Status of http://ultimatewasher.com

My experience is that it depends on the category.

I have some categories, where I don't go looking for sites, I only rely on submissions. I have one category, where less than 1% of the sites were submitted, since I took it over I added almost all the sites by searching and finding links and using Google Alerts. I have another category that I asked to be created, also less than 1% submissions, most of the sites were added because of a personal interest I have and I had accumulated my own set of bookmarked sites.

Other categories are a mixture of found and submitted sites. And though Google is very useful, certainly not all the sites are in Google.

Would you use a directory that hadn't been updated in over two years?

Click to expand...

Ah, but the ODP is updated every day. Lots and lots of sites get added every day. The fact that the corner you want your site listed in hasn't been updated recently doesn't make the entire site out-of-date.

Google is indeed the best source for some things. But it has been so successfully spamverted for some very competitive searches (hotel reservations for major tourist traps; florists; klitchware; etc.) that ODP submittals are actually better. But best of all is not to rely too much on any one source. Submittals play a small but significant part: maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of all listings come from there; and, more importantly, even bad submittals often give us useful information. I've found valuable websites, built new categories, and added intercategory links, all based on hints from low-value submittals which I did not think worth listing in themselves.

Remember, our job is not processing submittals, but using whatever tools we have (including submittals) to build a good directory.