Having trouble getting listed in Dmoz - any advice?

[Krapulator]

I am having trouble getting listed in DMOZ. Our competitor (who resells our service) has heaps and heaps of different sites in dmoz (different domain names, same content), yet when I submit our sites to Dmoz in the same catagories, they never get picked up. I have a suspicion that our competitor is the editor for the catagory (a particular region in australia), and this is why none of our sites ever get added. Does Dmoz have some sort of system in place to keep their editors honest?

[Nick_W]

Why not try contacting one of the metas at a higer level in the tree?

I'd tone down the accusational phrasing when writing to them though ;)

Nick

[fathom]

totally agree with Nick here.

There may be many different reasons that your site hasn't been added.

In the defence of DMOZ (and any particular editor), 33% of these reasons could be your fault.

(something as simple as -- mis-reporting your domain -- e.g. typo).

It is best not to indicate mis-givens (about an editor) and let the Meta determine a cause for themselves, since a wrong accussation might make matters worst.

[cornwall]

Why not try contacting one of the metas at a higer level in the tree?

This is undoubtedly the way to go about it. I think you will find the metas that use these Webmasterworld forums fair in examining your complaint as long as you make a strong factual complaint and do not indulge in a general attack on the system

I would suggest that you go further than the general thoughts that an editor may be corrupt. You need facts.

Go to the categories that concern you and go through all the sites. Be suspicious of deep links. You can get the whole list by searching in DMOZ for "mysite.com" which will (should) give you a list of all indexed references to that site.

Then go to "whois" or whatever clone you use and find the registered owner of those "suspicious" sites. Note particularly any sites that have the same owner and a lot of deep links.

See in addition what you can find out about all the suspect editors, look at their bio in DMOZ, their bookmarks, any contributions to forums, etc that they have made. See if and how you can link them to the suspect sites

I have had problems in Australia, but have never got round to doing the full Monty on the editors there.

If you sticky me the categories in DMOZ that concern you, I will look at the situation and let you know what I think.

[engine]

Krapulator, welcome to WebmasterWorld.

There are some good people around here that will help you.
Please stick to the facts and avoid accusational talk.

Thanks and I hope you get this sorted.

[Tony_Perry]

I recently had a similar problem with DMOZ and finaly resolved it by going to their forum. As already stated here by others you MUST tone down your language if you are to succeed and get anywhere!

Most editors are very helpful and will do all they can to help you. Be prepared for a lenghy discussion, and dont take no for an answer!

Tony Perry

[choster]

Community management is in the hands of about 100 or so meta-editors. All are volunteers who "worked their way up the ranks" over the years, and all take the project and their responsibilities [dmoz.org] very seriously-- including investigations of abuse and the subsequent discipline or expulsion of editors in contravention of the editorial guidelines [dmoz.org].

If you believe an editor is committing abuse (including any suspicious meta- or editall editors), please assemble examples and submit them. Even if the meta you contact is unable to assist, he or she will be able to enter the report into the internal abuse tracking system and/or pass it on to someone who specializes in the affected branch of the directory.

The list of editors with super-edit privileges [dmoz.org] is publicly available though not easy to find. The meta-editors are those who have a meta flag next to their editor names but not root (these are Netscape staff members, some whose root status is essentially honorary and who have little or no interaction with the day-to-day operations of the project-- please do not hassle them!). Unfortunately, the links on that page point to editor-side profiles, but you can send e-mail to any editor through their public profile, found by browsing to [dmoz.org...] (for example, [dmoz.org...] ).

[rogerd]

Krapulator, while editorial bias is certainly possible, big backlogs and long delays are often a fact of life at DMOZ. Are other sites being added to the category? Working up the tree in that topic would be a good start. Researching the spam sites would be a good next step, too, so you have a coherent and detailed story to tell if you reach that point.

[Krapulator]

Thank you for all of your reply's. My language might have come across a little more accusing than what I intended. It is just frustration at seeing my competitor having loads of spam sites in Dmoz and not being able to get a single one of my legit sites in. I will follow the courses of action reccommended here and will let you know how I go.

Thanks again!