Forum Moderators: open
submitting pages to Dmoz [webmasterworld.com]
how many pages are enough to submit?
The submission guidelines at dmoz.org/add.html mention submitting your site to the single best category.
I am guessing here, but it could be highly likely that they did not do this - its more likely that these were added to the sub-categories by the editor as they added value to the category.
True, but IMDB is one of the sites that we make an exception for, since it's considered a high qulity site. It's been agreed for certain sites that we can do this.
First, ImDB is indeed a special case; second, editors have different and less restrictive rules than submitters; third, the current feeling in the editorial community is that movie review sites are currently deeplinked more than they should be, and hundreds of links are in the process of being removed.
I would certainly not recommend that you do that yourself, since that might lead to a tag (notes informing the editors about agressive submitting) on your site.
Editors may list a site more than once if the site really warrants it.
The submitter should not suggest such a thing themselves though.
Generally, they are:
"Site Title - Specific Category", similar to the format of the IMDB links.
In regards to submitting multiple sublinked pages, there is nothing wrong with that as long as the same editor does not find a large percentage of your submitted sites as being useless (hence categorizing yourself as a spammer)
If you feel each individual sub-site of your site provides unique and important information for that specific category, submit it. If you are trying to do it simply to gain pagerank and traffic, it is very possible that an editor (or editors) will see this as your effort and try to punish you. Even if it IS valid content, it is possible you will be blacklisted.
Its all about the risk factor. If you submit 10 subsites, you likely won't have a problem. If a meta editor sees 450 submissions in one day and makes that connection, it is very possible they will conclude you are a spammer (whether you are or not)
And remember, there are residual notes on every site in DMOZ. What I mean is... if you get blacklisted, the editor that does it will say why in a note. This will remain there for years, attached to your site. Since there are hundreds of sites waiting to be added that do not have a scar on their record, don't expect to be added soon.
What I'm trying to say is empathize with the one editor that will see all the stuff you submit and make it look like you are simply trying to share beautiful holy information with the rest of the world and have no evil diabolical plan to make money. If you can achieve this and submit hundreds of subsites, cool. If not, don't do it. Find a middle ground.
Submit the site once, just like the submittal policy states. And get (and TAKE!) advice from editors before submitting more.
The rules are changing, the old sites are being cleaned up, and it is not to your advantage to be in the position of being part of what needs to be cleaned up, without ever having had a chance to get dirty in public.
I had someone like that who though it was great to submit each page for a person within her site. I had to waste a lot of time sending email to try to get her to stop doing at, and now she's tagged as an offender, which means that any changes or anything related to that site will be gone over with a fine toothed comb.
Not all people who are editors in DMOZ seem to know the rules.
Deeplinks are tricky. In most cases they're inappropriate, but in some they're valuable. If your site is commercial, it's probably a good rule of thumb to forget about the idea completely. If your site is educational and you have lots of good information about more than one subject, we might be happy to list deeplinks from your site, but it's a judgment we're going to need to make for ourselves. If you're only talking about one deeplink on a radically different topic, like for example the site about your SEO business also is where you've stored several articles about marine biology you co-authored in grad school, then it's probably OK to submit the deeplink yourself. If you're talking about more than one deeplink, *please* ask before wasting lots of your and our time on it.
This is all my personal advice, of course, not an official statement of any sort.
The directory, however, is filled with contradictions to many of these "rules". This is why asking about submitting deep linking won't give you a direct answer... you have obviously learned that it is not looked upon as a good idea, but is achievable if you approach it in a method that avoids you being categorized as a spammer.
In the end, it is up to the editor, and nothing you can say or do can make anyone add your site(s) to the directory. Avoid pissing the editor off and get all the sub-sites you can listed.
I assume that this type of deep linking is appropriate. I also bet that they never submitted the links and the editor made a choice to add the links (the articles/site is really that good).
The reason for all the vagueness surrounding the deeplink issue is that the question which is being asked is vague: "Can a site have its subdomains listed?" Well... it depends what site, what the depth of content is, and what part of the directory we're talking about. We explicitly *don't* link to specific product or product line pages, for example. There are almost no circumstances under which a shopping, business, or other commercial site is going to merit a deeplink. We're also not going to list your Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode summaries, forum, photos, fanfiction archive, and paean to each actor on the show separately--that all would get one Buffy the Vampire Slayer listing--but if you had that much information about Buffy the Vampire Slayer AND Smallville, then you might get two listings, one in the category of each of those shows. It's variable because websites are variable. There is never likely to be a hard and fast rule about deeplinking or double-listing a site, other than the one we currently have--which is that editors will make the decision to deeplink or multiply list when they review the site, and submitters shouldn't cause headaches for everyone by submitting all their subpages willy-nilly.
