Submitted on three occassions, during 15 months of waiting and no response.

I understand the editors are busy and the dmoz.org directory is edited by "Best Endevours" but we originally submitted our site over 15 months ago. We have been working hard to get our ranking up under google.

The site has been listed in a large number of directories including Yahoo Business, Applegate, BOTW, MSN small bussiness, so the content and site design cannot be an issue and we strive to produce something which is user friendly and simple to navigate yet we are still waiting a response from dmoz, even a rejection.

You at dmoz are in a very strange position, you can help small bussinesses like ours tremendously but simply adding our URL to your listings. We are trying to compete with some very large companies and we have a small budget to do so, we have google adwords campaign running, adverts is industry publications. We are a free resource to all in the Oil and Gas industry looking for employment and I am sure users of dmoz would appreciate our site.

Thanks for taking the time to read and some feedback would be most appreciated.

Adam

I have not posted our URL on this forum as the submission rules state the this is not permitted.

One more thing, under the category I am attempting to be included in are sites much newer than ours. It seems the waiting time is random!

That's correct. Age of the site is irrelevant when it comes to review time or listability.

And, suggesting the site 3 times in 15 months is a violation of our policies. Not necessarily fatal, but a violation nonetheless.

And, at the risk of piling on,

• Our focus is on building a directory, and we are not the least concerned/interested in your Google rankings. Nor is our focus on helping businesses -- big or small -- regardless of their advertising/promotion budget. Our focus is singular on directory building -- all the other stuff is irrelevant.
• We do not care how many directories your site is already listed in. We only care about this one directory.
• Site design is rarely an issue, unless it is so horrendous as to render navigation a hazard.
• At the risk of seeming inconsistent with my opening paragraph, we have had some systems issue recently and we will not penalize you if you make one additional submission to the single best category. Read the editing guidelines and submit with a guidelines compliant description that is stellar in its lack of hype or keywords. We will commit to eventually look at it, we simply cannot commit or predict when that will happen.

spectregunner said:

And, suggesting the site 3 times in 15 months is a violation of our policies. Not necessarily fatal, but a violation nonetheless.

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Sorry but as it had taken been so long without our site being entered in the listing I re-submitted thinking that perhaps our site had been rejected. Investment in upgrading the site was made before each submittle in case the site was not up to dmoz standards. 5 months between each submittal. There is no notification of rejection so how are we to know either way?

You are correct, you won't get a notification.
From experience we know that it is almost impossible to change a rejected site to something that is listable. With one exception, if you first suggested when the site was under construction it might be rejected for that reason and it might be listable after it was completed.

So would you suggest re-submitting the site or just give up and forget about dmoz completely? It seems we have no way of knowing either way. If our site has been rejected by reasons of content (which I very much doubt) then there would be no point in submitting for a forth time.

I know this suggestion will be ignored or simply you do not have the authority to submit such a change but perhaps a published waiting list would be an idea so you could see that your site is still awaiting review by the editor. No more information would be required by all that submit a URL. Most directories now have this function and you could at least see your URL move up the review list over time.

regards

Adam

Those were all good answers and correct, OilRecruiter, but I want to add a personal comment.

Many of us are small business owners and do enjoy getting small businesses listed, especially the mom and pop sites, but, we have to be impartial in our editing and treat every site equally, including any personal sites.

I think it's fair to say that we don't judge the worthiness of businesses, the skill of the site designer, or the topic of a site. Some of themain things we're interested in are:

A proper guideline compliant title for the listing.
A proper guideline compliant description for the listing.
That the site has some kind of unique content.
That the site is in the proper category.
That the site is listed once, and isn't what we consider spam.
That the site is what it says it is, and not something completely different.
That the site works or is there.

So, what we're judging is the site suggestion, not the outfit or person behind the site.

Added - That's not the first time that idea has been suggested, and I think many editors might agree with you, it would alleviate a lot of the frustration site suggesters feel. On the other hand, it would make our jobs harder, because it would give the less than honest a handy tool to make their schemes more effective.

Believe it or not, there are individuals who can't play nice, they want 50 versions of their site seen, so, that your one site gets buried.


Yes, suggest it once and walk away and forget about it.

Crowbar,

Thanks for your response and it is good to know that some editors are owners or involved in small businesses themselves so they understand how frustrating it can be trying to publicize your company.

I appreciate your comments but I am 100% positive my site would cover all the requirements noted above as it has been listed in other directories with very similar pre-requisites for listing as dmoz states. (such as Yahoo Business Directory)

The site contains contact information, live help system to speak to support directly, community forum for geoscience technical queries (answered supplied by specialists including myself), soon RSS feeds of latest job postings, and it was submitted to the listing where all of our competitors are placed. We would never be considered as spam and am sure it will be seen as a valuable resource by all that use it. We already have some major clients such as Amerada Hess, OpenSprirt, Paradigm, OPC and all jobs posted are posted directly by the client company themselves. If companies such as these see fit to use us and do not think our site to be of poor quality and content then surely dmoz and the editors must also.

Sorry if I am ranting on, simply feel a little frustrated. Thanks anyway for your response, it is appreciated, but still doesn't get my site listed.

Do I re-submit or not? I do not want to be penalized for spamming applications!!

regards

Adam

you could at least see your URL move up the review list over time.

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The thing is, that wouldn't happen -- since there is no order to the "waiting list". Editors are not required to process sites in any particular order; they are required to edit in a way that makes the directory as useful as possible. My personal belief is that making the pool of sites which have been suggested for review public would create a lot more frustration among site owners (I can't know this, but I think it would happen). People would most likely start keeping track, and finding that sites suggested last year were still waiting for review while sites suggested last week were reviewed and listed -- and then they would start crying abuse even though no abuse whatsoever was involved. Which would create more work for the editors who investigate abuse. In addition, it would create the totally false impression that the ODP lists sites as a service to webmasters. No, I see no benefit whatsoever for the directory, and some possible harm.

But follow crowbar's advice, suggest it once, paying close attention to the guidelines, and then forget about the ODP.

Please re-suggest your website just the once.

Thank you all for your responses. I will submit my site as suggested once more over the weekend as I will be spending some additional time upgrading the functionality of tools in the web pages and the site will be down for a couple of days for this reason.

I hope 15 months is an exception and not the norm,

thanks again to all,

regards

Adam

Yes, as jimnoble said, submit one more time, but give yourself the best possible chance by reading and complying with our Guidelines for writing a title and description:
http://dmoz.org/guidelines/describing.html

and looking at the titles and descriptions for websites already listed in that category to get an idea of what we want, .

And I agree with nea, that's exactly what would happen.

Sorry if I am ranting on, simply feel a little frustrated. Thanks anyway for your response, it is appreciated, but still doesn't get my site listed.

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I understand your frustration and sympathize, but, there is no way for us to predict exactly when or if a site suggestion might be listed. There are just too many site suggestions, logistically.