Submission status Mexico.us

Please assist,

I submitted www.mexico.us for submission in category http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/Mexico/Travel_and_Tourism/Travel_Guides/ as early as November 2003.

Please assist me with submission. Thank You Geoffrey Gonzalez

The editor having found no evidence of unique relevant information (and, in travel guide categories sites don't have long to make their uniqueness apparent -- that being the kind of world we live in), the site wasn't considered worth listing.

Hint: creating lots of vanity doorway domains for related topics (and then ... not making sure your content hasn't been ante-facto plagiarized) is NOT the way to impress the editors.

I keep hearing about how certain categories get more of a once over as compared to others that may get a more thorough review. It has often been suggested that we should make sure the unique content is readily available for editors to see. Given that we create our sites for our users and they are more interested in useful content (even if its available elsewhere on a site already listed on dmoz) than unique content, would it be helpful to include a note to the reviewing editor pointing him/her to a uniqueness map of sorts which points out the particular areas of the site most likely to warrant a listing according to dmoz guidelines.
For instance:
Title- Mars Travel Guide
Description- Information for those interested in visiting the red planet. Includes forums and links to Mars attractions. (Note: I have created a page pointing out the particular areas that I believe make the site stand out, which can be found here. http://www.marstravelguide.com/please-the-gecko.htm)

We're hearing this more now -- people saying, "I'm designing a site for the search engines, and I don't care how hard it is for real humans to navigate."

I understand that every webmaster has his own mental model of his customers, which may be very different than OUR model of OUR beneficiaries. And that's OK -- each of us builds for our customers, however we perceive them.

It's just that, if a site doesn't (in our view) benefit our concept of surfers, we wouldn't list it.

So: no, editors absolutely don't want a unique doorway to the site. We want a site that we can list without having OUR users going to one of our links and thinking "those incompetent editors! (or are they corrupt?) why, I know half a dozen sites that contain all this information...."

You don't have to create a site for surfers. But -- you're cutting off a solid 10-40% of your potential customers that way (as well as basically all the ODP editors.)

Don't worry about the ODP. The best way to get rejected with EXTREME prejudice is to create content that's obviously aimed at the ODP itself. Aim at the web users, INCLUDING THE SURFERS. And you'll give the best possible impression to those surfers who happen to be ODP editors.

I'm not talking about building it for search engines. I'm just saying the average Joe isn't as concerned that the content is unique as an odp editor. I recently inquired about a site and received the following response.

Recieved and waiting in that category.
At a quick glance I'm not seeing much in the way of unique content though.

Click to expand...

The fact of the matter is that the site is loaded with unique content. It is a much covered general topic but in many cases the site goes into way more depth than anything else out there. There are also several sub topics that simply can't be found elsewhere. Most of the unique content, however, is located three to five levels deep in the site. I'm just talking about a note to the editor pointing out where it is to avoid the reaction I received when inquiring about my submission. I was told by motsa not to submit any of the unique sub categories so i am left with the following.
1. Submit the home page and be told the unique content is not apparent.
2. Submit a sub topic of unique (not available anywhere else) content and be reprimanded.
3. Don't point an editor to the unique content.
What options do we have?

What options do we have?

Click to expand...

Find somewhere else that cares. If the unique content is 5 levels deep then I'm going to switch off before I get to it, as an editor or as an Internet User. And in competitive categories there are a hundred more waiting that won't make me work hard to find that unique edge. How do I find your true unique content should you have it? Through a search engine that is willing to index all your site. Some sites suit a directory best, some a search engine best. Don't waste your time here if your site isn't suitable for DMOZ, focus on marketing avenues that are productive.

It's fairly unusual (although not unprecedented) for someone to have unique content, and yet not be interested in featuring it on a website listable at the ODP.

But that's your choice, and (much as I am frustrated by what I see as senseless waste of what might be valuable to me) ... it's still your choice, and you're responsible to yourself, not us. If the ODP model doesn't fit your concept of your target audience, there's an end of it. That's OK. Aim for your target.

We're willing to explain what people like us look for: just in case you ever want to broaden your audience in our direction. But if you don't want to, then just don't.

