Were All Sites Rejected?

About four months ago I launched my first ever site, and a couple of days later submitted it to the Open Directory. At the time there were eleven sites already listed in the category I selected.

Today I looked at that category again, and there are still only those same eleven sites ( I had saved a copy of the page to my computer, so I have a record of the sites.)

So I am wondering-- Were all the sites (including mine) submitted in the past four months rejected?
Or is there another explanation?

Thank you
billybw

My guess would be there's another explanation.

lmocr- Thanks for the quick response.
I looked at the link you gave, but I'm afraid I'm a little confused. Maybe it's because this is so new to me. So anyway, could someone please give me a better idea of what might be happeneing with my submission? Has it probably been rejected? Or is there a good chance that it still hasn't been reviewed? Is there any way to find out for sure?

Thank you
billybw

As to the rejection rate, in my experience the vast majority (90% or so) of suggested sites are not listable. Similarly, the vast majority (98% or so) of Google search results are to unlistable sites or inappropriate deeplinks. And even a large minority of sites on business cards or business vehicle side panels are not listable. And the editors do a very good job of listing listable sites (~1% error) and a fair job of rejecting unlistable sites (<10% error) Obviously, any error rate estimation has to be based on sites that two editors have looked at, and for sites found by scrapbooking or searching, there's no way to tell whether another editor has looked and not listed. In fact, for those categories you can't tell whether a non-action was a deferral or an absolute refusal anyway. But a bit of serious Googling or scrapbooking will give you the impression that maybe 2/3 to 3/4 of "clearly listable" sites of ALL kinds are already listed.

Obviously the listed sites aren't perfectly evenly distributed. Other resources have obvious strong biases. Yahoo is strongly biased towards business or online-retailing sites; Google search and advertising resources are strongly biased towards online-retailing or online-advertising (affiliate-doorway) sites; the ODP is strongly biased AGAINST spam-doorway sites, and weakly biased towards informational sites. Within business sites, the ODP is weakly biased towards regional sites. So it's very hard to get an overall picture. I can say that for some years now, it has NOT been worthwhile to compare non-commercial ODP and Yahoo directories -- the vast majority of the Yahoo listings not already in the ODP are not listable (in the ODP, and usually not even listable in Yahoo! -- they're down or hijacked or something like that.)

Is there any way to find out for sure?

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Sorry but no, there is no way for you to find out for sure.

For some years I've been telling people: assume the site HAS been rejected for sure, and act confidently on that assumption.

You'll do the right thing. Nobody has EVER taken that advice, and complained about it afterwards.

If their site turns out to have been rejected, you'll have done the right thing for the right reason. And ff your site is accepted, you'll be ahead of the other people whose sites were accepted, who did not take the promotional actions you did.

Thanks for all the replies.

My original post was prompted by my observation that no new sites had been added to a particular category over a four month period, or possibly an even longer period.

This seemed odd to me, and I wondered whether it's a common situation. Since I don't know how the process normally works, I was hoping that someone could give me an explanation.

When I looked at the category again, I noticed a "Volunteer to edit this category" link at the bottom of the page. After seeing this, it occurred to me that this category might currently have no editor, and that the submissions for the past few months have been put "on hold", and will be considered later. Is this a possible explanation for why no new sites have been added to the category?

If not, what is the most likely explanation?

Thank you
billybw

PS- my site is a non-commercial totally ad-free site, so getting it listed in the Open Directory doesn't concern me that much. That's why I waited four months before I looked to see if it was listed. But in reading through some of the other threads here, I get the impression that there's a lot of controversy about some of the policies. I hope no one is upset by my questions. I'm just trying to find out if my site was rejected and if so, why, so that maybe I can improve it. It's only natural to wonder what other people think of your site.

These questions are all answered in the FAQ.

Thanks for the reply

I have just read the entire FAQ and could not find answers to the following questions:

1. IS IT POSSIBLE that the submissions for a particular category can be put "on hold" for an extended time period?

2. What is the MOST LIKELY explanation for why no new sites have been added to a particular category during the past four months?

Thank you
billybw

1. IS IT POSSIBLE that the submissions for a particular category can be put "on hold" for an extended time period?

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No, there is no way of putting a URL, or a group of URLs "on hold". Sites waiting for review are there to grab and review for any and all editors with editing rights in the category in question.

2. What is the MOST LIKELY explanation for why no new sites have been added to a particular category during the past four months?

