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First, a dmoz directory listing has no additional bearing on getting into google over and above any other link as far as I have ever been able to ascertain, so if you never get in, don't worry about it - just look elsewhere for your inbound links.
Some tips for getting into dmoz:-
1. Submit within the guidelines (i.e read the guidelines).
2. If you don't have unique content, don't bother to submit. You're wasting your time.
3. Submit to the right category.
4. Be very careful about how you word your description. You have an opportunity here to help the editor for the cat. you're submitting to. Make his/her life a little easier and they might return the favour. Have a look at the existing entries in the category and copy the style of description writing. They will edit whatever you submit to that style anyway, you may as well do it yourself and save them a little time. You would not believe the amount of people who use something like "The best widget resource on the web!" as their description. To a lot of editors, that's an "ignore this one" or "just delete" message.
5. Wait. Resubmit in six months time.
No's 1 to 4 are based on the most common mistakes that will at least guarantee a delay in getting listed.
Have you had a dmoz editor look at your site yet? You can tell by looking in your log files for a referral from the dmoz domain. If someone took a look, and you didn't get listed, then it's possible your site is not up to the editors sense of what is "unique content".
TJ
Have you had a dmoz editor look at your site yet? You can tell by looking in your log files for a referral from the dmoz domain... except that some of us take care not to send a DMOZ referrer :-)
So don't take absence of a referral from dmoz as a given that it *hasn't* been looked at, but at least if you see the referrer, you know that someone has taken a look.....
TJ
5. Wait. Resubmit in six months time.
Better: Wait a month, then (if your site hasn't appeared in the directory yet) inquire about the status of your submission in the ODP public forum. If they tell you it's waiting to be reviewed, just wait. No need to resubmit, after six months or whenever, unless you've changed the URL or the focus of your site.
After six more months, if you're still waiting, you can ask for another status check.
If they tell you it's been rejected, don't try to argue about it. They don't get into that sort of discussion as much as they used to.
What's the deal with your sites? They apparently aren't as irresistible as you think they are.
What's the deal with your sites? They apparently aren't as irresistible as you think they are.
Thats always the same tired old excuse!
It may be true for many sites but there are also some sites which will never get in because they are in direct competition to the editors own "pet interest" sites.
We have managed to get every site in apart from one, now I wonder why that is? :(
They link to a lot of stale sites you'd expect to see in archive.org.
The Yahoo directory is better overall by a huge margin.
We attempted to inquire via the forum regarding our submission and received no response.
If they took LOOKSMART'S ZEAL program criteria, it would be a better and more respected directory, as it is now I wouldn't bother to even submit a site to DMOZ.
If we took their criteria (zeal) it would be much easier... we could probably remove 50% of the listings and 98% of the spam submissions. You know that zeal doesn't allow commercial listings (last I checked - I don't pay attention to them) unless you are a paying customer...right?
Kdawg: the best place to ask a specific question like this is the ODP Public Forum (Google for it). They might be able to give you more guidance.
Either I'm lucky, or the guidelines are accurate about what they like. Hopefully both.
So don't take absence of a referral from dmoz as a given that it *hasn't* been looked at, but at least if you see the referrer, you know that someone has taken a look.....
Actually, there are many ways you can get the dmoz referral without a human ever seeing your site and many times editors simply surfing the web will cause the DMOZ referral to show up. I tested this on myself out of curiosity and it actually happens. DMOZ refferrals don't really mean very much so don't fret over them.
They have extremely few editors, and the few they have run their little part of the ODP as a fiefdom, inserting their own sites and ignoring all others. Many people will cheer the day DMOZ goes off-line.
>>Webmasterworld is full of too many ODP-haters and baiter
Or the more savvy webmasters who can see the ODP for what it has become rather than what it set out to be.
kdawg, buy an old site in your category that hasn't expired. That's the thing ODP is best for - finding old, forgotten-about domains. That way it'll get you your listing and it'll cost you less than bribing a DMOZ ed ;)
(Sorry, jimnoble, I know you're one of the nice guys - I've spoken with you at "your" forum - but I call the shots like I see them)
[edited by: Macro at 12:43 pm (utc) on Nov. 23, 2004]
You're asking for some DMOZ bashing and examples of compliant and worthy sites, properly submitted, which haven't been listed ;). I've got some sites listed and some not. I've spent hours - if not days - going through listing guidelines including various tips in webmaster newsletters etc. I've even poured through comments by known ODP editors here (and their own forum) to suss what kind of sites they reject and for what reasons. (It's amazing - if there's only one ed working in a cat and he's on a standards mission you'd better make 100% sure you're more than 100% W3C compliant! Not a stroke out of place or you'll get rejected. There are various other high horses you'll have to contend with along with editing for "anti-competition" reasons - so it makes sense to know your eds).
