Why my site is not listing on DMOZ ?

My DMOZ submission or the lack of it

I have they same problem as you guy's, it's all very well the editors saying they are volanteers and that we should stop cribbin about how long it takes to get listed but surely if you volenteer to do something you should get stuck in and do it and not have site owners playing a waiting game.

It's not that they are short of editors because I applied only to be refused so I have no simpathy for anyone who says they are under pressure due to the lack of editors (speak with Dmoz and ask them why they are refusing applicants).

Thanks Jim much appeciated if thats what was keeping my site out of the listings, You would have the editors would have said something?

You have so many misunderstandings about what ODP is that I hardly know where to begin.

We are not a listing service. Our hobby is to build a worthwhile directory, not to be at the beck and call of every website owner who is looking for a free injection of PR so that money will rain from the sky.

ask them why they are refusing applicants

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Well right now, we aren't able to process editor applications or creat new editor accounts at all. In good times, unless they've requested a category that's too large or too spammy, we accept all acceptable candidates. Acceptable candidates are ones who demonstrate an understanding of the category, appropriate communications skills and integrity.

Thanks Jim much appeciated if thats what was keeping my site out of the listings, You would have the editors would have said something?

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I doubt if it is. As I said earlier, we aren't the internet police.

OK, I've succumbed to temptation and looked at your website.

• There is no clue as to what country it's located in so a Regional listing is out.
• There are no terms and conditions so credibility is not high.
• If I attempt to sign up, I go straight to a PayPal payment form. This doesn't do a lot for credibility either.
• There's no clue as to where the servers are, or even if you have access to any. Credibility sinking further.
• Nobody's told you that cool sound effects aren't cool any more, just annoying.

On the plus side, the prices seem remarkably low.

Bottom line is that I wouldn't list it.

TANSTAAFL

New listings appearing now?

crowbar said:

lol, oh it's not all that bad, Tanoro, I just listed 3 sites that had never been suggested to the Directory.

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Really? Does that mean the directory is now being updated? I thought it was still a back-up or something.

Also, I am intrigued that you have spent a bit of time looking for other sites that weren't suggested. Does that mean there were none waiting to be reviewed in the category or did you just make a decision to go out and find more?

Don't get me wrong..I'm not complaining. Sure I have a site that I've waited for almost 4 years to be listed but I'm interested in how editors work. If I was compiling a dictionary like Samuel Johnson, I think I would rather include all the words that I knew, that people told me and that I could see all around me before I went out scouring the country for ones I didn't know about.

Editors do a good job yes... but people who suggest sites also do a good job by letting you guys know they exist. Surely you as editors appreciate that so why don't you go through all the ones that have been suggested before looking for ones that haven't.

I get the impression at times that editors are suspicious of suggested sites, that they pre-suppose the sites are spammy and that finding sites by themselves will produce a more balanced and widespread ODP. I don't see why that should be the case.

Really? Does that mean the directory is now being updated? I thought it was still a back-up or something.

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It hasn't been a backup since late December (see the announcement stickied at the top of every forum here).

Also, I am intrigued that you have spent a bit of time looking for other sites that weren't suggested. Does that mean there were none waiting to be reviewed in the category or did you just make a decision to go out and find more?

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Editors are not required to look at suggested sites; they are free (and in fact are strongly encouraged) to find listable sites wherever they choose.

If I was compiling a dictionary like Samuel Johnson, I think I would rather include all the words that I knew, that people told me and that I could see all around me before I went out scouring the country for ones I didn't know about.

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Well, that depends. If the bulk of the people who were telling you about words were telling you about words that didn't fit the scope of the dictionary you were writing or words that they'd made up or the like, then maybe you'd start looking for words on your own.

I get the impression at times that editors are suspicious of suggested sites, that they pre-suppose the sites are spammy and that finding sites by themselves will produce a more balanced and widespread ODP. I don't see why that should be the case.

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You haven't seen some of the categories. Some categories are obvious spam magnets but I'm continually surprised by the number of people who don't bother looking for the right category for their site or decide to submit their site to every category they can find or submit unlistable, contentless sites to benign, backwater categories. In some categories, the pool of suggestions can be very helpful. In others, absolutely pointless. As long as the result is a net growth in a category and there's no abuse involved, we don't care where an editor found a site to list.

You keep thinking that you have a right to be listed, Hamboid, and that we're here to serve you. How quaint.

How do I spell....Oh!

motsa said:

Well, that depends. If the bulk of the people who were telling you about words were telling you about words that didn't fit the scope of the dictionary you were writing or words that they'd made up or the like, then maybe you'd start looking for words on your own.

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Thank goodness Samuel Johnson wasn't as suspicious as you. The dictionary still wouldn't be finished. Surely there are lots of categories that don't get a lot of spam suggestions?

I've seen very few categories that didn't get at least some.

There are categories that don't get ANY suggestions. They were built by editors who saw a gap in ODP coverage, and filled it in by their own work. That is the NORM. Site suggestions typically come later (if at all.)

