Submitting to ODP guidelines

Hello Everyone

I have been trying for a couple of years now to submit my website http://www.coverallsale.com
to the ODP.

Is there some guidelines I might not be following properly?

There are indeed guidelines. You will find them at http://dmoz.org/guidelines/ . Whether or not you are following them, only you can answer.

But there is one misunderstanding apparent in your post which I'd like to take this opportunity to clear up. There is no way to "submit a website" to dmoz. What you can do, by following the link which appears in most categories, is to "suggest a url". It's an important distinction, and understanding it will go a long way toward avoiding unrealistic expectations.

What he said. The difference is that "suggesting" does not "cause" anything (such as a listing, or even a site review) to happen. It "enables" something (that is, finding a particular website at a presumably appropriate time) to happen "more efficiently." So a site review is likely (not certain, but likely) to happen "more quickly than it otherwise would have happened" -- but who knows how quickly a site would have been found if you had not suggested it?

So: No matter how many times you tried to submit, if at least one of the times you got a screen saying something like "Thank you for your suggestion....an editor will review it....bla bla bla...", then you've done all that is required, and all that is possible, to accomplish what site suggestions accomplish.

So, on the one hand, there is no cause for assuming your site has been repeatedly rejected; on the other hand, there is no reason for supposing that if it is ever to be accepted, it will be accepted soon.

But if you're depending on the ODP for site promotion, then ... it is safe to predict disappointment in both your near and remote future. A site review probably won't happen when you wish, and a site listing won't do as much for the site as you expect.

Also, as a side note, I would caution you to consider very very carefully what the concepts of "unique content" and "related sites" mean. For commercial sites, the "unique content" can be pretty well summarized in the question: who are you and what would you do for money? And for commercial sites, "relatedness" is pretty much that they all talk about various things the same persons would do for money).

I should add: "submittal" to ODP guidelines is not all that critical. So long as you don't do something really malicious, you don't leave a site worse off than if you hadn't submitted it at all. In this context, "malice" is pretty much limited to submitting the same content multiple times, under multiple names.

Of course, you don't have to provide all the malice yourself. Two different doorway/ affiliate/ pre-sales/ order-taking/ whatever webmasters submitting their own doorways to the same underlying drop-shipper/ MLM-program/ affiliate-program/ whatever business automatically count as malice right out of the box. Because surfers don't want to see umpteen-million different ways to order the same goods and services from the same people -- they want to see who provides the goods and services they are looking for.

Hi All

Not sure this is the best thread to put a fewquestions forward.but here goes.

1. Is there any protection against competitors submitting my commercial site multiple times limiting causing my domain to become a 'spammer'?

My website although commercial is full of good quality content, I am sure mine is like many others it is dynamic constantly changing and improving content both commercial and advice. So...

2. If having suggested my site today and in 6-12 months time my site has not been approved for listing is it unreasonable to re-suggest my site? (FAQ suggests never I Know but is this reasonable :icon_ques )

3. If I have three domains selling the same 'type' of product but aimed at different markets and use, is it acceptable to submit them? I do not expect editoral approval on all, but one may shine over others in the editors eyes but not mine (if that makes sense :icon_ques)


Thank you for your time

V

1. Yes.

2. There is a chance that a listing suggestion might have fallen victim to human or machinery error. Resuggesting your site just the once at say 6 months would fix that and wouldn't mark you down as a spammer. More than that might.

3. No. Doing so would be contra http://dmoz.org/add.html which also spells out the penalties which might be applied.

1) Yes, but we won't discuss them. (It is, I believe, the rarest potential problem that has ever actually been seen -- so worry about being struck by lightning while being engaged in a head-on collision with a locomotive, if you wish, but life isn't long enough to worry about competitors sliming you this way.)

(2) Yes, IF substantial content has been added in the meantime. (A change in catalog items is not substantial.)

(3) Those count as "related sites", so rather than just answering " NO! NO! NO!", I'll point you to the submittal policy, and the dire consequences of that.

That kind of site arrangement is an extremely strong correlative with other indications that none of the sites are eligible for listing anyway, so in practice it doesn't cause a problem either.

Oh dear........ I fear I have already done this, but in my defence I cannot for the life of me see where in this http://dmoz.org/add.html it mentions different domain names with different content - but same or similar product where the domain is registered to the same owner.


I have not posted here for the sake of arguement or to say you are wrong, but I did read that page prior to suggesting.

I feel it doesn't make it clear, or is it me I only became aware by visiting this forum that it may be the case, and of course the only reason anyone ends up here is because they suspect they have a problem.

Do you think you could maybe make it clearer for the newbie site designer like me :icon_ques


Thank you for your time

The second bullet point under "Step One" is what you are looking for:

"Do not submit URLs that contain only the same or similar content as other sites you may have listed in the directory. Sites with overlapping and repetitive content are not helpful to users of the directory. Multiple submissions of the same or related sites may result in the exclusion and/or deletion of those and all affiliated sites."

bekahm said:

"Do not submit URLs that contain only the same or similar content as other sites you may have listed in the directory. Sites with overlapping and repetitive content are not helpful to users of the directory. Multiple submissions of the same or related sites may result in the exclusion and/or deletion of those and all affiliated sites."

