Slightly confused

At risk of asking a question that has been answered a thousand times, I would like to get this straight because after reading thousands of articles and posts on several sites and forums, I am still slightly confused.

My website www.iseekhere.com has several sections covering very different categories. I would love to submit each of the sections to different categories but believe I may be penalised for doing so.

Could you clear this up for me once and for all. can I submit each of my categories do a different category on Dmoz?

Thanks

Jon

Submit to the single best category. It is as simple as that.

If a website offers valuable resources on multiple topics, particularly if they are extremely different -- like a site section with its extensive examination of roads of Nepal, and another site section with an exhaustive examination of the skateboarding venues in Fresno -- then there is nothing wrong with submitting site.com/nepal/ to one category and site.com/skateboarding/ to another. But site.com should be submitted to the best category for it.

The better answer to your question is: no a person won't be penalized for submitting on-topic, quality resources to sensible categories. That doesn't mean though that editors will agree with you that they should be listed.

In your case though you don't have any greatly different content (like Nepal vs. skayeboarding) so submitting to more than one category would be a mistake. Editors are like anybody else. They aren't going to be glad to have their time wasted.

Classified ads--we won't list every classification. Submit the main page to ONE category ONCE. Just like the nice guidelines say.

We won't list every category, and we will penalize for spamming.

Respectfully, could I ask why then site like Rollingstone.com have many listings in very different categories.

I ask this, not in arguement of your point, but out of interest.

Hutcheson, without meaning to be retaliatory, your answer to my question makes me feel like I should not have asked it. Like my question has been answered many times and is an inconvenience to this Forum. I have read many, many conflicting opinions about this and simply wanted to clarify. Perhaps your patronising way of answering posts may deter people from using this service and that would be a bad thing.

The SUBMITTER'S rule on deeplinks is: "Submit your SITE [that is, not individual pages] to the ONE MOST APPROPRIATE category." I don't know how that could be made more clear. But if you look at other sites of the same general type as your own, you'd get the same answer, equally clearly: we obviously haven't been deeplinking that kind of sites.

The EDITORS' guideline (which anyone may read) is different. THAT guideline says "deeplinking is the EXCEPTION (that is, for exceptional sites or cases)" And the difference is significant! Editors are encouraged to deeplink good, diffuse sites; in addition, "category-specific" guidelines in some categories describe how the editors' experience has led to being more (or less) tolerant of deeplinks than usual. For example, for retail and directory sites (i.e. you) we are significantly LESS tolerant of deeplinking than generally; for recipe and entertainment-personality sites (i.e. Rolling Stone) we are significantly MORE tolerant than generally.

But if you are looking for a once-and-for-all rule for submitters, you need to look in the submitter's forum; and not worry about the editors' more nuanced deliberations.

And a VERY strong hint, both for this forum and in general: when you ask a question, concentrate on listening for the information in the answer rather than attributing your attitude to your respondent!