Fact is, the dictionary ISN'T finished. And it won't be finished until the last communicating community dies. And we publish a directory every week or so -- every week a finished product consisting of a representative cross-section of the internet. Few dictionaries have that rapid a development cycle, and even fewer come close to the size of the directory.

My hero

hutcheson said:

Fact is, the dictionary ISN'T finished. And it won't be finished until the last communicating community dies. And we publish a directory every week or so -- every week a finished product consisting of a representative cross-section of the internet. Few dictionaries have that rapid a development cycle, and even fewer come close to the size of the directory.

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Samuel Johnson compiled his dictionary alone. I hope you're not suggesting the ODP comes even close to his achievement. If every editor did his volume of work 99% of them would be twiddling their thumbs waiting for new sites to be created.

Hamboid, you're always fun to talk to because I think you're fairly literate, and can reason, but, if you're not happy with the ODP, why don't you start your own Directory, it's fairly easy to do, and you already know all the things you don't like.

Between you and all your webmaster/SEO buddies, surely the bunch of you could create and work on it 24/7, and apply the same rules to it that you'd like to apply to the ODP.

Why not build your own Directory and leave us to build ours, I promise we won't come over to yours and complain about how you're doing it, you'll have a free hand to do whatever you'd like in it, and with your combined expertise, I'm sure it will be a huge success.

Moi?

I am not sure whether to take some of that as a compliment but i will anyway

I do actually understand your point. However, you couldn't really put me in the webmaster / seo category. I'm a teacher / school manager. I just happen to have put a site together for my business. I wouldn't even know how to spam if I was called upon to do it.

My original intention in this thread was to question whether it was more effective for editors to go out and find sites or concentrate on the already numerous suggestions you probably have. I accept the point that there are probably many sites relevant to a category that haven't been suggested to the ODP so it makes sense for you editors to search for them.

However, you guys seem to not trust sites suggested through the DMOZ website. OK, you've told me many of these are spammy, in the incorrect category etc.. so it can be tedious even counter-productive doing that.

All I'm saying is that this is pretty demoralising for someone like me who is waiting for my site to be reviewed.

Ironically, if an editor did what you did Motsa, that is go out and find 3 sites for my category, the category would be virtually complete. So, I'm certainly not questioning that way of doing things...only raising issues.

I know it sounds like I'm desperate or something to get into DMOZ. The truth is I'm not. My site has done pretty well for a few years without it. In fact, it was only a few months ago that I even bothered suggesting again after 3 years.

This forum, however, got me interested in the workings of the directory and the way sites are added. I have never once seen an editor reply to a suggestion in this forum in one of these ways:

"That's a fair point. I will discuss it with other editors....."
"Thanks for the suggestion...we'll think it over.."
"Yes...maybe an improvement could be made......."
"Indeed, we have to consider that sometimes we could change....system"

I have, though, often read such things as:

"YOU don't understand how we work"
"Why should we listen to want YOU want"
"What makes YOU think your way would/could/should work?"
"Why don't YOU take a flying leap!"
"Don't be stupid!, haven't you read the FOREVER ENTRENCHED guidelines"

OK, I've had my rant. I think maybe I should stop now

Hamboid said:

My original intention in this thread was to question whether it was more effective for editors to go out and find sites or concentrate on the already numerous suggestions you probably have. I accept the point that there are probably many sites relevant to a category that haven't been suggested to the ODP so it makes sense for you editors to search for them.

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It depends on the type of category. But IMHO it is more effective for an editor to go out and find sites himself.

Hamboid said:

However, you guys seem to not trust sites suggested through the DMOZ website. OK, you've told me many of these are spammy, in the incorrect category etc.. so it can be tedious even counter-productive doing that.

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From a calculation I have made some time ago my conclusion was that we reject between 80 and 90% of all suggested sites.

Hamboid said:

All I'm saying is that this is pretty demoralising for someone like me who is waiting for my site to be reviewed.

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Why. You now have two possibilities for editors to find your site. One: the editor finds your site by himself, Two: the editor notices your site in amongst the other suggested sites.

Hamboid said:

Ironically, if an editor did what you did Motsa, that is go out and find 3 sites for my category, the category would be virtually complete.

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If there are only 3 sites left to list in a category we must have been doing e very good job for that category. It is almost complete. For our users it is much more profitable if we spend our time in categories that are not so well maintained.

Hamboid said:

I have never once seen an editor reply to a suggestion in this forum in one of these ways:

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You will get such a reaction if you make a suggestion that would improve DMOZ.
How to filter the listable sites from the total pool of suggestions, or the other way around how to filter the non-listable sites, could be such an improvement. Complaining about editors not reviewing suggested sites certainly is not a good suggestion. Insisting that editors should give preference to suggested sites over not suggested sites is also not a good suggestion.

If you are "waiting for your site to be reviewed", you're wasting your time. What are you waiting to DO? WHATEVER it is, you can do it NOW.

So why are you waiting?

