Site submitted nearly 4 years ago - what did I do wrong?

I am not looking for status. I am looking for answers as to what is going on. I submitted this site 4 years ago. I was told that if I submitted again I would be placed at the back of the line. So I did not submit it again.

The site I am referring to is <url removed>

I tried to become an editor for that category and was rejected. One of our competitors however has no trouble getting every single one of his sites in:

<urls removed>

I am at a loss for words and understanding. Either... my competitor is the editor for this category... or I did something wrong and was never notified.

Can someone explain why my submission was rejected or ignored... and if I should submit it again? Thanks.

I apologize for posting urls. I just realized that is a no no here.

I went ahead and submitted the site again. Hopefully someone will get around to either rejecting it or accepting it instead of ignoring it.

I am at a loss for words and understanding. Either... my competitor is the editor for this category... or I did something wrong and was never notified.

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Or your competitors sites have the "unique content" that editors look for, and your own doesn't. No category is ever edited by just one editor, there are hundreds of editors with higher permissions who can and do edit there also.

Your insinuation that an editor is a competitor or abusive is pretty ridiculous, you obviously think higher of your site than an editor might. If it doesn't get listed, it's because it's not worth listing, not because you did something wrong or the editor is crooked.

Editors are all volunteers, why would they bother being crooked?

One more suggestion won't target you as a spammer. Some site suggestions were lost in the crash.

instead of ignoring it.

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They're volunteers, they can ignore it all they want to. No site is guaranteed a listing, you're allowed to suggest a site for consideration, nothing more. Nobody promised it would be accepted.

jclawson said:

I am not looking for status. I am looking for answers as to what is going on. I submitted this site 4 years ago. I was told that if I submitted again I would be placed at the back of the line. So I did not submit it again.

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If we were to address a specific url, it would be a status check though. As I think you realize that isn't something that is done on these forums.

jclawson said:

I tried to become an editor for that category and was rejected.

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Did you read the reasons why your application was rejected? If so, did you try and reapply? Most of us were rejected a few times before getting close enough to be accepted.

jclawson said:

One of our competitors however has no trouble getting every single one of his sites in

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There is a FAQ section dedicated to this topic that might be a worthwhile read in this case.

jclawson said:

Either... my competitor is the editor for this category... or I did something wrong and was never notified.

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Why oh why does everyone think that because their site hasn't been listed that every editor must be a competitor. I don't know (or need to know) what your site, your competitors sites, or which category you are referring to are. I can tell you without a shadow (no pun intended) of a doubt I am not a competitor and I can edit in any category that I am interested in. No one editor owns any category. Any editor higher up the category tree can and will edit in its sub-categories, there are 200+ editors with directory wide editing permissions who can and will edit in any category. If one of these editors sees listings being deleted incorrectly or abusively (there is a possibility that a deletion is a mistake its not always or even usually abuse) they can fix it on their own. If they find abusive editing they will file an abuse report, likewise if you think you have found abuse and have verifiable evidence to support it you can file an abuse report. Not listing a site is not abuse though.

jclawson said:

Can someone explain why my submission was rejected or ignored... and if I should submit it again? Thanks.

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That would be a status check. If it was rejected it would be because it wasn't a site that we include, if it was ignored (not abuse on its own) its most likely because no editor has looked at it yet. If you haven't suggested the site since the servers crashed last fall (i.e not suggested it this year) then suggesting it one more time is advisable. If you have already suggested it again this year there is no good reason resuggest it again.

Hope that helps.

I am not trying to be accusatory. There is no need to be defensive. The site was ignored. It was never rejected. If an editor found it to be not worthy of inclusion, it should be rejected... not ignored. Perhaps the crash wiped it out.

Perhaps then, sites that have been ignored for xx amount of months should be auto rejected and notify the submitters of such status so that nothing is in limbo.

I am sure you realize that getting a website in this directory is a huge step for getting good recognition by search engines. This is the reason people get so frustrated with the process.

Adding to this frustration is the lack of communication between editors and suggesters.

Don't take this to mean that I don't mind a long review process. I have waited patiently for almost 4 years . I am merely stating that simply ignoring a site is not in the best interest of the directory. If the suggestion was bad... then reject it! If something is really old... reject it!

