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navdeep
The simple fact is that submitting to dmoz can take more than a year.
True - but so is this:
The simple fact is that submitting to dmoz can also take less than a day.
but nobody ever complains when that happens :o
And it can take even less than a day.
Editors regularly add sites that have not been suggested via the "suggest url" button.
In fact, for many editors, the sugeestion pool is of such low quality, that actively avoiding it is the best way of making productive use of their editing time.
Sad but true. Spammers have made suggesting URLs to the OPD a very low-grade path to inclusion,
The simple fact is that submitting to dmoz can also take less than a day.
Hmmm, I can't remember the last time someone came on here to post that they were accepted in a day. "Can also take less than a day" does not mean that it ever happens.
And I don't buy that argument about why don't you apply to become an editor. First, just because I want one site listed in DMOZ I don't have to make DMOZ my non-profit contribution to the world! Given my skills subset the limited time I have for non-profit work is more productive when deployed elsewhere. And it is. Secondly, when I did have the time to do some DMOZ editing I did apply and heard nothing from them. All those hours of reading through guidelines, finding appropriate sites, filling in their form etc, checking and double checking my grammar and spelling... all to no avail.
It's a broken system and I do wish Google et al will drop it altogether. But that's another story.
For the moment it seems Navdeep has no choice than to wait till/if his site gets listed. As wisely advised earlier: Don't hold your breath.
"Can also take less than a day" does not mean that it ever happens.
The last few days, I have been cleaning some cats.
When I logged on today, there were 3 or 4 suggestion waiting in those.
Since I liked the clean look of 0 suggestions in there, I evaluated them all.
So there you are, just today, 4 sites were evaluated on the same day of their suggestion!
It happens all the time.
C'mon, you've got to admit that is the very, very rare exception that proves the rule.
Are you the same Yapuka who posts in RZ under that name? Keep up the good work!
If there are any submissions I do them rught away or if I am busy I may postpone them for a day or two. If someone submits on a Thursday or Friday then there is actually every chance that I will get to them within 24 hours.
Recently I had cause to submit a site to a different category and it was accepted within two weeks. I made no approach to the editor of the other category so the fact that I myself am an editor made no difference to this. Contrary to popular belief and unless I am mistaken I can get no advantage in other categories through being an editor. (If anyone knows any shortcuts please sticky me :o)
I agree that there are some people who have to wait too long for submission and who create a fuss about this. There are many more who get accepted in jig time. You could call them the silent majority!
Well, why would anyone come on Webmaster World to post about that. I mean, if that happened to them they wouldn't have a question, right? :-D It would be an odd and rather rude individual who looked for online help boards whenever something good happened so he could gloat about it. (-:
My personal suspicion is that the same-day listings, of which I've also published some, tend to happen in the less-heavily-spammed sections of the directory, whereas the webmasters and SEO's who post to boards like this one tend to be more interested in the very competitive commercial areas which attract the most spam. So it may be true that most people who post on here have to wait a long time for a listing. You can speed your process up a lot by making sure you submit to the correct category. I'm always stunned to see how many people don't bother to sort their submission under the correct letter of the alphabet in categories that have alphabetical subcategories (the category I'm going through now has scores of moldy two-year-old submissions in it because the submitters didn't take twenty seconds to do this); how many people hope their site might get a listing with better PR if they send it to some high-level category it doesn't belong in and instead it sits there and rots for years while editors deal with properly submitted sites; how many people don't bother to put their regional submission in the town their business is actually located in because they think not enough people have heard of their own town so they try to get it into the category of the closest big city, so it has to wait in line twice before being considered for the proper place...
Well, why would anyone come on Webmaster World to post about that
I'm always stunned to see how many people don't bother to sort their submission under the correct letter of the alphabet
You can speed your process up a lot by making sure you submit to the correct category.
Sorry guys, I'm sure that some of you editors work faster than others, that some less popular I've-discovered-a-cold-fusion-energy-source categories get looked at more than once every century... but I've got carefully submitted cases in far from "heavily spammed" sections that have been waiting for yonks. And they aren't even spammy sites. They've now got several PR6 pages because of links from other authority sites. But it's still annoying that a broken ODP gets so much of importance with Google et al.
And the vast majority of worthy (from the ODP criteria), properly submitted, non-spam sites - even in niche, non-popular categories, don't get listed in a day... or a week.... or a month... or several blue moons!
Here's how I work: I have some pet categories, that I visit every day, in which most of the sites were never suggested. Then there are whole areas of the directory in which I have a definite interest (I'm an editall), that I visit regularly (from once a month to twice a year). Those can be quite spammy. And then there's the whole rest, where I only do quality assurance work and spot checks.
