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I have been trying for months to get many of my travel websites into dmoz. Out of about 50 submissions I managed to get 2 listed.
The first one - they completely stripped my title and description.
The second one - was published exactly the way I submitted it, which brought lots of referrals.
Today I noticed that my second listing has now been COMPLETELY removed for NO REASON.
They have booted me and left a whole lot of inferior quality websites alone.
JUST MAKES NO SENSE!!!!
What can I do?? I have sent emails to staff@.., I have contacted various editors -- not so much as even a reply. It's actually a disgrace - what started out as something great has become TOO CORRUPT!!
Lets face it dmoz is a great resource but slowly its being ruined by SELF INTEREST.
HOW CAN WE STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING?? WHO WILL LISTEN??
I remember last summer a guy went on a huge rant in 4 different forums, usenet, and one mailling list about why his site wasn't listed. We finally got the guys url out of him. This site, that he claimed was "his crowning achievement in his web career" was an affiliate site not fit for bird cage liner. He was absolutely convinced that his site belonged in the ODP.
The travel categories at the ODP are booked up and overflowing. Sorting out the thousands upon thousands of junk travel sites from the gems would be a tall order and obviously a thankless one.
It is in their own interest to list high-quality sites.
Contact some of the higher-level editors, be brief and polite in explaining your problem. If your site is good, it will eventually be listed. Just be patient and persistent.
You can also try to get listed in some other, related category if you suspect the editor is trying to keep out competition.
My sites have been accepted by Yahoo, looksmart and have received high recommendations from lycos.co.uk.
None of them are affilliate sites and all of them have unique content.
If your site worked without JS it may help with ODP.
I've found that the more cluttered categories just take time and persistance. Continue building and improving your site, keep track of your submissions and pound away until you get them in. Double check the category you're submitting to as well. It may seem to you that it fits your site just right but the editor may disagree.(speaking from personal experience)
Yahoo changed my URLs in three weeks (I just used Yahoo's update form); nearly three months later, I'm still waiting for a response from the ODP.
The statement earlier in this thread that the travel categories are "booked up and overflowing" and "sorting out the thousands upon thousands of junk travel sites from the gems would be a tall order and obviously a thankless one" is a disturbing because it suggests that the ODP has basically shut the door on new submissions--and maybe on updates, too, to judge from my experience. A static directory is a dead directory, and the ODP will have outlived its usefulness if its editors take the position that "enough is enough"--or if they fail to update URLs where appropriate and cull sites that no longer exist.
I've also noticed that some of the descriptions in the ODP's travel categories read as if they'd been written by the submitters' PR agencies. The description of one major booking site begins: "Provides customers with access to the broadest choice of air fares and some of the lowest prices for flights, hotels, and rental cars." When I first read that, I almost wondered if the ODP had begun taking paid listings. :-)
I realize that quality is hard to maintain when categories lack editors. But the ODP seems to be lax about processing editor applications, too. I submitted an application for one of the vacant European travel categories quite a while ago (I think it was back in November), got the e-mail confirmation message, and never heard anything after that.
ODP is like a very envious club to be listed in. You don’t pay for the honor but the benefits, once granted, are tremendous. The more competitive the category – the tougher the road. I was editing every day for nearly a year and then real life started knocking and I had to cut back. What I did was drop all the business categories I couldn’t keep up with and kept the less stressful, more hobby site categories, museums and my region. Not every editor is willing to do that, if time gets away and they can’t keep up.
I took yesterday off to edit and spent well over 8 hours to edit about 100 sites. When I sit back and think of all the folks I may have helped because of my efforts I feel good. That’s my reward. A year ago they were business marketing companies and now they are hobby farms with coop cams.
My business site has a regional listing but I can’t get into the main category yet because there are over 3500 unreviewed for that category. I tell you if I ever do get listed I think I’ll open a bottle of bubbly and do the ODP jig.
Ask any editor why they do it and you’ll get another story. There is no solution to the problem but to jump in and help. Start with your region. Help build your own community. Get to know the real workings of ODP, the good and the bad. After the chaos and stress of the business categories I feel really good with my region and with the hobby sites and museums. It is certainly nice not to get those, “Why haven’t you listed my site?” letters!
Does this post help you or anyone else for that matter? Probably not. Why post then? Maybe to pat on the back all the volunteers who do put in hours at ODP that they don’t need to.
Left in the category that I was in, are a bunch of affiliate sites with no content.
My websites mainly sell hotel accommodation and tours, but while coming up with the concept I decided that if I back this up with COMPREHENSIVE city guide info then I will stand out from the rest - and I do.
So instead of one of my websites taking a relatively short period to put toegether, it now takes a great deal of time for research and editorials( all of which have no commercial value but rather helpful info for those wanting to visit a particular destination.)
It was my beleief that if I went this route - I would stand a far greater chance of getting my sites listed in most of the directories.
The next thing I’m going to talk about may be considered a commercial so either go take a break or brace your self for the ride.
