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But over the last year it has just got worse. I submitted a site back in October and haven't seen or heard a thing.
If they don't want to list me site that is one think. A quick no thank you would be fine.
I am a true believer in DMOZ, I believe it is the backbone of the web, but it is not doing itself any justification. There also appear to me more and more sites that are listed that have bitten the dust which is a shame.
Common DMOZ get it together. DMOZ is the true spirit of the web but now it appears to be dying. Are there fewer editors than there used to be?
Very few active editors are SERPs, so we'd give a different set of answers.
I don't do SEO, so I've never used the ODP for that.
Instead, I use it primarily for historical, legal, religious, or literary research, and very occasionally for online shopping.
but there are more than 1 way to skin a cat.
That's true.
And, limitup, It would be nice to see some practical and large-scale demonsrations of some different ways.
Right now, you have joined the large rump of ODP volunteer critics who simple comment that the ODP volunteer editors don't skin their cats the way they want them.
But there's no need to be so passive in your approach. Get together with some other volunteer critics and build something better.
Even just a simple prototype ..... For example, set yourselves the goal of creating a "supplementary ODP" -- say 1,000,000 listings by the end of August which are not in the ODP but which meet its guidelines for inclusion.
Prove your point, and we'll be impressed.
It apparently hasn't been said often enough YET. But keep plugging away!
"Competitive categories" are by demand-side economics "neglected" but by supply-side economics "resource-consumptive." Because it's worth much less (to the surfer, of course, that's all that matters) to find a new (say) webdesigner site than to build a category for a previously unrepresented topic, editors reasonably tend to focus their results elsewhere. Because those categories are heavily spammed, an editor can "work" there for hourse without having anything to show (but a case of canned spam.) And therefore productivity is low, and editors tend to go where they can be most productive. And finally, because of the amount of deceptive spam, editors get much more leery about listing ANY sites, because even after running all our spam checks, we still have a lingering doubt about whether a site is "legit" or simply "more-than-usually-deceptive spam." So we may spend ten or twenty minutes in a site, and decide to leave it for another editor to check.
The result is that (from the point of view of the website promoter) the category APPEARS "neglected" (and may in fact even BE neglected.) But that's the difference between supply-side and demand-side economic analysis. We're simply investing our resources first where our customers get the biggest return on investment.
Many thanks for replying to my post.
A couple of things, Victor asked what my next step is. Simple I have posted to the dmoz forum and got a reply that the sub category I was in had no editor, the category above that had no editor, the category above that had no editor. And so on. The question still remains are there still enough editors on Dmoz, have many left...
I have looked at becoming an editor but the process is not volunteer friendly. It would be more beneficial to just offer them a selection of categories you would like to join without an editor. For them to then send you a website and ask if you would list it or not, as your test. Instead of having to submit three website examples.
I'm a great believer in Dmoz and do use it for searching, it would be a sample for it to just slowly die out.
I search DMOZ about once a week to see if I've been listed. I can't help myself. I don't obsess over it, though. When I first did a status check over at Resource Zone, I browsed around some other threads and I was amazed at all the begging and whining that goes on.
I'll be one happy fellow if I get listed, and quite sad if I don't. If I don't, however, I won't cry about it - though it will sting some. I know a guy who runs a site similar to mine who is listed in the ODP (he didn't even submit the site himself - or so he claims) and he gets gobs of traffic as a result of his listing.
Webmasters know what kind of impact a DMOZ listing can have on their traffic, which is why some become real obsessive about it, I suppose - especially the ones that depend on their website to make a living.
I have looked at becoming an editor but the process is not volunteer friendly. It would be more beneficial to just offer them a selection of categories you would like to join without an editor. For them to then send you a website and ask if you would list it or not, as your test. Instead of having to submit three website examples.That part of the application helps tell us whether or not you're capable of searching for and finding sites that aren't already listed that should be listed in the category you want to edit and whether or not you understand what actually belongs in the category you're applying for. Creating a testing process like you're suggesting would require a different test for every single category that exists (as the sites we'd be asking you to judge would have to be relevent for the category you're applying, not a just a general test). That would be impractical.
100 people working full time finding and adding sites would be adding over 20 sites an hour each (I'm assuming long hours, few holidays, and no one taking time to do quality checking or answer submitters' queries, or internal discussions about structure) to get 5,000,000 sites in a year.
Are you talking about creating another DMOZ which lists quality sites or a random directory that lists *any* site?
3 minutes is nowhere near enough to time to fully review a site, particularly these days where people are churning out hundreds of random satelite sites and submitting them all in the hopes of some IBL benefit to their main site.
A few years ago I greenbusted in one of the SEO categories and there were like 300+ sites waiting for review and that was with a main editor working on them and several other editors greenbusting.
Now that was around the time of the regular Google update hysteria - I don't even want to think about the state it will be in now.
And on top of which, creating random made for Adsense high $$ KW sites means a lot of previously quiet categories will now be busier, but the number of editors prepared to edit them won't have increased.