Click to expand...

Thanks, genuinely not being argumentative for me that does not mean do not suggest more than one domain\site that sells the same product that you own, well not if you read it clearly? It states do not suggest a site that has similar content that is already listed? Well I do not have any sites listed? Sounds like I am being pedantic, but pretty irritated that I did not read URL to mean any Domain, my somewhat limited knowledge read that statement as do not submit multiple URL's from a single domain.

Oh hum..........back to the drawing board

The critical bit is "related" sites -- that is, sites offering goods or services from the same business. It really doesn't matter(*) whether the content is on the same domain name, or on different domain names.

This interpretation is clearer, of course, from the trenches that receive the incoming fire.

[Footnote (*) Well, the only difference is that often, in our experience, the different-domain trick is used with malicious intent to deceive, and thus in practice it inevitably imparts a certain reputation to its perpetrators. And that's not just editors -- I think any experienced surfers would feel the same way. And if you thought like a surfer for a moment -- just imagine if everyone else broke up their website like that. Or not everybody else -- just imagine if Walmart did that, and bought up 50,000 domains to present their products. But then, can you imagine Walmart doing that? ... <whisper>can you imagine any reputable retailer doing that?</whisper>]

hutcheson said:

<whisper>can you imagine any reputable retailer doing that?</whisper>]

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I do not know why you have chosen to make assertions about my business or about my website? I have deliberately left out my domains for this very reason.

In my category you have listed a site that operates one business from six domains and two are in here.

hutcheson said:

This interpretation is clearer, of course, from the trenches that receive the incoming fire.

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Should the rules on engagement not be clearer for all those involved in the battle? (Your analogy not mine) Note - Quite why anyone would volunteer to do something that makes him or her feel like they are in a trench with incoming fire is beyond me

hutcheson said:

[Footnote (*) Well, the only difference is that often, in our experience, the different-domain trick is used with malicious intent to deceive, and thus in practice it inevitably imparts a certain reputation to its perpetrators. And that's not just editors]

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I think you are making too many assumptions and tarnishing everyone with the same brush which defeats the object of a human editor IMHO, in my case you would not need to be a genius to work it out, my name appears on all three sites with identical contact details. What’s the difference between this and franchising? Type KFC or for that matter eBay in to DMOZ hundreds of entries, using your rules applied to the other threads the .com site should just have links to other worldwide sites in fact eBay does have all the links, thus not spamming the listing.

IMO DMOZ is a victim of the spider search engines plagiarising hand made searches, having said that DMOZ is an organisation that relies on the plagiarism for its success.

Any way didn’t really come here for a debate, but found myself wanting to reply, I guess anything that is human controlled you cannot help but to end up making assumptions, especially if you are battle weary in the trench

my name appears on all three sites with identical contact details. What’s the difference between this and franchising?

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The major difference would be that the franchisee is the 'unique entity' . They are the one providing a service/product, they are the one physically on the ground, they are the one responsible for good/poor service. They are unique in the 'who are you and what do you do for money' test.

Whereas you openly admit there is only one of you and you are the actual beneficiary of the process of selling/producing goods or services.

There are conditions where we as editors can choose to list parts of a site (where site means 'total online presence'). That may take the form of linking to specific pages, maybe to sub sections of a site, maybe to sub-domains, or possibly to individual urls where the owner has split the site over many urls.

However the editor listing and site suggestion policies are not the same.

The person suggesting a site is only permitted to suggest a single url to the single best category. The editor is supposed to evaluate whether the site may be suitable for multiple linking, and forward copies where appropriate.

Do not submit URLs that contain only the same or similar content as other sites you may have listed in the directory.

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Pedantry accepted. It should be read as

Do not submit URLs that contain only the same or similar content as other sites you may have.

Click to expand...

Do you have a suggestion as to how we could word it better to say that multiple urls from the same entity about closely related products and/or services should not be suggested? 'Closely related' meaning about the same type of subject, service, or product.

:tree:

Do not suggest other sites - domains - url's that are either owned by or run by the same person or company with similar or over lapping content or products. Do Not suggest any site more than once - If your site is not listed it is either due for review or been rejected - The editors decIsion is final. If you have a site listed do not re submit sites - domains -url's of similar or over lapping content or products.

Although if I was a decision maker at dmoz I would say Check dmoz to see if your site is listed only suggest your site once per annum, any more than this will be considered spam, that way we all know where we stand.

I've put a note in the internal fora regarding this, and pointing to this thread.

Thanks.

:tree:

My assumptions are that your company is neither reputable nor disreputable (yet), and that your goal is to gain a good reputation rather than a gaining a bad one or avoiding a reputation altogether (as, for instance, by frequent name changes or multiple aliases.) This may be not be correct, and if so please feel free to ignore the advice.

And yes, we do list companies that have made foolish decisions about their online reputation -- we even list some that would have a better reputation if they dropped their current lines of business and went into terrorism and drug pushing. (Bill Gates, are you listening? You'd harm the world economy less that way....)

And when we pick which of several domain names to list, we try to pick the one with the company name rather than the keyword-stuffed spam-shouting domain. But the ODP can't make a reputation; it can only connect a reputation to a website.