Suggesting a second listing in another category

Hi!

I found a thread started by flnative1 back on July 27th that gave me the basic answer to my question, which concerns whether or not different parts of a site can be listed under separate categories in the ODP. The answer given was that it's at the category editor's discretion. I have another related question, though, and I'm writing for your advice.

My site's top level URL is listed in its most relevant category in the ODP. Using my top keyword, I was doing a search on the Pandia Plus Internet Directory, which is powered by the ODP, to see which sites in my industry would pop up. I noticed that several sites have a listing for their top level, main page URLs in my category, but they also have one, sometimes, two additional listings in other related categories.

These secondary and tertiary listings are for FAQs or articles pages. These pages are purely informational, providing information about the industry we are in, e.g. how to get into the business, how to market your business, what equipment to purchase for the business, financial aspects of the business, etc.

My site also has a page that contains a directory of the 17 articles I've written on my industry. These articles are purely informational and relevant to my field. I add new articles periodically. I receive emails and calls regarding the information I provide, thanking me for providing answers to their questions, which mainly revolve around how to get into the industry.

My question is this: Keeping in mind that my top level URL is already listed in it's most relevant category, may I suggest to the editor of the most relevant category for my articles directory page that the page be listed in that category? I don't want to suggest this and risk having my original listing taken down in exchange for the articles directory listing. That original listing is valuable and powerful. I find links to my ODP category on many sites related to my field. So, would you recommend making my request for the second listing or should I just leave well enough alone?

Thank you for your assistance.

Thanks for asking.

In a case like this, I'd recommend leaving well enough alone. There are standard exceptional cases for deeplinking, where we encourage the suggestions, but this doesn't fit any of them; so the normal guideline should stand.

Thanks for such a quick response.

I thought that might be the case. It just makes me wonder how the other sites got deeplinked listings, especially since their second listings don't appear to satisfy the standard exception rule, either. I'm sure the editor had his/her reasons, which is what discretion is all about, eh? I took my shot. Can't fault a person for trying, right?

Thanks again for clarifying this situation for me.

If they don't meet current Guidelines, they might have been listed when Guidelines and standards were different. We used to list more deep-links than we do now. What we will/won't list has evolved through the years. If they don't meet current standards, they'll be caught when someone goes through the category.

It's not fair to the editors to think of us as suggestion-processors. (If all the suggestors dropped dead, we wouldn't notice: we'd just go on finding and reviewing sites until we came to the end of the web.)

I've been in this position any number of times: on some obscure topic, looking for the best of the web (AT THAT DATE), and listing several deeplinks, simply because at that time they represented the best source of information on some aspect of the topic. Three, four years later, there might well be better deeplinks available, but editors are working in other areas.

In other words, it's perhaps not so much editor discretion as editor initiative: and perhaps driven not so much by the essential quality of the particular site, but the lack of anything else on the web.