Ok, given the site is about a popular travel destination. There is no unique content on the front page. It has general information, talks about the focus of the site and includes navigation to all the subdirectories. Two of the subdirectories (disc golf and the forums) are completely unique and original. Thje rest are of a general nature and are covered elsewhere. But the rest all have links deeper into the site where there is original information. The hiking page has links to hikes and routes that can be found no where else. The ski resorts page has information that can be found nowhere else. The golf subdirectory has flash hole by hole analysis of courses that does not even exist (or anything remotely close) on the courses' own pages. The camping directory goes in more depth about each campgrounds listed than anywhere else. The fishing section (not my forte) has original content while most other sites for the area (all listed) simply cut and paste information from government sites. The kids activity has direction and reviews of almost every park and sledding hill in the area. The beaches section has information (reviews) on nearly every beach in the area. And when you go deeper into the site, everything is unique and original. Everything listed above is also paired with over 1500 gallery pages (more than anyone else by a factor of 10).
If an editor can't be found that is interested in delving into this kind of site, and all you can come up with is "Find somewhere else that cares" then I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish as an entity.

Perhaps it should read

The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the websites built specifically to get an odp listing.

Click to expand...

No, that misses the point. Building a site specifically to get an ODP listing is one of the sure ways to not get a listing.

Build a site to be friendly to SURFERS that are BROWSING for INFORMATION. It is (for your purposes) only a harmless side effect that among the surfers attracted will be editors.

I agree with the other editors. Site navigation is your Achilles' heel. There may be good content in there, but it is just flat too difficult to find by browsing. You've obviously spent a great deal of time and effort on the graphical layout -- we'd have been deliriously happy to list a site with MUCH less attractive layout -- but ... it's like a fancy car body with a defective engine: it doesn't take us where we want to go. Bodywork designers and painters alone cannot make a car: graphic design alone may make a tourist brochure, but it cannot make a website.

I tried just free-browsing; I tried looking for specific things. Sorry, but that's not a site I'd want to look for specific information in; it's not a site I'd want to show to our visitors.

To make this website useful for the (roughly) one-quarter of the population that browses ... if that's what you're interested in ... you'd need links and nodes, not just brochure pages.

For instance: suppose I were looking for "golf" on the site. What link on the home page should I click on? Huh?

Now, if you had an "activities" link -- with a page mentioning golf, snorkeling, hiking, shopping, birdwatching ... and then a "golf page" -- with a map of Mexico, say, with all the locations with golf courses marked as hyperlinks (and a list of cities underneath for text-oriented users, of course). Each city would have its own page with links to the local golf courses, and maybe comments like "Quintera Foo, with three more golf courses is only three hours' train ride away" -- with links to nearby cities.

That begins, I hope, to sound like a directory structure. But that's the point of a directory -- to help people target on what they're after. It doesn't work just for the web -- it works on smaller scales also. And it doesn't just help surfers -- had you considered how the focused topic node pages would be treated by the search engine spiders? Instant authority pages. (Well, almost instant maybe.)

Yes, this is a different way of looking at the world. You don't have to look at it this way. But some of your visitors will. Are you ready for them?

When you are ready for them, resubmit. One of them will come to review the site for the ODP.

submission mexico.us

Good evening,

somehow this submission inquiry went off course.

www.mexico.us is a Mexico online guide in which covers a large spectrum of information for a large country. It's more of a personal site, with few distracting bells and whistles (unlike other sites that are on your mexico travel guide lisitng).

I ask that you please consider my submission. I have traveled to Mexico over seven times. I don't want to make this site a testimonial site where I tell everybody that I sweated through the forest, I climbed the ruins in the 97 degree heat or get dramatic when I went to my first bull fight in D.F.

To get more attention, write on how the immigrants cross the border strategically when lining up across a 150 yard spread and running on timed intervals.

I just want to provide overviews.

Please consider,

Geoffrey Gonzalez

category: http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/Mexico/Travel_and_Tourism/Travel_Guides/

Given the tone and tenor of this thread (ignoring the fact that it got hijacked by someone who has a bad habit of that sort of thing) you might want to consider submitting it to a personal_pages subcategory instead of guides.

As a guide, the concensus is that unique information is difficult to find and it does not serve our users well. A listing as a personal page (no guarantees here!) might make it more listable.

Here's another opinion - I randonly checked two pages in the site, the content is lifted from other sources, one with attribution and the other not. That's not unique - and we hope you had permission to use that content.

I want to get some things clear that appear to be cloudy. I did hijack this thread, not intentionally. For that I apologize.
Hutcheson, the site I was referring to is not mexico.us. I simply want to know if it is helpful to the editors if we point out where the unique content is on our submission since we know that is what you are looking for but not necessarily in our minds when creating the site. And if we can point it out, what is the best way.

And no, I do not have a habit of hijacking threads. My original post in this thread related to the op's problem of having unique content (possibly) but not having that content found by editors.

Sorry about the confusion (in my mind, that is.) Take the example, if you will, of mexico.us to illustrate how an editor will view a site, and how you can make a site's content accessable -- and if what we suggest seems something like parts of the ODP itself ... don't be surprised.