What's the real deal with Zeal

[PFOnline]

Hey all, just wondering if anyone can shed some light on Zeal...

I signed up and what not, took the member quiz and zealot quiz and (finally) passed both, and submitted 4 sites, (all my own) but none have shown up in the directory yet.

Will they ever? How does that work? Do I need to contact somebody or something?

Thanks ;)

[jeremy goodrich]

If you read through their site :) you'll note that a Zealot has to approve the URL's for submission, and the Zealot's are people with +75 posts, which can edit most categories ( I think ).

Be patient, I've had 1 take about 6 weeks to get listed there. :) However, that same site is still in the DMOZ queue, and now that's been about 2 months.

In time, if you're sites are worthy, you'll get the links. Be patient, work on your site, or perhaps try to accumulate more points there in Zeal - and that way, you might be able to appove them yourself. :)

[PFOnline]

That sums it up, thanks jeremy. ;)

LOVE the fast replies to all internet and webmaster related questions here.

[edited by: PFOnline at 5:19 am (utc) on Mar. 9, 2003]

[PFOnline]

Nevermind "Google Answers" just come here! Free of charge, and faster! :)

[sctsai]

In my expericence most Zeal submissions take a few days to a week to be rejected or accepted. The editors allow a 1 week waiting period before reviewing a site profile to all the Zealots a chance to do it. I'm a bit biased toward Zeal considering I am a Zealot.

[rfgdxm1]

The typical delay is 1-2 weeks, but if there is an active Zealot in that are often quicker. As sctsai says, the Looksmart editors usually wait about the week hoping some Zealot will review it. Obvious Looksmart would prefer the unpaid volunteers to do it rather than paid staff.

[arc_light]

Most submissions there seem to get looked at in 1-2 weeks and started showing up in MSN/Looksmart a couple days after that (if they're accepted). A nice change from DMOZ where it's been 2+ months and I'm still waiting...

[Rhadamanthus]

I actually just got the e-mail saying my site had been accepted by Zeal a few minutes ago. I submitted about 3 weeks ago, so I consider that turnaround to be very acceptable (based on what I'd been led to expect). Although, I wasn't added to exactly the category I submitted in. I got added to a sub-category instead. I truly believe my original choice was more appropriate, but I won't complain too loud because I think the error may actually work out in my favor in the long run... :)

Now if the ODP guys would just hurry up... :)

[etoile]

I'm hoping somebody can answer this question too. I signed up with Zeal a long time ago, back when they had something that involved charities. You used to be able to donate the money you made editing direct to charities. I was already involved with ODP at the time and continued to devote my attentions to that. When I recently went to take a peek at Zeal, I found that's all been demolished. My login was intact, but the entire structure (and motivation) of the site has changed. Can anybody explain?

[arc_light]

Zeal got bought by Looksmart and they're now the same directory (so Zeal listings now get distributed on LS and MSN). They changed some of their policies after the purchase so that's probably what you're seeing...

[dwilson]

My experience with Zeal is that the sites I've submitted have been added w/in a couple of days. But I was probably submitting to categories with more zealous zealots ... as well as not a whole lot of traffic.

The Zeal submissions have resulted in significantly more traffic for some parts of my site.

[skibum]

sometimes Zeal totally rocks! This was a good week:)

Anyway they got bought by LS, dumped the commercial listings, setup the editor tests and now just accept "non-commercial" listings and like someone else said, the listings now show up in MSN.

[PFOnline]

Well, just got the email that my site was accepted into Zeal today! YAY! :) It took about 2 weeks or so for them to accept it.

My question is, can I expect any real jump in traffic from this listing? Can maybe someone that got accepted into zeal tell how much it helped and in what ways?

Thanks!
A very happy PFOnline ;)

[skibum]

Just depends if you've done your homework prior to submitting. Are the keywords in the title, the description, how many listings are already there for the target keywords? Have the MSN or LookSmart editors (or whoever does it) put their partners or other sites in the top spots?

You can usually tell this because those listings often don't have any of the keywords they turn up for in the title or description.