The 4 evaluations I mentionned above were in cats I visit about twice a year: those guys were lucky!
I routinely approve sites the same day, If the timing works out, they can be done in less than an hour. If I go into a category to work on it, and someone happens to have just submitted, then it's easy.
The problem is nobody ever complains they got reviewed too fast. Except for the ones that submit sites under construction. They get deleted the same day they submitted.
In the smallish category I edit, no site waits more than 12 hrs for acceptance or rejection - I check in 2x a day.
I guess those that get listed will never post. I guess those that get rejected might still be wondering after a few years why they are waiting so long to get listed :-)
Just out of curiosity, how do you know the categories aren't heavily spammed?
I mean, you'd be really surprised. The Literature tree just gets *hammered*. There are more spam submissions there than in the Shopping corner I oversee (though the Shopping spammers are sneakier about it and those submissions do take more time to sort through). Everyone thinks he's a writer, and wants to submit every individual poem from his 250-page Geocities site somewhere in Arts/Literature to prove it. :-D
Anyway, all I can tell you is that the only times *I've* ever encountered site suggestions that were submitted more than a year ago, they were A) sitting in a heavily-spammed pool of at least a hundred submissions, B) originally submitted to an inappropriately high-level category, the wrong city, and/or the wrong language and had to be re-sorted down to the right level by other editors at least once, C) nonfunctional for certain browsers or relied on unskippable flash animations so that at least one editor couldn't review them, or D) all of the above. Other submissions seem to process pretty quickly. I've left submissions in the queue for a few days meaning to come back to them later and by the time I got back, found that another editor had already reviewed them.
Of course, it's not a submitter's fault that the category his site belongs in has 250 submissions already waiting of which 75% are garbage. I sympathize with how frustrating that must be to the proud webmaster of a site that simply happens to be about a spam-magnet of a topic.
Mine aren't in those two but in cats like those.
From request to completion - 3.5 hours
cbpayne, it's possible that those who don't get listed are a bit more likely to post. The corollary is that those cat eds who do 2x a day and don't have any sites waiting for ages are more likely to post than other cat eds :)
And the vast majority of worthy (from the ODP criteria), properly submitted, non-spam sites - even in niche, non-popular categories, don't get listed in a day... or a week.... or a month... or several blue moons!
Macro where do you get your statistics? Can you let me see some evidence that the vast majority of submissions don't get listed in a reasonable amount of time?
Many of these sites are not in a queue, they are in the trash can. There is a rule that we editors should basically not write to submitters. I personally think that this should be relaxed to allow us to make a standard reply to those who have submitted crappy site telling them that their site has not been accepted. This in itself would help to eliminate many of the complaints from people who think that they are on a waiting list.
Flicker made the point that the people who complain are often in categories that are highly competitive (read busy). It is also a fact that many of them complain when they have submitted sites that look as though they have been designed by primary school kids during their morning play time!
A site does not have to be cutting edge for it to be included in the Open Directory but it should add value to the directory. Heres a quote ...
In general, ODP editors should enter sites that represent the following:Original, unique and valuable informational content that contributes something unique to the category's subject.
Contrasting points of view on major issues. The ODP attempts to cover the full breadth and depth of human knowledge, representing all topics and points of view on those topics.
The ODP not accept affiliate schemes or other such portals that add no value (even if Google thinks these merit top positions!). Those of you who make these complaints should perhaps have a closer, more objective, look at what you are submitting. If you submit sites that don't add value you must accept that they probably won't get listed.
It's good to hear that sites submitted to some categories get immediate attention and that some editors have more time than others and put in more effort on their categories. You have my applause! But what appears to be the problem is that this isn't consistent across the board. If somone happens to submit to a category that gets a lot of spam (how are we supposed to know this?) then we have to wait longer for results.
I submitted a request about a month ago through the normal channels to have the URL changed to a site that was already in ODP that had recently gotten it's own domain and thus a new URL and site name and after waiting several weeks finally wrote the editor of that category to see if she/he had gotten the request yet and it was taken care of within an hour--so, yes I do see immediate results--IF I write to the editor--which we are told **NOT** to do in the instructions.
SUBMITTING TO THE WRONG CATEGORY:
And all those people (except for spammers) who submit to the wrong category--do you think they did it intentionally so they would have an excuse to complain? No. They are more than likely ignorant of that fact. If you took the time too look at the data and realized it was in the wrong category why isn't there a rule in place so you can quickly write the author and let them know of their error so you don't have to deal with this issue again later? It is a well known good business practice to handle one piece of data only once so to let it linger in your files so you have to deal with it again later seems like a waste of valuable space and time because of someone's assumed ignorance.