Please do not ignore sites.

I did reapply to be an editor. My last application was ignored as well. I got so frustrated with the process I quit trying.

It's easy to understand this person's frustration. In 2003 I launched an online magazine (my background is in the print publication industry). From 2003 through last year, I've submitted the site to dmoz about 4-5 times total and... nothing. The site has more than 1,100 pages of original content, we have a staff of respected columnists, we're often featured on the radio, TV, and quoted in newspapers for the industry we cover. News organizations contact us for statistics, quotes, and to talk with people in the industry we serve.

"Everyone" knows the importance of being listed in dmoz, but if you're not, don't let it stop you from making your site the best possible. Search engines will still reward you regardless of your dmoz listing. Yeah, I would love to be listed in dmoz because we offer a strong, original, and educational resource. But for whatever reason, there comes a point when you need to move on. So I recommend to the original poster: put your focus elsewhere. Don't let not being in dmoz discourage you - instead, let it focus you on building an even better resource and gaining recognition from other places. I was once emailed from someone in Yahoo! about them wanting to list one of my sites in their directory for free. I didn't even know you could do that without paying a listing fee! But the simple fact is that if you have a great enough resource then people will find you. It may not be dmoz, regardless of your efforts, but you can still rank high and achieve greatness.

onlinedating said:

It's easy to understand this person's frustration. In 2003 I launched an online magazine (my background is in the print publication industry). From 2003 through last year, I've submitted the site to dmoz about 4-5 times total and... nothing. The site has more than 1,100 pages of original content, we have a staff of respected columnists, we're often featured on the radio, TV, and quoted in newspapers for the industry we cover. News organizations contact us for statistics, quotes, and to talk with people in the industry we serve.

"Everyone" knows the importance of being listed in dmoz, but if you're not, don't let it stop you from making your site the best possible. Search engines will still reward you regardless of your dmoz listing. Yeah, I would love to be listed in dmoz because we offer a strong, original, and educational resource. But for whatever reason, there comes a point when you need to move on. So I recommend to the original poster: put your focus elsewhere. Don't let not being in dmoz discourage you - instead, let it focus you on building an even better resource and gaining recognition from other places. I was once emailed from someone in Yahoo! about them wanting to list one of my sites in their directory for free. I didn't even know you could do that without paying a listing fee! But the simple fact is that if you have a great enough resource then people will find you. It may not be dmoz, regardless of your efforts, but you can still rank high and achieve greatness.

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Thanks. I appreciate the encouragement.

Don't take this to mean that I don't mind a long review process. I have waited patiently for almost 4 years . I am merely stating that simply ignoring a site is not in the best interest of the directory. If the suggestion was bad... then reject it! If something is really old... reject it!

Please do not ignore sites.

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There are a few problems here.

1. Editors do not email site owners if their suggestions are rejected so, from the site owner's point of view, there is no difference between a site that has been rejected and a site that hasn't yet been reviewed.

2. We can't tell whether or not a site is "bad" unless we review it.

3. "Not reviewed yet" and "ignored" are not quite the same thing. "Not reviewed yet" just means that no one has chosen to look at sites in the category where you have suggested your site. "Ignored" implies that editors have seen but are actively avoiding reviewing your particular site. Given the way that the ODP operates, it shouldn't be surprising that some categories remain untouched for long periods of time.

I did reapply to be an editor. My last application was ignored as well. I got so frustrated with the process I quit trying.

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Applications are never ignored. Have asked for a status check on your last application? We have a Becoming an Editor forum here for just that kind of thing.

If an editor found it to be not worthy of inclusion, it should be rejected... not ignored.

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I think one of the points we are trying to make is that there is only one action we take that you can see: listing a site.

We do not communicate when we look at a site, we don't communicate when we decline to list a site, we don't communicate any of our editorial actions -- so it is really impossible for you to state that we have 'ignored" your site suggestion.

motsa said:

There are a few problems here.

1. Editors do not email site owners if their suggestions are rejected so, from the site owner's point of view, there is no difference between a site that has been rejected and a site that hasn't yet been reviewed.