Now how do I start hmmmmm…………..
Ok, here goes!
More editors would solve this problem of high number of sites that are waiting to be reviewed. More editors that are truly interested in the directory as a whole, that is, not just interested in their own sites. Now with that off my chest let me say this. I do not recommend you becoming an editor of a category you are affiliated with in anyway. Why you ask? I have found that if someone applies for a category they are affiliated with they tend to land themselves in trouble real fast. But if they’re an editor for a while, work hard at it and learn what is correct way to do things and what is not they’ll be less apt to get in trouble later on down the road. Once you have become an editor and have learned the ropes then you could move up and on into other categories (including ones that you may be affiliated with). Just don’t become an editor to just help your own sites out. It just doesn’t help the directory as a whole.
So if you are interested in becoming an editor and are not concerned in self-promotion but are seriously interested in helping out the directory then you may be a likely candidate to be an editor. I’ll help anyone willing to become one. My credentials are these. I have never been rejected for a category, not when I first became an editor or since I’ve been one (so I have a pretty good idea what is required, at least at my level). I have mentored five other people through the start of the process, and then something happened with each of them and they didn’t finish. Three of them had just a general interest in becoming an editor for no real reason (at least this is where we stood as of the last correspondence). All three of them gave up interest before they ever filled out the application. Another one had an interest in a category that had their site already listed in (it was a big category 100 plus sites). I suggested that he apply for a category that he wouldn’t be affiliated with to start off and then once he had some experience he could apply for the bigger category. He said he would try to get the time to do it but nothing ever happened (probably lost interest). The last person I worked with was unique but still didn’t make it. He first clamed he wanted to become an editor of a category that was related to a hobby of his (seemed real enthusiastic). Ended up he actually was interested in getting deeplinks of his companies sites listed (if he would of became an editor and did what he was planning to do he would of been caught real fast and all their sites would have been removed and a ton of other things he wasn’t interested in happening would of happened.
I have said all this to show that I’ll work with anybody that would like to become an editor. The problem is in the long run both of us had wasted a lot of time (not all of it was wasted, I made friends). Anyone wanting to become an editor has to understand it is work, hard work, work that a lot of people aren’t up to. [URL removed]
And for those of you that stuck this out and read my boring post and are not interested in becoming an editor or you are (either way) send me an e-mail with the URL’s you are having trouble with, date of submission, category submitted to and anything else you may know about them and I’ll see if I can help you out (I don’t guarantee anything happening but I will look in to it).
It's also possible that your second listing was deemed to be not necessary based on your first listing.
Thirdly, if your second listing was listed exactly the way you wrote it, then it was probably listed by an editor who wasn't doing a very good job and the listing has been subsequently re-evaluated. It isn't ODP's intent to publish advertisements for websites but rather to write descriptions that are helpful to the end user.
Now that is funny :)
I'd have to agree, although I did very recently get a site in (after waiting 2 years). I also know for a fact that several of the more sought after UK categories are edited by people who are purely interested in keeping the competition out, and themselves in. It is a shame.
Everytime I have sent e-mails to dmoz editors/staff I have gotten e-mails back. :)~
When I was an editor the senior editor blasted each of my additons without an explanation.
Needless to say after dozens of reviews I resigned.
Now I will say this was about two years ago and hopefully things have changed.
I had more trouble with Looksmart: sometimes I had the impression that Looksmart editors were involved in their directory field; I had to write and complain to staff to have my description revised.
Another good point to DMOZ is that it is not so important the description you can get: it is important that you are there.
If you actually have some evidence about this, please do email a meta editor with full details of these issues. The lifespan of abusive editors in ODP is generally very short, and you may found yourself doing a favour both to honest webmasters and to the ODP community.
>>DMOZ's needs a mentor program.
Actually, we have several mentors programs. And yes, two years ago it was quite different :)
>>we just passed 1 million sites waiting to be reviewed! Yes 1 million!
I don't know where you got these figures, but I beg to differ. The total number of unreviewed sites is far less than that. Sure there are thousands of sites still sitting in the queue, and unfortunately, many good sites are buried in the backlog due to the great number of duplicate/improper submissions, mirrors, doorways, and every other kind of SPAM you can think of. And this is the real problem editors have to face every day.
Ever heard of democracy and freedom of speach?
I spend hours writing to ensure that my application is correct, but when i just miss out one field, or my nick doesn't meet some citeria, I get a error page, and when it reloads everything is gone.. :(
Anyway I'm in Zeal now (and turning things upside down with the help of high level editors), I wonder if it's a conflict of interest to be in ODP has well..
I spend hours writing to ensure that my application is correct, but when i just miss out one field, or my nick doesn't meet some citeria, I get a error page, and when it reloads everything is gone.. :(
Anyway I'm in Zeal now (and turning things upside down with the help of high level editors), I wonder if it's a conflict of interest to be in ODP has well..
Yes I noticed :)
Dazz
I beg to disagree :) The number of active editors is correct.
So we do agree! :)