What an editor of ODP knows of categories is not necessarily the same as what someone who may only submit a few sites per year--so you guys (or the ODP rules) are assuming something that is not necessarily true.
After the continual efforts to submit sites last year when ODP was having problems with it's software I mistakenly submitted sites over and over trying to get the "accepted" notice that the submission had been recorded. Unbeknownst to me I was told by the ODP submission forum moderator that it was a software problem on the ODP site and this put the sites I was submitting deeper and deeper into the queue. I quit doing that (and besides the software is working correctly now). But now, if I realize later that I might have made a small mistake in the submission, I'm not about to touch it for fear of the same, hoping the editor will correct the error--but instead it appears we are being penalized for our "assumed ignorance".
REGIONAL SUBMISSIONS:
And re regional submissions--how do you know that the author of the site wants it in a regional category unless you ask them? Again, you are assuming something without sufficient knowledge. Just because a person lives in a certain city doesn't mean they want their site listed in a regional category. Their business may be national in nature and you won't know that unless you ask.
REASONS SITES ARE NOT ACCEPTED:
Flicker said:
Anyway, all I can tell you is that the only times *I've* ever encountered site suggestions that were submitted more than a year ago, they wereA) sitting in a heavily-spammed pool of at least a hundred submissions,
We have no way of knowing this but those of us with honest submissions are bearing the burden for this.
B) originally submitted to an inappropriately high-level category, the wrong city, and/or the wrong language and had to be re-sorted down to the right level by other editors at least once,
I can see how the wrong language would be a glarring error but there may have been a reason for submission to the other categories and without asking you don't know.
C) nonfunctional for certain browsers or relied on unskippable flash animations so that at least one editor couldn't review them,
Do the submission rules state that sites with flash navigation should not be submitted to ODP? Do the submission rules state which validator should be used to be certain all sites are viewed in all browsers (not all validators provide the same info)? And if so were those rules in place last year when the sites were submitted?
Again, you are assuming that the person who is submitting the site is as knowledgable as the editors are and often this is not the case.
In response to your list above, my speciality is SEO so I do not design sites with Flash or any other technology blockers, I validate all my sites before submission and I check that they are viewable in all browsers on those validators (I use about 5 different validators because they do not all catch the same errors) and also I believe I submitted the sites to the right categories and they all contain original content. So none of the above applies to the 8 or so sites I have submitted to ODP in the last year that are still sitting there.
All of my sites that were accepted by ODP prior to a year ago are ranking high for their main keywords so I really doubt if any of my sites are lingering because of design flaws. Most of them are businesses so they are probably lingering in spammed categories. But if that is so why can't ODP design a program to eliminate spam like so many other search engines are doing?
SUMMARY:
All I'm saying is that you folks are assuming a whole lot re the submitters that is not necessarily true. I appreciate your efforts but I really do believe ODP needs some reorganization re how things are run and it is this inefficiency that is drawing responses from those like myself who are totally frustrated with ODP becauser the major concern of most web designers is that the inability to get into the Google directory without acceptance by ODP is a real handicap.
If I had the time I would apply to be an editor myself. However I have to spend too much time now finding Google approved links for a multitude of websites that are still lingering in ODP's submission files trying to get their rank up without the benefit of being in ODP. When I first became a web designer about 4 years ago the sites I designed were accepted by ODP within a few weeks. Now it is taking a year.
Lori
I'm just guessing on this one ..but I know if I wasn't on broad band ( and therefore paying for my connection by the minute ) or didn't have all day to spend ...
I wouldn't want to wait for 10 minutes of flash to pass me by before I could reveiw a site ....and there are some that go 30 minutes ..gamers frequently do flash as art form ...( luv it luv it )sites ...
"skip" is polite ....
what about those who build using VBS or ACTIVEX ...would you review one of those?
And all those people (except for spammers) who submit to the wrong category--do you think they did it intentionally so they would have an excuse to complain? No. They are more than likely ignorant of that fact. If you took the time too look at the data and realized it was in the wrong category why isn't there a rule in place so you can quickly write the author and let them know of their error so you don't have to deal with this issue again later?
Lori, I don't mean to be disrespectful but teaching people to read is not part of the ODP editors remit. If submitters are "ignorant of the fact" it's their own fault. If they are clever enough to appreciate the importance of search engine inclusion they should be clever enough to find out how to do it properly
You are not seriously suggesting that ODP editors take the time to correspond with individual submitters, are you?