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Perhaps they should be notified?

motsa said:

2. We can't tell whether or not a site is "bad" unless we review it.

3. "Not reviewed yet" and "ignored" are not quite the same thing. "Not reviewed yet" just means that no one has chosen to look at sites in the category where you have suggested your site. "Ignored" implies that editors have seen but are actively avoiding reviewing your particular site. Given the way that the ODP operates, it shouldn't be surprising that some categories remain untouched for long periods of time.

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So of no one visits the category then it is "not reviewed yet" If they visit the category, add some other site, then it is "ignored"? Perhaps there needs to be some sort of time limit that a site suggestion can sit "not reviewed". If no one is going to look at it... might as well flush the suggestions and if the sites are still active... they owners will resubmit. This would get rid of stale suggestions.

spectregunner said:

I think one of the points we are trying to make is that there is only one action we take that you can see: listing a site.

We do not communicate when we look at a site, we don't communicate when we decline to list a site, we don't communicate any of our editorial actions -- so it is really impossible for you to state that we have 'ignored" your site suggestion.

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I got that. I was under the impression... (this was back in the days when you could request status... well around the time when odp stopped doing it) ... I though (incorrectly) that when your site was rejected you would be notified of that. I apologize for my ignorance.

If one were ignorant for what one does not know, than I am the king of ignorance!

No need to apologize for not knowing the minutia of what we do and how we do it.

Some editors only have editing permissions in one small category, a meta editor has editing permissions in all categories. The first editor can't edit anywhere else, and the meta editor can't possibly edit all the categories they have access to very frequently.

In between those two types of editors are a lot of editors with a wide range of varying permission levels, some are limited, others are very wide.

Now add in the fact that editors volunteer thier free time to do this, and their free time and energy varies from day to day. Then, add in that editors only edit in areas that they have an interest in, and aren't required to edit in areas of the Directory they have no knowledge of.

Then, top that off with the fact that there are many tasks in the Directory that need to be done (reviewing site suggestions is one of them), and that editors may choose which of those tasks they'd like to perform, when, and however long they'd like to.

As the Directory is not a listing service for site owners, there really is no obligation to them. What is important to you, is not important to editors.

So of no one visits the category then it is "not reviewed yet" If they visit the category, add some other site, then it is "ignored"?

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"Ignored" implies an active decision to not look at the site, and that's usually not at all the case. When an editor looks at the editing screen for a category, s/he can choose to pull up the list of sites waiting for review, and review one or more of them. Usually, the editor has nothing like the time available to review all sites waiting for review (this is _very_ much different from category to category; many categories have no sites at all waiting, or only one or two, and then the dituation is obviously different). The rest of the sites are not "ignored", they are still part of the pool of sites that can be reviewed for possible fuuture inclusion. This pool includes not only sites that have been suggested for review by the site owner or somebody else, but every relevant site out there. So editors often go to a category and add sites they have found on their own, without looking at the list of suggested sites. Hence, the suggestion of flushing out old site suggestions is impractical - that would not do us any service, since after all, when somebody looks at the list of suggestions there are quite likely several sites that can, and should, be listed in the directory, and that might not be so easy to find otherwise.

This would be a wildly inappropriate and unfair system, if what we were after was to provide a marketing or listing service to site owners. But it isn't. That is not what it is about at all. We are simply reviewing and classifying websites without any particular reference to where these sites were found: by using a search engine, by trawling a link list at some related site, by reading the local newspaper, or by looking at the list of sites other people have suggested to us. And over the last nine years, this system has been found to be reasonably effective. That there could be a marketing advantage for a site to be found in the ODP is a side issue from our perspective, and it doesn't really concern us either way.

(Yes, sometimes a site *is* "ignored" for some time. Sites which are extremely hard to classify might be left a bit longer because the editor doesn't have the time to deal with them, for instance.)

Wow, perhaps I should have come to this forum sooner. I didn't realize there was a crash. I submitted my site several years ago and hoped it would be accepted. I checked every now and than but never resubmitted because that was not encouraged.

It is also an announcement thread here: http://www.resource-zone.com/forum/index.php?showforum=15

Thanks shadow. So much for keeping informed. I guess I just submitted and hoped for the best and that was it.