Look, I know the feeling. I guarantee that in the last ten years I have spent more time than you have, in the position of being ABLE to wait for someone else to make content I generated publicly available. But it didn't take me that long to realize that ... I didn't have to wait. I could proofread the next book, build the next category, write the next article ... and the next, and the one after that, without waiting an instant. In fact, I've resolved that this year I'll have a book waiting to be published SOMEWHERE all year. And even if I accomplish that, I won't come close to running out of things to do.

So I have some sympathy for the feeling. But it's normal--everyone OUGHT to have pro-bono work that's waiting to be made more publicly visible. It's not something that should change anyone else's priorities.

Sensible suggestions

OK guys..I'm going to give it a right proper go.

Sensible suggestion No.1

Don't allow site suggestions for categories that tend to attract large amounts of spam e.g. shopping (you guys know the others). This way editors will be free from the shackles of ocassionally having to do a token search through the suggestions to find the odd reasonable one. You will then have more time to add your own found sites to the category. Also, it will eliminate the need to review the 80 odd percent of sites which are rejected.

Sensible suggestion No.2

Introduce a filter which recognises passive domains like .edu .org .gov etc.. which are more than likely not spammy and can therefore be reviewed quickly and added more quickly.

Sensible suggestion No.3

All chip in and give the "Editor of the month" a bag of sweets.


I wait for your replies with trepidation

I'm married to a teacher, so you just made a whole bunch of points with me, , and it's very nice to know you're not an SEO, which is what you did sound like.

I'm a small business myself, so now you have my attention doubly.

My original intention in this thread was to question whether it was more effective for editors to go out and find sites or concentrate on the already numerous suggestions you probably have.

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A clear question, gets a clear answer.

Suggested sites have to be investigated more, and yes we are suspicious, and with good cause. Many real estate sites, for instance, will create more than one copy of their site, with exactly the same content, or with the content rearranged to look different, only under different urls, in order to get a jump on their competition.

Many sites want to be listed in a large city, instead of the small village that they are located in, so, they go to great lengths to hide their real location.

There are also a lot of things webmasters will do for their clients that involve getting better page ranking, so suggested sites take more time to deal with.

The sites we find on our own are many times small mom & pop businesses, that really either don't know about the professional webmasters and SEOs that try to work the system, or they just can't afford such services, so they need very little investigating. We know they're not spammers because they didn't find us, we found them, and many of them are real jewels.

In my opinion, neither is really faster, but, finding new sites on our own is more enjoyable and less aggravating.

As far as what unique content is and what we're looking for, I think it's a little hard to explain. If I find a guy who makes violins by hand, it's pretty obvious his site will have unique content that is found no place else.

Ten cookie cutter style car dealerships, all having the same type of information, but, one of them has information about the local soccer team, that might be considered unique content, or only one of them has a photo tour of their body shop, and explains what they do, that might be unique content.

Ten cookie cutter real estate sites have all the same standard things every real estate site usually has, but, each of them have individual listings for different homes and photos of them, that might be considered unique content that's different for each site.

A travel guide site is loaded with nothing but links to other sites, that is not unique content, and would not be listed in the Directory.

Maybe somebody can help me explain better.

Suggestion #1 has been suggested by myself and probably a lot of others, but, the answer was that it goes against our Social Contract.

Suggestion #2 - We already know that, as editors, so a filter isn't neccessary, we know which categories are spam magnets and which aren't, and such sites still need to be reviewed and proper descriptions written for them, or modified, though those are much easier and sometimes require no changes.

Suggestion #3 - As I find myself the most deserving, I volunteer to save us all a bunch of unnecessary squabling by accepting all such prizes, . I'm big like that.

Ironically, if an editor did what you did Motsa, that is go out and find 3 sites for my category, the category would be virtually complete.

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Where did I say that?

I have never once seen an editor reply to a suggestion in this forum in one of these ways:

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Actually, there've been one or two like that. But, truthfully, most suggestions that people make are ones that have been made many, many times and have been discussed to death internally. And editors rarely respond as harshly as you have suggested here, though we tend to be firm in our responses.

Don't allow site suggestions for categories that tend to attract large amounts of spam e.g. shopping (you guys know the others). This way editors will be free from the shackles of ocassionally having to do a token search through the suggestions to find the odd reasonable one. You will then have more time to add your own found sites to the category. Also, it will eliminate the need to review the 80 odd percent of sites which are rejected.

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Not all areas of Shopping are high-spam. Not all high-spam areas are obvious. And there are no shackles on editors to perform even a token occasional look at the unreviewed pool so there's nothing to be freed from.

Introduce a filter which recognises passive domains like .edu .org .gov etc.. which are more than likely not spammy and can therefore be reviewed quickly and added more quickly.

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You do know that any Joe Blow can register a .org domain, right? It's not limited to organizations. And .edu and .gov domains rarely encounter a problem being reviewed quickly. In fact, most of them were added manually by editors, rather than being submitted by someone else. So it's a filter that really wouldn't do much.