Noticed an editor came through my site 3 months back, but no email. Help?

Hello,

I realise that you no longer have the check your status feature on this forum, but I am looking for a little bit of advice regarding website submission. Basically I submitted my website http://www.websitepositioningservices.com to the Search engine optimization catagory three months back (not long considering I hear someone has waited 16 months!) and was wondering as to if, when and has it been reviewed yet? I noticed on my hosting manager that a DMOZ editior has been through my website, and that was back in July, but no email about the decision either way.

Anyway, my question is what do I do now? Will I get an email back from this editor who has left their footprint in my website hositing stats? Do I stand a chance for inclusion or should I resubmit my site? If I should resubmit, is there a good time to do it? Should I wait 6+ months or what should I do??

Thanks for the help.

I realise that you no longer have the check your status feature on this forum...was wondering as to if, when and has it been reviewed yet?

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Wouldn't that be asking for a status check, which we no longer do?

Anyway, my question is what do I do now?

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Wait.

Will I get an email back from this editor who has left their footprint in my website hositing stats?

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Highly unlikely.

Do I stand a chance for inclusion or should I resubmit my site? If I should resubmit, is there a good time to do it? Should I wait 6+ months or what should I do??

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Without reviewing your site, we can't comment on its listability. If it isn't listable, resubmitting won't help. If it is, you can already tell from the referrer that the suggestion was received so resubmitting won't help.

Whether or not it has been reviewed would be a status check. There are 101 reasons why an editor might look at the site and only 1 of those is review. Assuming you didn't submit a site that breached guidelines and given you don't see the the site listed it is safe to conclude that the site hasn't been reviewed. That is how to do a DIY status check.

We don't do emails - if the site has been reviewed and is listable then it will be listed and that is how you will know it has been reviewed. And you wouldn't have sent us something unlistable would you.

If you know an editor has been onto your site then you know it has been received and, therefore, there is now no reason ever to resubmit, submissions never expire. Doing so would breach the guidelines and can only harm your case.

Many thanks for the speedy responses. I do have to say that I was under the assumption that, according to what I have read on DMOZ, that once the website has been reviewed I was to receive an email either confirming or rejecting my listing. Obviously I was incorrect in that, but then maybe DMOZ is a little misleading.

Considering that I do run an SEO firm, I do understand the importance of DMOZ listing and, considering the time some people claim to have waited for listings/notification, it is obvious to me that DMOZ is a very busy service and more than likely understaffed. Perhaps I should consider becoming an editor myself. Maybe if more people did apply for such positions, this waiting game would be much less of an issue and websites promoted far more quickly.

I am aware of your strict guidelines for listing a website and I am totally sure that my website is not in breach of anything DMOZ sites. I also submitted another one of my websites which deals with breaking news in the field of clinical psychology (my discipline) and, after reading your regulations, am unsure as to whether this site will be listed as it links to other news resources. I guess that is irrelevant though.

Again, thank you for your help and advice. I shall continue to wait in anticipation of either hearing from someone, or seeing my site eventually listed.

I shall continue to wait in anticipation of either hearing from someone

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That won't happen - we don't do emails. But if you can point out where on our site it implies that will happen please let us know.

it is obvious to me that DMOZ is a very busy service

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We are not a service for webmasters - our users are ordinary surfers and we are part of a voluntary project to catalog unique content on the Internet. Therefore waiting is not an issue and promoting websites is not anywhere in our sights. Promoting information on the sum of human knowledge - that is our game and we do it by a variety of means, only part of which is considering suggestions from submissions.

Perhaps I should consider becoming an editor myself.

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I fear you would be wasting your time unless you can grasp the true concept and if you were thinking of an SEO category then due to the potential for abuse it is highly unlikely anyone other than an experienced and trusted editor would get rights to edit there.

Again my apologies for the bother. Maybe I was incorrect in my assumtion that I would receive an email one way or the other. I was sure I did see that mentioned on the site, maybe I am wrong. Also, maybe my assuption spanned from the fact that we are requested to include our email addresses at the bottom of the submission form. Perhaps I am being a little to forward in my thinking that this might have been included on the form for us meer submitters might get some repsonse.

I am well aware of the "service" DMOZ provides as a listings directory. Maybe "promoting" was the wrong word to use, but as I can gather, we are some what reliant on DMOZ for improved search engine ranking.

As for my suggestion of possibly applying to become an editor, my ideal field would be in education or health, certainly not SEO. So if corruption means trying to get decent educational sites listed well, then goddamn it, I am corrupt.

maybe my assuption spanned from the fact that we are requested to include our email addresses at the bottom of the submission form. Perhaps I am being a little to forward in my thinking that this might have been included on the form for us meer submitters might get some repsonse.

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That is so an editor can contact you if they have a query. But I guess that function was put in before anyone realised the scale of abuse, including threats of physical violence, that would emerge as a result. So editors are discouraged from emailling submitters.

I am well aware of the "service" DMOZ provides as a listings directory. Maybe "promoting" was the wrong word to use, but as I can gather, we are some what reliant on DMOZ for improved search engine ranking.

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Obviously not that well aware. Maybe it is a matter of word usage but listings and service in the same sentence tends to raise editor hackles. Unless preceded by we are not a...

The point I was getting at concerning applying to be an editor is that if you believe that DMOZ is a listing service and your motivation is improved search engine ranking then you are wasting your time. Editors notably have zero interest in page rank, it has no part to play in an editor's thinking.

