Status of www.skylardesign.com

I've been trying to get into the dmoz.org directory for over a year now (July 2002) and have had no success in getting my web design company included. I did try resubmitting one other time, but again, no email confirmation. As a last resort, I have kindly contacted a few editors under the closest one to my category but have never gotten one response yet. I realize this is all volunteer based but I feel helpless and have resorted to posting this to the forum. Does anyone have any ideas or recommendations as to what I can do to get in this directory? This is really important to me so any suggestions are most appreciated. Thanks.

Here is the specific category I was trying to get in http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Designers/Full_Service/S

Justin J.

[putting URL in title per forum guidelines - motsa]

Re: Over a Yr. & still not included in the Open Direct

If you have submitted your site to that category, then all you can do is sit back and be patient. BTW - that's a bad category to be waiting in. Seems that a lot of web development companies have names that start with 'S'. Many of us have worked on that category and it will never have zero sites waiting for review. Right now you're waiting with over 800 other sites

Have you looked into submitting your site to the Regional category where you are located? You may qualify to be listed in both the Regional category and the topical Computers category.

Re: Over a Yr. & still not included in the Open Direct

Donald, thanks for your feedback. I actually thought I would be so far buried that no one would really look there first, that is in the regional category.

I did a drill down and felt this may be perhaps the best place to submit. http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_York/Business_and_Economy/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/. Your thoughts?

Can you tell me how I could possibly qualify for the topical and the regional category? My biggest concern is that someone thinks I'm trying to spam, especially after waiting over a year to get in.

Thanks again Donald.

Justin

Re: Over a Yr. & still not included in the Open Di

You should choose the locality [city/town] from http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_York/Localities/ that matches the address that appears on your web site. Then choose the best subcategory within that locality. If Business_and_Economy/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/ appears as a subcategory within the locaility then use it, but not all cities/town will have subcategories.

Sites are filed by the address of the company, not the location that they serve.

There is no problem having two listings in this case, one in Web designers and the other regional.

Re: Over a Yr. & still not included in the Open Di

Bob, thank you for your feedback. Since the company is located in Huntington, it would appear - based upon your suggestion to submit here fist http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_York/Localities/H/Huntington/, correct? Obviously there is no category for web design and development here. Is it ever possible to create one for this section or does one have to be an editor to do this?

My concern is that most people looking for my services would probably not look here. Since the general web design section has been such a problem for me in gettting including for some time, that was why I chose this area http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_York/Business_and_Economy/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/.

Lastly, just to ensure that I have this correct about having two different submissions, are you suggesting that besides the locality that the other be where I once submitted? http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Designers/Full_Service/S/

Sorry for the long links. I'm simply trying to understand all this and then begin submitting to the correct location. I guess my biggest concern is that I will end up waiting another year to be included.

With thanks,
Justin

Re: Over a Yr. & still not included in the Open Di

Most likely you should submit to
http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_York/Localities/H/Huntington/Business_and_Economy/ a subcategory can only be created there by an editor.

I realize why you want to submit to http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_York/Business_and_Economy/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/ - but if you look, there are no sites there and you can't be placed there, it's only a way to get to Rochester or Syracuse - which in fact have a whole lot of internet design sites. The sites in the Rochester category should only be ones that have addresses in Rochester, so I'm afraid you can't be listed there either.

Yes you can also be listed in http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Designers/Full_Service/S/ provided your site meets the requirements of that category. If you do not offer full service as defined in the description, your site would be moved to another category, and you get to wait some more.

(The reality is that a large number of the sites submitted to the Web Design areas are misplaced, since it appears designers cannot spell their Web site name,and submit to the wrong letter, ot use the first letter of the URL. It should be the letter of the visible title of the web site]

[And the long links are good in these message, it makes it easy to jump around ODP. ]

And just to confirm for you, your site is currently still waiting in the Full Service category so you don't need to resubmit there.

BTW if you'd like to make your links shorter in your posts to help prevent thread stretch, i.e. to keep people from having to scroll left and right, all you have to do is make use of the URL tags -- to make a link that looks something like this NY Web Design, you would type in:
[ url=http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/New_York/Business_and_Economy/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development]NY Web Design[ /url] (without the spaces after the [ ).

Thanks Bob and Motsa for the replies. As you can tell, I want to do everything I can to get included and the feedback has been wonderful.

One last thing, before I go and submit to the localities section as Bob you suggested, should I first consider becoming an editor in that section? A friend of mine (who is an editor with dmoz.org) suggested that I join the community and he felt it would be in my interest to become an editor. My suggestion would be to consider being an editor in this section NY Web Design.

Thanks again for everything.

Regards,
Justin

Sorry Motsa, I tried your suggestion and missed something there.

Justin

Just figured it out. Sorry Bob and Matsa. I'm learning.

NY Web Design

Volunteering to edit is always a good thing, just don't do it for the wrong reasons. Don't volunteer just so that you can get your own site listed. And don't volunteer in the Huntington category just so that you can create a new Web Design and Development category. That's not how things work If you are really interested in participating in the Project, and really feel like you could add a lot of sites to the Huntington category, then please do volunteer.

Good morning Donald,

About a year ago, I actually was encouraged by the same person who is currently an editor at dmoz.org to also become an editor. I was, at that time, working for a university as their webmaster and he suggested that since I wanted to give more marketing exposure to the university and, in addition, get my hands wet in the field of search engine directories, that I begin with a small section on the dmoz.org site. I did become an editor but then had to leave the university due to a lack of funding. Thus I moved on and went full time with my company.

I recently asked my friend if I could still be an editor since I once was. He said since you haven't been active since last November, that my account would removed so someone else could take that over. This would allow me to reapply to become an editor, obviously for a different section. Is that correct?

I do want to improve the Huntington section since this is where my company is now located and I want to get more involved with the Huntington Business Community. I would like to build more sections to the site, one of which is web design and development. But that wasn't my reason for becoming an editor. It was to get the experience and be a part of the community.

However, my experience with dmoz so far hasn't been so good since it has taken me over a year to get my own site indexed.

I hope that makes sense and that my intentions are understood. I still haven't decided if I'm going to do that, but I did want to at least make that clear.

Justin

Hi Justin,

Since you were once an editor, please use the Reinstatement Form.

Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback. I don't want to look as if I have multiple accounts with the dmoz community. Unfortunately, I don't have the username or the password available. The information was created while I was at the university and the email was one of their accounts. I no longer have access to that account. In fact it was terminated upon my resignation. Any other suggestions?

Justin

Unfortunately, I don't have the username or the password available.

Click to expand...

It might be a long shot, but if you can remember any sites that you added, someone may be able to find your username by the editor notes. I am sure you will need more than just one site though.

Unfortunately, I don't have the username or the password available.

Click to expand...

It might be a long shot, but if you can remember any sites that you added, someone may be able to find your username by the editor notes. I am sure you will need more than just one site though.

Click to expand...

If you (Justin) can recall the category you edited, it might be possible to find your username from the editing logs of that category (if it is still small, that is).

Even better advice!

Arthur, here is the exact location I was an editor. I can see that it's open now and I'm no longer the editor.
Regent University

Thanks again for looking into this.

Justin

When you were an editor, you never made any edits, and you timed out for not being active. I've tried to send you a private message with your old id, but you are blocking private messages.

Also note I was able to find your user id from the public web without resorting to the internal editor part of ODP. Editors need to learn to be detectives as part of the job.

Bob, did you send the email to my old university address? That account is no longer valid. Is there a way to get the correct information without having to post my personal email? I've had problems in the past with spam and had to destroy my last email address, so I've tried to be more cautious about giving that out.