If in doubt, ask on our forum. With your specific URL in hand, we can give you a much better idea as to whether an additional submission would be valuable; we can even handle it ourselves. Or you could email the editor of your category, too. (If I was editing the Buffy category, for example, and a webmaster emailed me to let me know they had a huge new section about Smallville, I might well forward a copy of it to the Smallville editor.) But please *don't* gum up the works with unsolicited mass submissions. At best it contributes to the slow review times webmasters dislike; at worst, it can get you a bad reputation with aggravated editors.
[edited by: skibum at 12:02 am (utc) on April 25, 2004]
[edit reason] Please take up personal matters elsewhere. [/edit]
Not everybody knows about the forum. From a user's perspective, submission requests can appear to drop into a black hole. If their site desn't appear in the directory they don't know whether to continue waiting or to resubmit.
With due respect, a simple standard email would be helpful. Stating that the submission had been dealt with and advising the user to use the forum for any queries.
You mutant offshoot of toxic cyanobacteria, who rotted and left you with delusions of being Arbiter Elegantiae for any sentient being?
[edited by: hutcheson at 5:16 pm (utc) on April 24, 2004]
Not everybody knows about the help desk at work, either--this still doesn't obligate me to field their calls at my home during the evening. Read our guidelines page, which links to the forum; search Google for "ODP forum"; come to WebmasterWorld and ask if there is such a place; but don't presumptuously demand I answer email from submitters (people I wasn't even hired on to assist in the first place!) during my leisure time.
Every time I think I've lost the ability to be surprised by the ingrained belief people have that the world and everyone in it owes them free servitude, someone says something to surprise me all over again. I hear the exact same thing at the non-profit I volunteer for in real life: You're a volunteer, therefore you must exist to do free research for *me*, so get to it immediately. Where on earth do people get the idea that if I'm doing *anything* to help *anyone* without being paid for it, it's somehow uppity of me not to drop everything to do *their* work for free too? 'Volunteer'!= 'slave.' In fact, even 'slave'!= 'YOUR slave.' :/
I did not 'presumptuously demand'. I merely made a suggestion.
Maybe I'm getting too old... Courtesy has left the building.
Courteous people have no such problem. They merely read and follow the submittal policies.
Submit.
If nothing shows within a few weeks, then submit again.
That's simple. That's courteous. That tells anyone when to continue waiting and when to resubmit. The new policies, I believe, mention how you can ask for more, if you wish. If everybody followed those few, simple, clear instructions, there wouldn't be a backlog. But some jerks (and to be fair to submitters, a fairly small percentage of them act this way).
The policy isn't set up as a test of basic courtesy -- however well it works for that. It is not even set up as a test to wade out the insufficiently importunate marketroids, in order to make it easier for us to spot and reward the most pestilential ones, although there are many who act as if that were the goal.
It's set up because that is the most effective way of submitting a site. It allows the editors to focus on reviewing sites, while getting the greatest benefit from people who want to help by suggesting appropriate sites. And, frankly, the policy never should have been needed, because the procedure it suggests is basic learned-in-kindergarten courtesy: Make an offer. Give the person time to respond, then offer again, just in case the first one was overlooked in the tumult. And then go bug someone else.
But there's always the playground bully that "asks" over and over again "play with me." When the FBI comes after him for stalking, he whines "but I only asked ... all I wanted ..."
Exactly. "All you wanted." So ask. Once. Then again. After that it's not "asking", it's "stalking." And the criminal code doesn't have a section for "polite stalking" as opposed to the other kind.
What do they teach in kindergarten these days?
I suppose all of this highlights the subjective and culturally bound notion of courtesy. I suspect, though, that there is no country, culture, or time period in which it is truly considered equally impolite not to respond to demands from strangers as to "flame" people. There are some countries/cultures/time periods in which one class of people was expected to respond to all demands from a different class of strangers, of course. But I don't live in such a society, thankfully, and do not belong to a servile caste. And I don't owe strangers who try to order me around on email the time of day.
Expect courtesy when the person in question has something to lose by being un-courteous. Editors in the ODP have no such fear.
I highly recommend you browse the status request etc. site that these editors speak of and get a feel for the attitudes you will be dealing with. I'm sure you will figure out a diplomatic way to get what you want.
I just went over to that place for a browse. I presume you are refering to the 75% of posts on the first page in which the poster was wasting the editors time by not formating requests properly? .... hmmmm....
And they (the requesters) have the nerve to complain about being told that, like their intelligence is being insulted - yeah - right.
Or when told to wait a month between requests - they say, yes but I need to know right away.
I think the replies are pretty restrained, based on the other forums I hang out in. Most places, they'd get flamed to cinders.
Take a look at what happens to those that post a straight properly formatted request - they get a nice prompt answer.
A majority of the status requests are formatted correctly (or adequately) and even those are received with rude, conceited and insulting attitudes from a majority of the editors.
Editors should cease volunteering and focus on enriching their own lives the moment they lose the ability to be courteous.
I know I will.
It was no exaggeration - when I checked prior to posting that message it was that bad. If I recall correctly, the first five of six on the page at that time were not formated correctly (I was astounded at that!) --- I do agree that at other times there are more that were correctly formated.
