Not getting Listed

Hello

I have been trying to get listed in a category for over a year. I have been careful not to submit the details too often, maximum once every three or four months. There is no editor for the category so I even tried submitting an application for to become an editor. In each case I have not received any reply.

Any ideas?

Hello:

Please take a few minutes to read our FAQ which addresses the issues you are asking aobut. Pleae pay particular attention to the section that addresses how long it takes for a suggested URl to be reviewed.

Please also stop submitting. You have done all that you can do and frequest resubmissions are a violation of our rules.

Thank you.

discography-

First suggestion would be to read the Forum FAQ on Suggesting a Site because that may help to clarify some of the issues.

There are numerous reasons a site hasn't been included in the directory or hasn't been reviewed yet. Speaking in general, one thing jumps out right away:

discography said:

I have been careful not to submit the details too often, maximum once every three or four months

Click to expand...

If you have been resuggesting the same url every few months, I strongly suggest stopping. It is hurting the review time not helping. Each suggestion will overwrite the previous suggestion. If the reviewing editor is sorting by suggestion date (some do-many don't) then your resuggestion will sink your site to the bottom of the review pool. Beyond that all you can do to help a review take place is:

1. Make sure you have suggested to the single most appropriate category
2. Make sure you have reviewed the guidelines and your site complies with the listing criteria
3. Assign a Guideline compliant title and description that makes the waiting suggestion more appealing to a reviewing editor
4. Move along with your other site promotion strategies and forget about the ODP.

If your site is listable then it will eventually be reviewed and placed, the best thing you can do now is to continue adding good content to your site, provide your customers (whomever they maybe) with the information they need, and utilize whatever promotional strategies you have available to you. If and ODP listing eventually happens then great, you have another link that customers might use to find you but if not then you have already succeeded in promoting your site to your customers and an ODP listing won't have mattered.

Hopefully that helps.

*Note: simultaneous posts, didn't mean to pile on-spectregunner just types faster but I usually spell better

Shadow 575, thanks for the reply.

Although I understand what it written in the FAQs I do feel that the system is somewhat unfair... if my competitors are listed or are being listed and I am not. There is no form of communication to say 'please wait' or 'submission rejected' or 'some months have past however we have still not reviewed your listing, please be patient'.

Forgetting ODP is easier said than done. It is ranked highly with google and is a valuable tool in attracting potential customers.

Mr spectregunner, with no disrespect intended I do not feel the submission system provides enough 'user' information. I have (in your book) violated the rules and taken 1 year to discover this forum... and find out that DMOZ has a set of unique rules.

None the less, I apreciate your answers and guess I have to wait.

discography said:

Shadow 575, thanks for the reply.

Although I understand what it written in the FAQs I do feel that the system is somewhat unfair... if my competitors are listed or are being listed and I am not. There is no form of communication to say 'please wait' or 'submission rejected' or 'some months have past however we have still not reviewed your listing, please be patient'.

Forgetting ODP is easier said than done. It is ranked highly with google and is a valuable tool in attracting potential customers.

Mr spectregunner, with no disrespect intended I do not feel the submission system provides enough 'user' information. I have (in your book) violated the rules and taken 1 year to discover this forum... and find out that DMOZ has a set of unique rules.

None the less, I apreciate your answers and guess I have to wait.

Click to expand...

Waiting is one thing you can do, the other and the one I would suggest is to forget the ODP exists and continue adding content that is relevant to you customers to your site and also continue your marketing/promotional strategies. By doing this, the presence or absence of an ODP listing won't matter because you are going to be noticed by your customers because you are giving them above and beyond what your competitors will be doing. Then when/if an ODP listing occurs it will just ice the cake

Please don't confuse the ODP for a listing service, that will just cause frustration that none of us want to see. The site suggestions are just one very small and in some areas not very productive resource for editors to use to find and list sites. If you are building your site with quality information, it fits the guidelines, and is unique beyond the other listings eventually an editor will find it. You would be surprised how many times we (I) will find a good site and list it without ever realizing it was even suggested.

Hopefully that will help better clarify things.

discography said:

I do feel that the system is somewhat unfair... if my competitors are listed or are being listed and I am not.

Click to expand...

I'll take a humble stab at this. Each category is a sampling of websites for the topic or region. There isn't any reference to competitiveness.

Your best bet since your website is awaiting review - keep developing the depth and breadth of offerings and features so that when an editor does in fact review it - the category sampling is "improved" by your inclusion.

Continuous improvement isn't easy but you will find there are many more benefits to this development process than just a directory listing.

Good luck.

>There is no form of communication to say 'please wait' or 'submission rejected' or 'some months have past however we have still not reviewed your listing, please be patient'.

Those all seem to have the same practical advice: be patient. How about if we just tell people, up front: "be patient until you hear otherwise." And then we could just communicate with people whose continued patience was harming our efforts to build a directory.

So: given that we tell people up front to be patient, in order to do our job, whom do we need to tell to be impatient?

hutcheson, that sounds sensible.

I would do it the following way... as an email address can (or should) be entered upon submission. Also taken into account that most people don't really read disclaimers and long text.

Upon submission a 'submission success' message is displayed

In addition, an email is sent. An email is an important tool for 'users' so that they know something has happened. The email says:

1 - submission is received
2 - submission can take up to two years
3 - please don't resubmit because your submission will be moved back to the end of the queue.
4 - If you are rejected you will be informed.
5 - If you are accepted you will be informed

--

Point number 4 is really important.



I do realise from other posts that some of these ideas have been discussed however I wonder if the current system offers more disadvantages than a system with the suggested measures.

>Upon submission a 'submission success' message is displayed

Yeah, that's the way it works.

>In addition, an email is sent. An email is an important tool for 'users' so that they know something has happened.

>1 - submission is received [please be patient]
>2 - submission can take up to two years [please be patient]
>3 - please don't resubmit because your submission will be moved back to the end of the queue. [but please be patient]
4 - If you are rejected .... [your continued patience will not in any way impede the work of building the directory.]
5 - If you are accepted ... [even so, your continued patience will not in any way impede the work of building the directory.]

In all these cases, "continued patience" is the watchword. And this isn't all: in fact, I don't know of any cases where impatient submitters helps us.

>Forgetting ODP is easier said than done.

True. That's life.

But ... it's also a good reason not to send out reminders.

And it's even a good reason not to expect reminders to have any constructive effect.

I will let you all get back to updating the directory
The less I write... the quicker it will go