As for my suggestion of possibly applying to become an editor, my ideal field would be in education or health, certainly not SEO. So if corruption means trying to get decent educational sites listed well, then goddamn it, I am corrupt.

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You were talking about website promotion at the same time as mentioning perhaps applying to become an editor. The two are incompatible. We do have SEO practitioners amongst the community and they have to learn to hang their SEO hats at the door. It isn't corruption to discover and list educational or any other kind of sites with unique quality information. As I am sure you can understand certain subjects such as SEO categories are particularly prone to submitters testing out their latest promotional techniques and therefore require far more experience before an editor can handle them properly. Education is not generally prone to that sort of thing and so can be an ideal starting place for new editors.

So if you believe you can switch off SEO thinking and contribute to a project to catalog unique Internet information then we'll be happy to welcome you if a meta accepts your application.

Threats of physical violence? That's a terrible situation...no wonder you're discouraged from emailing back. I guess some people take rejection of their sites as a personal thing. There are definatley some messed up people out there. Thanks for explaining the situation, I completely understand the position.

As I said, I would like to stay away from SEO editing as much as possible, were I to apply for an editing possition. I think education would be great as I have experience both as an ex teacher and student trying to find decent resources online. For that SEO thinking can easily be turned off. I'll take a better look at the editorial guidelines and then probably apply.

Thanks for all the advice.

There are some people who have substantial amounts of money invested in SEO, and morality does not come into play. Others, incorrectly, believe that the lack of listing in DMOZ is the only thing stopping them from making millions on the internet and therefore the editors are to blame for them not having any money to feed the baby.

It would be funny, except that the death threats are real, as are attempts to hack into my accounts, reporting me to AOL as being a corrupt editors and the list goes on. Simply posting in these forums has lead to many ugly situations.

Sometimes editors will email to help people out, and that also often backfires on them. I will occassionaly email someone in order to point out some glitch on the sites that prevents it being listed, but use an anonymous one time use email and tell them not to reply as I do not wish to enter into dialogues.

If you know of anyone who has substantial amounts of money to invest in SEO, please send them my way...joke.

Although I know DMOZ is important for search engine algorithms and would obviously love my site to be picked up by the ODP, I know the editors are not to blame for website success or failiours in S.E's.

As for death threats, like I said, there are some crazy people out there looking for someone to blame for their website possibly not fitting in with the criteria of DMOZ. I guess it is easy to take things personally when you consider how much work goes into building a site, or how much it has cost them to pay a designer.

Again, thanks for the advice and feedback on the email notification. It really is appreciated.

The threats of violence are fortunately extremely rare. Being on the wrong end of a rant is not so rare so if you do engage in external communications then a thick skin helps. It helps explain why a lot of editors focus their efforts on the non-commercial categories or in the Regional branch where such unpleasantness is an exception.

If you do decide to apply please remember that integrity is most important - declare all affiliations openly and honestly, including those that may not be related to the category being applied for. That is especially important for anyone involved in SEO or other web services as such editors are easy targets for those wishing to make false accusations of misuse of position.

In fields I have worked in previously (and currently due to my field of study) I have had to develope a thick skin and not to take things personally. I do think that looking for a nice non-commercial catagory to edit is my best option as I not only want to search out decent unique websites which will be of use to DMOZ users, but also want to keep confrontation as minimal as possible, though I do realise some confrontation from submitters/rejected site owners is inevitable. As you say, keep the skin thick and not take it personally.

As for affiliations, would this include websites I host for other people, or just ones I have worked on and sites I maintain?

In terms of disclosure, more is almost always better than less. I've never heard of an editor app being declined because they over-displosed affiliations.

Many of us began our editing "carrers" with nice, small, non-commercial categories. Arts, Society, Recreation, Science, and Sports all have lots of nice, small categories that may be of interest.

Regional, especially small locality subcats, is also a nice place to start. There is some commerical, and real estate sites are often a challenge, but there is something really nice about working on websites in one's hometown. Every time you venture out of your house, you are looking for sites: billboards, flyers, throw-away newspapers, the rear windows of trucks, etc. all contain URLs, often for very small businesses that don't know anything about directories, web promotion or SEO.

I've found a catagory I think I might like to apply for editor status of, the only problem is that I can't seem to find many websites with unique content which is not listed already. It's causing a bit of an issue when trying to fill out the application form. Should I keep looking for decent sites in the catagory which are yet to be listed, it is hard because the editor/s of this catagory seem to be doing excellently, or do you think maybe I should try out for another catagory and then, if accepted, apply for the catagory I want (the holocaust) if/when I get accepted?

Again, many thanks for the advice. I really want to help out with DMOZ, so anything you can suggest for me to do will be wonderful.

If you can't find (new) sites to list in a category that category is very probably not a good choice to start as an editor.

I am not one of the editors who approves or disapproves applications.

I think it might be best to apply to another category. At some point, when you develop a sufficient reputation as a good editor, you may be able to apply for a parent category of the one in question which isn't is well kept up, or possibly your application might be accepted just on the basis of interest and a sufficient reputation. (The application process for new categories is similar to the external application process.) I've been granted a few Regional categories based on interest or to assist in a group editing project, without supplying any URLs.

pvgool was faster, but I feel my answer supplied additional information.