[arc_light]

I've seen a big jump in my traffic from MSN - and I basically didn't have any before. I'd definitely research keywords beforehand to get an idea of what the best combinations are. (Overture's got a free tool that comes in real handy for this - sticky me if you want the link.)

[tombot]

I recently submitted two sites to two unrelated categories and both were listed within one day. I wouldn't call these high traffic categories though, so maybe that has something to do with it.

[rfgdxm1]

I always had my submissions approved within a few days. May be longer of late, I dunno. It so turns out that even though I am Zealot of a fairly large cat space, rarely is anything submitted there. In fact, in the last hour I just reviewed a site as a Zealot, and I can't even remember the last time I did that. And, it was a submission from so newbie who signed up just to try and sneak a commercial site in hoping to get a click through editor. :( I quickly whacked that one. In terms of active Zealots, as opposed to those who just show up to submit their own sites, I'd suspect there are well less than 1,000. However, the Looksmart editors do fairly promptly review anything the Zealots don't. Thus, there is no such thing as queues months or years long like at the ODP.

[sweditor]

Here's my experience with Zeal.

My first 2 submissions were approved in about a week. My site descriptions were edited and I got a stiff coaching on 2 aspects (let's call them A and B) of writing descriptions.

My 3rd submission was also approved in about a week by another Zealot. I had the same style description (for a different site) as one of the first 2 submissions, hence the 2 aspects I got coached on were still issues (in my mind). But only one of the aspects, A, was worked into the edits this time. B was interpreted differently.

My 4th submission was approved by another Zealot in half a day! I received edits on aspect B this time but aspect A was interpreted differently.

Zeal has very rigorous rules for writing descriptions which I admire, in spite of some differences in interpretation. But the Zealots are a good lot of people (some in particular give encouraging remarks in their reply) and I really commend them for doing a great job.

[reneewood]

Can we begin with the basics on this subject again? If I want my site to be considered by Zeal, what is my first step (for a commercial site)? Must I pay to be included or can I somewhere submit my site for consideration by a Zealot? If so, where would that be? I did take the member quiz, so I can suggest non-commercial sites. I just don't understand where to go from here. Do I put a post on the message board and hope an editor (zealot) picks it up?

[div01]

reneewood,

You could submit your site to the most relevant Zeal category. If it is commercial in nature, it will be rejected - you'll probably get a generic response asking you to pay if you want it included. If the category where you site belongs is marked "Commercial", then you can only get in by paying.

[reneewood]

I submitted a non-commercial page of my commercial site and had it approved after two days. Is there any significance to this? What are the advantages of being listed in this directory? I know this is very basic.
Thanks.

[steveb]

The directory provides the results for the MSN search engine. MSN is the only real player out there besides Google and the Google-clones now. They offer a lot of traffic.

[rfgdxm1]

>I submitted a non-commercial page of my commercial site and had it approved after two days. Is there any significance to this? What are the advantages of being listed in this directory? I know this is very basic.

Non-commercial sections of commercial sites may qualify for approval. Depends on a lot of factors, including how good of a mood the reviewing Zealot/editor is in at that moment. ;) If your Zeal listing results in high MSN rankings for key search terms, a Zeal listing can be extremely valuable. Much more than an ODP listing if it gets you to the top on MSN, which is a *big* player, as steveb already pointed out.

[tombot]

Any ideas on how long it takes before traffic starts coming from MSN after your site is listed in Zeal?

[rfgdxm1]

For Zeal, it usually propagates to MSN with a few days to a week.

[sweditor]

My own experience is that the propagation from Zeal to MSN takes about 48 hours. I find the overall Zeal process is more deterministic than that at the ODP.

[tombot]

Weird. I'm getting almost no traffic from MSN and I have been in Zeal for nearly a month now.

[rfgdxm1]

>Weird. I'm getting almost no traffic from MSN and I have been in Zeal for nearly a month now.

Check how well you do at MSN for keywords people searching for your site would use. Because of the title/description entered in Zeal you may be coming up very low. Particularly if the keywords people would use who are interested in your site are very competitive.

[tombot]

Ok, thanks rfgdxm1.