newbie to e-commerce, I think I may have messed up

I am a total newbie to e-commerce, I had hired someone to help build my site and teach me at my home. He has been "released"

I let him go after researching his philosiphy on how to get ranked and auto submitting, and his belief in "keep submitting until you get listed" (which I had been watching him do to my site) he began submitting before my site was even finished.

I had no idea he was harming my chances of getting listed with DMOZ and Google until the people at PDG soft said he was going to kill my site! I believe he has submitted my site multiple times.

Am I doomed?
Since he has done this, is there anything I can do to recover?
I am now in the process of learning how to build the whole site myself with a little help from a big frontpage book
And doing lots of research.
Should I just start over?

I would be genuinely thankful for any advice.
http://www.glimmeringgems.com/
Rhonda

Don't believe everything you hear about "cruel editors" banning sites just for resubmitting to the same category. Banning sites for submitting behaviour is something we nearly never do, so don't worry. If your site was submitted, just lean back and do nothing, and it will eventually be reviewed and - if it fits the ODP site selection criteria - it will be listed.

Sincere Thanks!

Thank you for easing my mind.
I was about to just drop this site, take my losses, and start all over.

I would love to be a editor, I applied after I let my web guy go.
Then when I entered into the Forums, I realized I truly not qualified.
I just wanted to give something back. I figured you guys could use all the help you could get. But I realize there are much more qualified canidates.

Thanks to all the people at DMOZ, I know how much work it must be to edit, sort through, and enter all the millions of new websites, and even take time to read all of these e-mails.
Listed or not, you guys are awesome!
Rhonda

Rhonda Tatum said:

Then when I entered into the Forums, I realized I truly not qualified.

Click to expand...

You don't need any special skills to be an ODP editor. I'm not a meta editor, and have no input on new applications, but my understanding is the qualities needed are:
1) Honesty.
2) Ability to read and write the language of the category you are editing.
3) Willingness to read and abide by the rules and listing guidelines.

That's pretty much it.

From what I have been told, most new editor rejections are for very fixable mistakes. Such as spelling, description that don't match the written guidelines, and applying for a category that was to big for a trainee.

I have not been rejected, just have gotten no answer.

I just have not heard back from anyone.
I am sure that my application is probably waiting with a long list of others. I am hopeful, we will see!
I live in Texas where it is too hot most days to go outside. I just spend my day time hours indoors, and work on my site, and piddle on the web. Editing could be lots of fun. Maybe I will get approved, we will see. I applied for a small sub category in Jewelry.
Rhonda

There's one more quality needed: desire to cruise the net looking at some particular kind of websites. Otherwise, you're volunteering in the wrong place -- you ought to be helping illiterate adults learn to read, or cleaning up after hurricanes, or whatever it is that you have to do to be yourself. (If that happens not to be reviewing websites, no criticism: you may even meet ODP editors in the disaster areas....)

Rhonda Tatum said:

I just have not heard back from anyone.

Click to expand...

If it has been at least 2 weeks since you applied, you can ask in http://resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showforum=11 for a meta editor to look up the status of your application.

what do you think?

Wouldent it be best to just wait and see if they notify me?
I do not want to aggravate the people I need the most.

As I now have learned the DMOZ directory listing can pretty much make or break your site.
I am listed on almost every search engine and directory I can think of, but still no DMOZ listing.
My site does turn up in a google search, but I have absolutely no page rank.

In one way this is a bummer, in another it gives me time to just keep compiling information pages and trying to format them to look nice before publishing all at once.

By the way, does anyone have advice for how many pages your site should contain, is there a "not enough" or "too much" limit?

And a linking question, approximately how many links does take to get noticed?


I just noticed today DMOZ has a "link to us" on the site, I must add this to my "web tools" links area.

Any other ways to promote my site that you all can suggest is sincerely appreciated.

If I error in spelling, or tend to ramble, please excuse me today, I am taking heavy medication for a migraine I have had for over a week now.
Sorry, just thought maybe I should include this in case I am not making too much sense.

Wouldent it be best to just wait and see if they notify me?
I do not want to aggravate the people I need the most.

Click to expand...

If it's been more than 2 weeks since you applied, then it is perfectly fine for you to go to the Become an Editor forum and ask what the status of your application is. What if you'd been rejected last week but the email got eaten by your spam filter? You'd be waiting and waiting for a reply from us never realizing that you'd had one already. Go. Ask in that forum. We don't mind.

