Status of www.theDirectoryCenter.com

Hi,

I submitted the URL for www.theDirectoryCenter.com on 11/30/02. I didn't know much about dmoz at that time, so I assume that it got rejected. Can you please tell me if and why it got rejected?

I also submitted www.tztattoo.com on 7/21/03. This URL gets forwarded to a sub-page of www.thedirectorycenter.com, namely http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100209 and it looks like that has not been indexed yet either. Can you tell me whether that has been rejected or not? My client is VERY anxious to have AOL search find his business!

Any update (and advice on changes needed to help submission!) would be greatly appreciated!

Larry Cardani

>> Can you please tell me if and why it got rejected? <<

I can tell you that it was rejected from Shopping/Tools/Vehicle_Repair/ because it wasn't automotive-specific. If you've made any submissions to other categories, you'll have to tell us which ones (clickable links please) before we can find out any more.


>> My client is VERY anxious to have AOL search find his business! <<

Then your client is likely to be VERY disappointed. Assuming that you have made a submission to the right category, and that the site is suitable for listing, it will be listed when an editor is available to do so. AOL may then pick up our data at some point in the distant future, and they'll get round to using it for their search results at some point after that. This might happen in a few weeks time, and it might take years.

We cannot predict when an editor will feel like going through whichever category you might have submitted to, so we cannot even estimate when your site might be listed. We have no control over when other directories/search engines will use our data, and they do not inform us when they take it, so we cannot estimate how long it will take, after listing, for your site to be included in someone else's search results.

Having now taken a look at the site, I'm afraid to say that I doubt that it will be listed anywhere. To get a general directory listed you need to have a huge amount of content. Try looking in any of the 'directories' categories and you'll see the sort of level that's currently there. Remember that some of the sites you see will have been listed years ago when the content bar was much lower, and they'd probably be rejected if they were submitted today. To get listed, you would have to provide a level of content that beats the majority of the sites already listed.

Your site is aimed at the whole of the US, but it took me 5 minutes to find just 7 entries in your directory. I'm sure I would have found more if I'd kept looking, but the 'search' process is tediously slow, and I kept coming up with 'categories' that had just a single entry. Until the site is dramatically improved, you shouldn't hold out much hope of being listed.

www.tztattoo.com

Thanks a lot for the quick reply!

I understand your points - they make sense to me.

Now how about our clients' web sites themselves, not just the main TheDirectoryCenter.com search directory? We are adding clients each week, in different categories.

For example, I submitted www.tztattoo.com to DMOZ, on 7/21/03. That URL gets forwarded by our domain registrar to: http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100209

That is a web site in itself - it just happens to live under our main www.thedirectorycenter.com domain. We are going to have hundreds and eventually thousands of client web sites within our web site.

Would I want to continue submitting each new client web site individually, as I am currently doing? I submitted www.tztattoo.com to arts/bodyart/tattoo and arts/bodyart/piercing, I believe. Other client web sites would be in different categories, obviously, such as restaurants.

Finally, would I want to submit our clients alternate URL, such as www.tztattoo.com or would I want to submit the URL that it gets forwarded to, http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100209 in this example?

Thanks again,

Larry Cardani

Re: www.tztattoo.com

Firstly, we do not list 'vanity' URLs or re-directs. If you submit any of your customers' sites, you should submit the URL that the browser gets re-directed to.

Your other question is much harder to answer. I can't give you any hard and fast rules about customer sub-sites, as we deal with each case on its own merits. The general guideline is that we don't list deep-links. We do however make an exception for seperate sites that are hosted on a domain, which is what seems to be happening here.

Taking a look at the site you mention, I'm afraid that I would consider that to have insufficient content. All there is on the main page is a logo, a picture, and a couple of sentences. There is a link to a FAQ, which is one of the most detailed I have ever seen on the subject, and almost merits a listing on its own. Unfortunately it has been copied wholesale from another site, and therefore it doesn't count as content. It's possible that another editor might feel that the site is worth listing in the appropriate Regional/ category, but I doubt it.