Someone brought up the point of the submission pages soliciting submissions - well, yes, but it's a damn shame very few people actually read them. If they did read them then the turnaround for submissions being added would be a lot lower.
But, no - as it stands, any idiot with a couple of pages slapped onto a random domain can and does submit and editors need to wade through all that. That's why getting sites added takes so long.
Sure, let's compare ODP (low funded vonutary project) with Yahoo directory (multi-billion dollar business). Cos that's the same thing. o_O
I can understand people who submit legitimate sites are getting annoyed because of the delay in submissions, but sorry to say that SEO industry is a lot to blame for that.
Yup, maybe the ODP could use more funding and perhaps their processes and editors aren't perfect - there's tonnes of factors that contribute to the delays. They couldn't have possibly forseen and prepared for the explosion of submissions and spam over the past few years and maybe the system setup initially isn't equipped to deal with it.
But every single person who submits sites without reading and following the guidelines contributes to the workload of editors and to the delay for other submissions reviews.
You want to point fingers then look around because we're the ones responsible - ODP are doing the best they can with what they have available to them.
/MG
We don't do "tests". We do "reality."
You want to edit? Great. Where? Just pick the category, any category. WE aren't going to restrict you. No artificial restrictions (start small and grow -- it's the way reality works.)
Can you edit there? Nobody knows until you try. So try. Go find three good sites (not your own) that belong there. Write good titles and descriptions for them. That's what editors do in reality.
If you do a good job, we'll want more help from you. If you do an almost-good job, we'll help you learn to do a good job. That's reality.
You want tests, go back to school. This is real.
Does not seem too sleepy to me.
The reality is nothing like that at all. There is no order. Some sites have been waiting for years, and that's fine. Some sites get listed before they are submitted, and that's fine. Some sites will never get listed, and that's fine.
Now, I can tell you the chances that a particular site is listed within two weeks of being submitted (5-10%). And I can say with some confidence that the longer a site goes without a review, the longer it is likely to wait FURTHER for that review. That is, a site that has been waiting for two years does NOT have a 5-10% chance of getting listed in the next two weeks. But ... I really don't have a feel for how MUCH less of a chance it has. (Its chances are even lower if it's resubmitted.)
So -- you can look at a site you suggested two years ago, and think the ODP is dead (and, for that kind of site, it may be close). Or you can look at a site you suggested last week, and think the ODP is really on the ball.
Truth is, neither one is valid, because the ODP isn't about processing bottles at all. So if you're measuring the ODP by "bottle consumption", you'll get a picture that's not true or even false -- but simply irrelevant. The ODP is about shipping milk. The vast majority of the bottles are broken already; a lot of the milk goes out in cartons; and management really wants to expand into cans and pouches.
I submitted my site on April 18th. Thought I'd check the category just now. I was listed today (not in G's cache of the page from yesterday). My logs suggest that an editor visited on the 12th, less than one month after my submission.
The category does not show an editor. It's a regional category, not very full but quite competitive; my guess is they would have plenty of submissions but not all of quality/originality.
My title is exactly as submitted (the name of the site). My description was very slightly reworded. It probably reads better and contains my five main keywords.
Thanks DMOZ, and well done. That's superb service.
What is your opinion on a network of sites being listed in DMOZ (in the same category for that matter), discovered and then removed. Would you remove all the sites in question or would you just remove all except the main one?
For me, I would remove all the sites, spammers need to be punished and anyway the network of site is nothing more than a bunch of doorway pages with pushy pitch. How much different can that be from the so-called cookie cutter sites.
For your information, this category also happens to be a very 'popular' section so the review process takes quite a while so much so that the editor is overwhelmed with workload that he does not bother to check what he list, even though it may be the same network of sites interlinked.
Also what is your opinion of 'one-page-wonder' also get listed in the same category? Obviously those that are renowned in that industry of that particular sector are too unimportant compared to this one-page-wonder.
I am not here looking for an argument but I am pretty upset with the DMOZ editor running my part of the world. I just find DMOZ too forgiving to these abusers of the system for your own good.
The ODP guidelines allow for removal of "all" sites in a "network", just as the ODP submittal policy allows for removal of "all sites related to" a submitter that abuses by submitting multiple "related sites."
But the ODP is really about giving information to surfers, not punishing even the most dispicable people. So the general consensus has been that complete removal is reserved for the most heinous cases: bribery, bait-and-switch, legal threats, and really-nasty spam. (Consider: given the current state of the internet, it takes some REAL effort, as well as natural talent, to be the scum in the spammer's pool.)
Beyond that, my personal take is -- if you're working on a community project, your work with the community needs to contribute to the goals chosen by community consensus. (In the ODP, that includes totally ignoring the effects on webmasters, and focusing on what will benefit surfers.) If you want to take up some other goal (spam-punishing), you find a community that does that (which the ODP doesn't), or go free-lancing.
If you want to start a "revenge of the surfers" project, I'll read its prospectus -- almost surely with delight. I might participate. I might even use knowledge gained while editing at the ODP -- I only have one brain, and I have to make it do for everything. But I wouldn't use ODP edits as a tool of that project.