By the way, does anyone have advice for how many pages your site should contain, is there a "not enough" or "too much" limit?

Click to expand...

There's no hard and fast amount. Content is king. For informational sites, 2 pages about an obscure topic might be a lot of content; on the other hand, 20 pages about an overdone topic is probably way too little to be of use to anyone. While it's possible to see sites with zero percent unique content spread out over hundreds of pages, generally speaking there's no such thing as too much content. Though I did come across a site last year that had maybe 10 printed pages worth of actual informational content spread out over about 100 web pages -- a single paragraph on each page. The site was useless.

Thank you to everyone

I will try not to absorb much more time with all of my newbie questions.
You have all been awesome in taking time to answer my questions.
I will take your advice and make sure that my content is " as original as possible and worth reading"
I love this forum, there is so much for me to read and learn.
Now I think I will sit back and learn from the pro's.

People in this forum are GENUINELY NICE, this is the best forum I have visited in years!

Thanks Everyone

Hi Rhonda

Have you visited this area of dmoz yet? http://www.dmoz.com/about.html

The editing guidelines are highly recommended reading for prospective (and current) editors.

Thank you for the information.

I believe I did read part of this, but I had not seen the first page. (thank you, it was very intresting reading, I learned some new things about DMOZ and its origins).
I was just reading the e-mail that they had sent when I applied, here is all that I recieved, does this mean that it did not go through, I was reading something about a conformation e-mail I should have gotten.

Thanks for applying to become an editor!

You will receive a reply as soon as your application has been reviewed. If you have questions, please visit the public forums at

http://resource-zone.com/

to talk with one of our volunteers.

That is the confirmation email. The next email you receive will either be an acceptance or rejection.

Remember it could be awhile until you hear anything - it took somewhere between three weeks and a month for mine (if I remember correctly).

If you're at all concerned about whether it's under review - please ask for a status check. No one will look down on you or put a bad mark next to your application. That way you'll know for sure.

Thanks again

I am patient, and will wait. I would rather them use their time for others with more pressing questions.

I am passionate about the web, and I will be here listening, and learning, ready and willing when and if they call on me to work.



The subject line of the confirmation e-mail contains a 32 character key that is only used by the system when you reply to the confirmation e-mail. Make sure that when you reply to this e-mail that your e-mail client (a program such as Outlook, Netscape, Thunderbird) does not cut off any of the characters in this 32 character key. If any of the characters are truncated, the system will not be able to validate the key and it may tell you that it could not find your application. After you reply to the e-mail and the system confirms that your e-mail address is valid, that key is never referenced again. We do not see it when we review your application so you do not need to include it here when you are asking for a status request. We have no way of looking for that key in the system.

When I looked again at the e-mail I did not see the confirmation number, as I read on I see that it dissapears after you hit the submit button.
Anyway this is what was causing me the confusion.

Need the ODP link

Does anyone have a link to the spot on DMOZ where I can find the
html code to add DMOZ to my site? I want to add them to "web tools"

Or should I just improvise?
I know I saw something about linking to the site somewhere but cannot remember where.
Thanks
Rhonda

http://www.dmoz.com/link.html

This should be it

I have one of the banners on my site (option 3)

How to Submit this site
http://badedas.narod.ru ?

Just like any other site (but as far as I can see the url given by you isn't a site at all, atleast not according to DMOZ guidelines).
Go to http://dmoz.org find the one category that best fits your site and suggest the site. But please do read all information provided during the proces of suggesting your site. http://dmoz.org/add.html and http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html

Thanks lmocr
I had just put the hyperlink yesterday. I think I will change, I like the banner that you have used.

Hey if any of you ever have the time, and might like to critque my site, I would be sincerely, genuinely, thankful for any suggestions you might have.
Do you all see anything that might be keeping me out out of the directory, I am eager to make any changes.
http://www.glimmeringgems.com

That's not a question we can answer I'm afraid, sorry. And besides it is highly unlikely any editor here would be the one to review the site. The best suggestion we can give is to make sure you read all the guidelines thoroughly, read the category descriptions to make sure you have picked the right one, and compare your site objectively to the best site on a similar topic that we have already listed - if it stands comparison then you have a chance!