This doesn't mean that none of your customers' sites will be listed. If you have sites which carry more, unique, information, we'd be happy to consider each one as it comes along.

Re: www.tztattoo.com

Let me just say that I agree with dfy's assessment almost completely.

However, I have a slightly different opinion on just one minor point. Assuming that there is no other website for the client's business, I think the site would probably be listable in http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/Massachusetts/Localities/H/Hudson/Business_and_Economy/

There's a business description, some pictures of the tattoo artist, hours of operation, and contact information. I've listed sites with that amount of unique information in their localities before; it seems like enough to be useful to someone who was looking for a tattoo in Hudson, MA. I don't condone the FAQ copying, though, and I'd encourage you to have your customers submit additional unique information -- and maybe write their own FAQ.

Re: www.tztattoo.com

Thanks for both of your replies! I appreciate your time.

Larry C.

http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100209

Hi again,

After reading the replies, I resubmitted my clients' URLs, this time using the proper categories (I hope!).

The good news: Two of my clients have been accepted:

http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100274 (a dry cleaning business in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts)
and
http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100275 (a bakery/cafe in Worcester, Massachusetts).

Since these two have been accepted, I would have expected my other clients' URLs to be accepted too.

But it has been over three weeks since I resubmitted some of my other clients' URLs and they have not been accepted yet.

Can you give me the status of my request for:
http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100209
This is for T's tattoo (www.tztattoo.com forwards to this URL) in Hudson Massachusetts.

On 8/16/03, I submitted this URL to
Regional: North America: United States: Massachusetts: Localities: H: Hudson: Business and Economy.

Thanks a lot for the update,

Larry Cardani

Re: http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/1002

But it has been over three weeks since I resubmitted some of my other clients' URLs and they have not been accepted yet.

Click to expand...

The Forum Guidelines at the top of this forum (marked "READ BEFORE POSTING") request that you wait at least one month after submitting before asking for status -- and to wait at least one month between status update requests.

Please be patient, as the guidelines request. Three weeks is not a long time by any means. Please feel free to ask again after a month has passed.

Re: http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/1002

Note also that resubmitting doesn't help the sites get listed faster, and sometimes actually makes things take longer.

Re: http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/1002

Hi,

Sorry - I thought that it was three weeks before asking...

Can anyone give me an idea of the status of http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100209 (T's Tattoo", now that I have hopefully posted it in the correct category?

Thanks,

Larry Cardani

http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100209

Hi,

It has been about a month and a half since I submitted my client's web site:

http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100209 (T's Tattoo).

Can someone help me with an update on its submission status?

I think I submitted it to the proper category. And two of my other clients have been accepted:

http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100274 (a dry cleaning business in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts)

and

http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100275 (a bakery/cafe in Worcester, Massachusetts).

Since these two have been accepted, I would think that T's Tattoo should be accepted too - it has much more content!

Thanks for the update,

Larry Cardani

Re: http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/1002

That site was one of several listed today in various MA localities beginning with the letter "H".

In order to save you, and possibly another editor, some time, I'll also mention that another one of your sites,
http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/100260 , was accepted in Holliston, MA.

Re: http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/1002

Thanks a lot for the answer!

Larry Cardani

Re: http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/1002

Hi,

T's Tattoo is now showing up in the DMOZ directory:

http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/Massachusetts/Localities/H/Hudson/Business_and_Economy/

That page says:

Last update: 13:04 PT, Wednesday, September 24, 2003

The next step is for the DMOZ search database to include T's Tattoo, right?

But T's does not show up in a DMOZ search:

http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=T%27s+Tattoo

The search page says:

Search database last updated on: Fri Sep 26 18:55:00 EDT 2003

Since the directory was updated on Sept 24 and the search database was updated on Sept 26, I would have assumed that T's would have shown up in the search results.

Is there an additional lag time that I am missing?

Thanks,

Larry C.

Re: http://www.thedirectorycenter.com/clients/1002

Could be because the RDF files that are used to make the Search indexes are produced over several days. If that part of the ODP was processed before the 24th, that could explain it.