcheson said:

stick to spamming the search engines -- they are more susceptible to that kind of manipulation, and resent it much less.

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Ouch! Someone's a little agitated. I sense a tone showing your frustration at not having a truly valid argument in light of such strong evidence.

Btw, Google/Yahoo/etc don’t condone SPAM - its called Search Engine Optimisation. In other words, implementing fundamental - and legitimate - search engine techniques that contribute to relevant and optimal search results for end-users.

Let's be honest, another definition of SEO is :>> spamming search engines, in a way you do not get caught.

Or, it's manipulation of the data on the internet in such a way as to bias the results.

I do it so that sites I have an interest in will rate higher in results, not based on the value of the site, but on the skill with which I play the game. But I don't pretend it's legitimate and I don't pretend it's optimal search results for end-users - it's making the search engines results increase the traffic to my sites so that I make more money.

It's NOT a classified AD site

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I know that but I looked up your submission status request - you said you submitted to a classified ads category. My comments related to such categories.

Find me any spam on my site

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Find me a garage sale in Perth. I didn't say there was any spam on your site, there isn't much of anything really, I said that the type of category you chose to submit your site to were spam magnets, i.e. clogged to the gills with spam and not the sort of place editors like to frequent without rubber gloves, so they don't get visited very often.

they decide whether they wish to advertise their sale or not

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And they have decided not to on your site so far, so it does not qualify for a DMOZ listing. When they decide they do want to in significant numbers then it might be considered. Another answer to that one is that editors decide whether they wish to visit Classifieds categories and it is out of your hands (and our hands as well) whether they wish to or not. Most decide not to.

I rank in the top 10 easily for all popular keyword phrases for garage sales in regional Australia.

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That is not a factor nor will ever be a factor in any listing decision and any editor who did take it into account would be out on their ear. I could search for garage sales Perth and might get your site as a result but it is zero use to me because you have no listings for garage sales anywhere in Western Australia let alone Perth. Hence why SEO stats don't interest us at all. It is at the forefront of why we exist and why we are different - we can't be manipulated by keywords and phrases and SEO "techniques", only influenced by copious amounts of unique and useful information. At the end of the day producing that unique and useful information requires a very different approach and set of skills than those for getting traffic through studying search engine terms and hits and where to put keywords and phrases. When you want a DMOZ listing it is the former that count for everything, the latter skills count for nothing and we are very experienced in completely discounting them when reviewing sites.

We only list sites that are rich in content and of great value to our directory users, you have only 12 listings which may grow as the market develops. At the present time those 12 do not add up to sufficient content. Now if you had loads and loads of information on how to set up a garage sale, how to price things, how to haggle, how to buy from garage sales, what your consumer rights are, what your liabilities are when selling electricals etc. I might buy the idea you were promoting a concept. But that isn't what I see. Even with such information on the site the lack of sales being listed is still a problem for a listing in Regional but there might be another place in the Directory that would welcome it, assuming the information was your own work and comprehensive.

So whilst we don't do status reports anymore and neither I nor anyone else here will have looked up the actual status of the site, unofficially I think you can assume quite safely that it is rejected for lack of content because it is inconceivable that any experienced editor would accept it. That is fact based on our standards for acceptance, you may not see the logic and you might disagree but it doesn't change the fact since we clearly work on a different mindset, which is fine by us. This isn't a debate and policies won't be changed as a result but it would be nice if you and others visiting the forum could understand a bit more about how we work.

Best of luck with the site - when you have garage sales listed in every major town and city in Australia and loads of information for organisers and buyers it will be a great resource, the sort DMOZ is interested in listing (at a pace and in a place to suit us not you). Till then thanks for the discussion, it is useful (and these days quite rare) to be able to use a site to discuss DMOZ listing principles.

Sorry missed something - you spend 12 months building up search engine rankings and therefore have, you say, the best possible exposure. Yet only 12 garage sales listed. Which I presume means you aren't living like a king on the income from the site as yet. So what is missing. In a country where the concept is new. Why haven't you got hundreds, even thousands signed up?

I have a great new product. It is called the oujamaflip diddleydum. Available in yellow and green and large and small versions. I am the sole manufacturer in the world, I distribute on the Internet and am number one on every search engine and have been for months - I spent ages getting the SEO right. Not a single order since the launch, I can't understand it. What does it do this great new product? Didn't I tell you? Actually I did sell one but it got returned, apparently the bloke couldn't work out how to use it.

Content, information, how does it work, what does it do, why would I want it, where can I get it, where can I use it, why wouldn't I use that one, how did you think up the idea, how do you make it... hey, I want one, sign me up. SEO gets the surfer on the site, content keeps him there thinking about buying. The only thing you need to do to get a DMOZ editor on the site is to tell him or her it is there by submitting so SEO is irrelevant and if you keyword splatter your submission it is positively detrimental. Content keeps him or her on the site thinking about listing it.

There are many many people that offer services to webmasters; the ODP was started to offer services to someone else. The webmasters aren't neglected, they're just taken care of ... at some other website.

In short, we aren't selling, so there's nothing for you not to buy.