There's one site I've had in their queue (or "pool" if they prefer, I think jimnoble refers to it as a "heap" ;)) for over a year and their only response is that nobody has gotten around to looking at it yet!
Once, many years ago, I applied to be an editor, double checked everything from my spelling to my punctuation, only to be turned down without a reason. Now, with the ODP in the state it's in, I wouldn't want to be part of that and I certainly won't be applying again. Maybe the loss is mine but I don't see the ODP going anywhere fast. Or going anywhere at all.
and their only response is that nobody has gotten around to looking at it yet!
Don't get me wrong - I'm not just talking about getting new sites listed, I'm also talking about getting old, rubbish sites out (especially the ones that started off as hardware news sites but haven't updated their "news" for the last three years!). ODP just doesn't have the resources. Do you believe otherwise? Do you have reason to believe that editor intake is extremely strong? And that new editors are really doing what they signed up to do (rather that just getting their own sites listed and competitors removed)? Do you really believe everything is hunky dory? And, if you did disclose info about your pool - isn't it really becoming an ocean?
I do admire the ODP editors who come and post here whenever they see an ODP thread (even if some of them never, ever post in anything else). Loyalty is a good thing and I do respect that but, as Mulder would say: The truth is out there ;)
If, as you say, most of the sites being submitted don't get looked at for more than a year
Anyway, I don't see the waiting period for suggestions as a problem for the directory myself. Thanks to all visitors for suggesting so many sites, but neither is that the only source of links the ODP has, nor is the goal of the ODP to process all suggestions that are made in a specific timeframe. Has never been the goal. Will never be the goal. Should not be the goal of a good user-oriented (remember: user not equal submitter!) directory.
But talking about numbers, maybe the following is interesting to the readers. As things are, I am more familiar with stats for the german sections of directories than for the english ones. I happen to have some numbers at hand, which could be used as an example. These numbers are some months old, about one month between them.
dmoz (german part): 377730 -> 381655
web.de: 380424 -> 380028 (They stopped giving out numbers meanwhile, can you imagine why? ;-) )
de.yahoo.com: 492872 -> 492998 (They count every category at least twice that is crosslinked, so the absolute number is nonsense. But look at the growth rate, incredible, huh?).
ODP just doesn't have the resources
Btw: If you don't know, the "Update URL" feature can be used to notify editors of broken/... links. If users would use that more often, the quality would further increase. We recently updated the software so that Update Requests stand out better. Editors still aren't forced to process them, but if they want to - now they can find them much easier. Result: We reduced the number of waiting Updates by 40% in just a few months. Keeping in mind that new ones still roll in, that is quite good, better than I expected, to be honest.
[edited by: Macro at 3:41 pm (utc) on Nov. 23, 2004]
I'll show you 50 categories for which there have been zero, yes zero additions in the last month and most have zero additions for the last year. And these are cats where there have been a lot of excellent new sites recently (especially in technology related subjects). Quoting figures from one section that has some new sites when most others are going backwards is almost like hearing figures from Mr Cook-the-books at our UK stats office (ONS).
>>They stopped giving out numbers meanwhile, can you imagine why?
I don't know, tell me. Is it because the regularly released ODP numbers are usually so pretty? :)
I'll show you 50 categories for which there have been zero, yes zero additions in the last month and most have zero additions for the last year.
Well that not bad. That works out to 0.00847457627118644% of the over 590,0000 categories in your instance of not being updated in a year.
There will always be categories that rarely get touched. Some of the reasons are it's not much fun wading through 100's or 1000's of submissions to find the few sites that belong in spam ridden areas. That's why many editors may add a site they find, but not one in the "q". Some dialup users can't even edit in those areas because they will time-out from the 1000's of submissions in the "q".
I think in the past 9 months dmoz has added many more sites to their index than Google has ;)
>>I think in the past 9 months dmoz has added many more sites to their index than Google has
OK, I take back everything, Google's only gone from 4 billion pages to 8 billion. :)
And please don't keep admitting that there is a "q". Stay on message :)
See, I do think it started off brilliantly. And, for a long time, it was superb at what it did. But, times change, the web changes, and ODP has just not kept up. It's not beyond salvation but only if the problems are recognised and dealt with. As with any big organisations someimes it pays to take a step back and make an honest evaluation of state of play. Maybe it needs to go commercial in some respects, maybe it needs to use staff rather than volunteers, but it sure does need a major revamp.
[edited by: Macro at 4:26 pm (utc) on Nov. 23, 2004]
I have a site of my own that has a true 4,500-5000 pages - google now shows 18,000 because it counts the same 3 pages 4,000 times each :)
so stop kidding yorself...hehe
