Is this ODP situation okay?

Not sure if I screwed up or not...

[galaga]

I submitted my site to the ODP four days ago (13/12/01) and was amazed to find out from my webstats that it has already been listed in the ODP. It appears in the category

Top: Regional: Europe: United Kingdom: Business and Economy: Industries: Telecommunications: Mobile: Services: Ring Tones, Graphics and Logos

This is my first listing anywhere and I am over the moon but my site doesn't show up in the listings when I search for keywords. It doesn't eeven show up when I search for phrases from the description (that they rewrote). I didn't expect to get a first place ranking but I did think I'd show up somewhere!
My questions are -
1. Is my entry the way it stands useless?

2. Would it be insane (or would it even make a difference) to tweak the keywords, title and description of my main page and sitemap?

3. Have I messed up?

4. Should I laugh or cry?

:(

(edited by: NFFC at 7:18 pm (gmt) on Dec. 17, 2001)

[Mike_Mackin]

>It doesn't even show up
Not to worry.
The traffic will not come from dmoz.org
Wait to see how Google will deal with the site.

[MsS]

Not many people search at ODP....but give it some time and your listing will appear in AOL search results, Google (after the next re-index), Netscape, FAST (alltheweb), and others...

[NFFC]

1. No, an ODP listing is never useless.

2. Won't affect ODP but many SE's use the data in one way or another.

3. No

4. Neither, just have a little patience, you will show up in the search soon enough.

[ettore]

>>my site doesn't show up in the listings when I search for keywords.

1,2,3,4, what NFFC said.

As for ODP, the search index is rebuilded once a week. When you get a listing you show up in the category but you don't in search until the next week or so.

[galaga]

Okay...wow, I'm stoked!
Things are looking okay then. Thanks everyone. Now I'm just going to act like a sap and say how nice and refreshing it is to be involved with people (albeit virtually) that actually take time out to help each other out of the goodness of their nature. I know its only small potatoes but its enough to restore your your faith in humanity. Thanks guys.

[Brett_Tabke]

Welcome to the board Galaga. The biggest thing I get from the ODP is the link exposure to other webmasters. Where do you go when you need to look for ontopic resources?
- pages that are built as resource/links pages,
- pages for topic directories,
- pages for topic search engines,
- references for newsletters,
- items in support of articles.

It's been my experience that the ODP greatest calling is getting your link exposed to other webmasters and sites. We've gotten more recip links from ODP listings than all the "hey wanna swap links" recip requests we've sought out. It is subtle but powerful. The ways that the ODP can benefit you are not quantifiable.