Question about my site listing in single best category

I have a question about my site listing in the single best category. My page about the Yellowstone fires of 1988 has been listed in the ODP since 2001, and until the end of 2002, my site was also listed under California Commercial Photographers. Since moving to Tennessee, however, I haven't been able to get my site listed under Tennessee photographers or stock photographers, and both categories are more relevant to my site than the Yellowstone page. The Yellowstone page is just a small educational offshoot of the much bigger whole. The primary focus of my website is commercial assignment and stock photography.

I just sent ODP an update to my Yellowstone page, as the URL has changed, but then I started wondering whether I should request to have the link deleted altogether so I can be listed in a more relevant photography category. Or could I send another update, requesting to be listed in a more relevant category? I can't remember for sure whether I submitted to the stock photography category, so I'm concerned I'll be considered a spammer if I submit again. As for the Tennessee photographers category, I think maybe one or two listings at the most, if that, have been added in the past two years, so I wonder if the category receives very little if any attention from any editors. Both the stock and Tennessee photographers categories have no editors.

Can a kind soul offer me some advice? Thanks, Jason.

Don't suggest a site in Tennessee photographers while you have a site in California photographers. That is not the kind of focus you want on your site!

Don't suggest a site on a new URL while the OLD URL is listed, ditto with a different filter.

Suggest that the California listing be modified as necessary (to be moved to Tennessee and to another URL, if necessary). Mention the reason, and make sure someone going to the OLD site can verify all information you give (or alternatively, make sure the old site is down.)

As for the page about the fires: I'd do the same thing there, request that the listing be updated to the new URL. In a case where an editor has listed a deeplink, it is very possible that we'd still want the deeplink if only we knew where it was -- and certainly, "nature photographer" is a profession that has frequent opportunities to create pages we'd want to deeplink.

As for trying to guess where the editorial-lightning will strike next, note that most categories have no LISTED editor, and yet still have listings -- in fact, the vast majority of all edits are done by UNLISTED editors.

Thanks for your reply, hutcheson. I had my California listing removed when I moved to Tennessee. The site is the same as well as the basic URL. Only a few of the .htm page names have changed.

After you arrived in Tennessee (and knew what city your business would be located in), did you submit your site to that city in Tennessee? If you have done that (and maybe resubmitted once after six months or so to the same category), then you've done all you can; if you haven't yet, then I recommend you do.

Imocr, yes, I submitted to Tenn. photographers when I moved to Tenn. and maybe once thereafter, but I wonder if whatever editor or editors have reviewed my request decided I couldn't be listed there because I'm already listed in DMOZ, even though it's a deeplink that's distinct from the rest of my website. I just used the update URL tool to suggest listing my site in the single most relevant category (stock photographer or Tennessee photographers) since my Yellowstone page is definitely not that, and I suggested my URL in the stock photographers category. I license stock images myself for commercial purposes, and I shoot medical imagery for two stock agencies in New York City. These agencies are listed on my site. If I ultimately don't get listed in a photography category, maybe I should have my Yellowstone link removed. What do you think?

I don't think a deeplink in a topical category would affect a main link in a business category -- unless it would be to favorably impress the editor.

I think I'll have my Yellowstone link removed if I can't get my site listed in a relevant photography category. Two and a half years have passed now since I first tried to get my site listed in a photo category. I'm sure editors have had plenty of time to review my request by now and decided to pass, though I can't imagine why, as my site is high-quality, professional and comparable to other photographers in the categories I've suggested. When I lived in California, I had no trouble getting my site listed in a photo category.

OK, if you want to have the link removed, put in a request, and we will consider it, but you need to understand that just because you choose to throw a hissy-fit because we don't move on your listing request on your timeframe, does not obligate us to delete a perfectly good link.

If, when we get to your request (at some undetermined point in the future -- today, tomorrow, in 2010) we will evaluate the URL and base our decision upon its listability -- not upon your request to have it deleted.

You seem to continue to think of the ODP as some sort of listing service that is beholden to the webmasters. It is not. While we allow you to suggest a site, we can and do list sites that were nver suggested, and we are under no obligation to remove a function site that may prove useful to the people we do care about: the surfers.

>I'm sure editors have had plenty of time to review my request by now

But you can have no possible basis in reality for such assurance. Oh, editors HAVE had time, assuming they had nothing else of interest to do -- but that is always an invalid and erroneous assumption. They may have been doing something else instead. (And why not?)

Oh yes, editors have had some time to review some sites, and there are several hundred million sites that they may or may not have reviewed in that time... the 6 million that have been reviewed and approved are listed, the 20 or 30 million that have been reviewed and dumped have nothing to show for their promotors efforts to promote and the editors efforts to keep out spam... life goes on. There are still millions of listable sites, and hundreds of millions of unlistabe sites that haven't been got to... yet.

Yes, Spectregunner, I was throwing a hissy fit, even though I'm a grown man. I'm not surprised I touched a few nerves with my post. But at least I got some more specific info, seasoned with savory sarcasm, about how things work. I know DMOZ is not a listing service, editors are volunteers, and site status checks have been discontinued. I didn't ask for a status check. I simply thought 2.5 years was adequate time to be reviewed, but I guess it could take until 2010, according to you. Maybe if there was an editor assigned to a photo category I've applied to, it wouldn't take 7.5 years or longer. There was an editor assigned to the California photographers category, so I was listed there within a few months. My Yellowstone page was also listed fairly quickly (within a few months, I think) even though there's no editor for that category. I've thus wondered, as mentioned earlier, if an editor reviewed my photo category submission requests and declined my requests because my site was already listed, even though it was a deeplink, because listing a site twice is mostly not allowed. But since there's no more status checks, I'll just have to keep on wonderin'. I've probably been blacklisted as a troublemaker now, anyway. I threw the hissy fit because I know there's no other way to get my site listed in a Google photo category, which would boost my page rank and drive more traffic to my site.

I've probably been blacklisted as a troublemaker now

Click to expand...

It takes more than throwing a hissy fit in this forum to be "blacklisted".

That's for sure.

The point being that there is really no correlation between a category having a listed editor (or not) and suggestions being reviewed (or not). Probably 99% of all edits are done by other than the listed editor.