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That no editor has been sufficiently interested in the category in question to review and list sites there, is the infinitely most likely reason. In some categories in the World/ tree where very few editors understand and write the language, it could be that there is nobody to review the site (well, technially there are, but editors don't go in and list sites even if we can, if we don't feel qualified in the area). However, those categories are in a minority.

nea- Thank you very much for your prompt and relevant answers. I really appreciate it.

quote
That no editor has been sufficiently interested in the category in question to review and list sites there, is the infinitely most likely reason.

From this, I take it that all of the submissions in my chosen category have most likely been left languishing for the past four months, or possibly longer.

If I understand the FAQ, one repeat submission is permitted. I have found a related category that my site fits just as well. Would you recommend that I resubmit to it.

Thank you
billybw

billybw said:

If I understand the FAQ, one repeat submission is permitted. I have found a related category that my site fits just as well. Would you recommend that I resubmit to it.

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No.
You were asked to suggest the site to the ONE best category.
As a related category will not be this ONE an editor when reviewing the suggestion would just move it to what is the BEST ONE.
By doing so you have
- violated DMOZ guidelines
- given editors extra work which could have been spend reviewing a site
- maybe enlarged the waiting time needed to review your site
- set the first tiny step on the road of being marked as spam

PS- my site is a non-commercial totally ad-free site, so getting it listed in the Open Directory doesn't concern me that much.

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That doesn't concern us. We list commercial and non-commercial sites, sites with ads and without ads. What gets a site listed is *lots of unique content*. We have plenty of submissions of non-commercial, ad-free sites which have content copied from other sites which aren't listed.

If your site has lots of unique content and hasn't been listed, the usual reason is that no one has looked at it yet.

As pvgool has said, submitting to a related category can backfire on you.

If you've read the FAQ, you know that there are hundreds of editors who can edit in a category. Most of my edits were made in categories where there is no named editor. This is also true of most/all editors who have worked their way up category trees, and these are the editors who make the majority of edits.

Please just submit your site and forget it.

Is my site considered as spam?

pvgool said:

No.
You were asked to suggest the site to the ONE best category.
As a related category will not be this ONE an editor when reviewing the suggestion would just move it to what is the BEST ONE.
By doing so you have
- violated DMOZ guidelines
- given editors extra work which could have been spend reviewing a site
- maybe enlarged the waiting time needed to review your site
- set the first tiny step on the road of being marked as spam

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Oh no. Is my site (www.portraitworkshop.com) marked as spam?
I have submitted a few times within a year, and just recently found a more appropriate category >caricature. Is more than one submission considered as spam? What if I have submitted to different categories?
I keep thinking that maybe my site is rejected, so I try to resubmit every few months, seeing that my site is not listed in DMOZ directory. After knowing that I can't submit too often, I try to refrain myself from submitting again, even though I have found a more suitable category.
Can anyone enlighten me? Your help is much appreciated to this ignorant guy.
Thanks in advance.

I

Oh no. Is my site (www.portraitworkshop.com) marked as spam?

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There's no point taking time to find out because if it is, it is and there's nothing to be done about it. If it isn't, an editor will evaluate it in time and either list it, decline it, move it to somewhere else for further evaluation or take no action at all.

Other editors will have to process the other submissions to the other categories. By ignoring our submission guidelines, you're ensuring that we consume precious resources that could have been better spent elsewhere.

What you should do now is stop making further listing suggestions and concentrate on other means of promoting your website. If an ODP listing is ever going to happen, it'll happen when it happens.

Portrait - Don't panic! A site is unlikely to be banned for spamming if you have just suggested an extra one or two times. But repeated submittals really don't help.

Submittal to the same category will simply overwrite the previous submission, which means that if an editor is reviewing in date order, you just pushed your submission to the back of the pile. Submitting to inappropriate categories just delays a listing.

I understand that people feel a need to do something - anything - to get listed faster. But it won't work, so the best advice is to submit (once) and forget.

Ok. I can forget about the submission from now on.
At least, I know that there's no point submiting again.
Either I get it or don't.
Thanks.

Thanks for your advice, Jeanmanco.
At least, it's not the end of the world, looking at the brighter side.

Is dmoz still alive?

I have tried submitting 3 completely different sites about every 6 months over the last few years, with no success. Each are a unique site with unique content and follows all standard internet guidelines yet either just not added or rejected by dmoz. dmoz still alive?

with no success

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Are you sure about that .