It is a well known good business practice to handle one piece of data only once
Being non-commercial the ODP is not subject to commercial business rules.
You really should try editing, it would open your eyes. Despite clearly defined instructions people always try to gain an advantage by adding superlatives to their title and description. They also load them with keywords so that they are totally unintelligible. They know that humans will be reading their submissions but they continue to do it.
An editor must then spend time looking at their site and rewriting this for them. This all takes time and it gets very frustrating for us.
The instructions for finding a category are also quite clear but people continually submit to the wrong category. When they do so an editor has to check this out then redirect it. The editor in the correct category then has to check it again!
You should consider the fact that it is these manipulative and just plain stupid people who are responsible for most of the delays.
The first time I ever submitted to ODP I was accepted in a little under 48hrs
you would like your sites including faster in order to make you and your customers more money faster ...SO GO DO PFI...and get off their case ....
And although I'm not known for my tolerance of fools and impoliteness ..they see even less of my cheery disposition
teaching people to read is not part of the ODP editors remit
It's up to us to go through your submission guidelines with a fine tooth comb, make sure the site is spot on and the submission is spot on, in the right category etc. It takes hours. And may be to no avail at all!
Being non-commercial the ODP is not subject to commercial business rules
Despite clearly defined instructions people always try to gain an advantage by adding superlatives to their title and description.
people continually submit to the wrong category
It's up to us to go through your submission guidelines with a fine tooth comb, make sure the site is spot on and the submission is spot on, in the right category etc. It takes hours. And may be to no avail at all!
Exactly! It is up to you and if it takes you hours to do it you must be doing something wrong. If you are not prepared to do it you don't have to. It's not compulsory! Remember also that it is a free service and there are not many of these around nowadays.
DMOZ is not the be all and all for getting into Google. All you need is a couple of inbound links.
Incidentally, despite all of these gripes I am still waiting to see any hard evidence that the problem is as great as you suggest.
Editors are told to NOT engage in converation with submitters, due to a few past experiences where things turned nasty. Some editors will respond, and in such cases are advised to use a "throw away" hotmail or yahoo address. Submitters can write to editors, and many do. It is just that you are warned NOT to EXPECT ANY response at all; and if you desire two-way conversation you are much better off visiting a forum where editors hang out.
You may have written to an inactive editor. If you post in the forum where such questions can be answered, then you are assured that several editors will look at your submission. You will get an unbiased comment, because that comment is out in public where all other editors can see it and question it. By asking about a "lost" submssion, you sometimes help uncover a really wacky bug in the system, a mistake in handling a submission, or a new editor who hasn't fully understood the editing guidelines, and very rarely an editor who is abusing the system (I am aware of one who was uncovered earlier this year after pertinent questions were asked in a public forum -- but that is very rare, and swiftly dealt with).
>> If you took the time too look at the data and realized it was in the wrong category why isn't there a rule in place so you can quickly write the author and let them know of their error so you don't have to deal with this issue again later? <<
Mainly because most submitters submit one site and we never hear from them again. Sending a note takes time, and uses resources. I don't think that sending such a note would have any noticeable effect on any future submissions, because the next noob in the queue isn't going to know.
Just look at this forum. How many times do you see a question asked when there is an existing open thread only a dozen or less titles down the page with a very similar title, covering the exact same topic of conversation? People are lazy. Writing them a note isn't going to change a thing, whilst taking more editors time away from doing what they signed up to do: edit.
>> ... (and) this put the sites I was submitting deeper and deeper into the queue <<
There is no "queue". Submissions can be sorted in a variety of ways, only one of which is "by last submission date". Submitting the exact same URL to the exact same category, will not get you tagged as a spammer. Submitting multiple pages, folders, subdomains, or domains to the same category, or submitting anything at all (the same pages, or related pages, folders, subdomains, or domains) to multiple categories can lead to very big problems for the submitter.
>> how do you know that the author of the site wants it in a regional category unless you ask them? <<
The ODP in building their directory does not have to ask anyone at all what they want. It is not a service for webmasters. In fact there are hundreds of thousands of sites listed in the ODP that were never submitted, and which the site owner doesn't even know that they are listed.
>> Just because a person lives in a certain city doesn't mean they want their site listed in a regional category. Their business may be national in nature and you won't know that unless you ask. <<
Even so, the ODP generally lists sites by their bricks-and-mortar location not by the area covered by their customer base either real, perceived, or imagined.
>> Do the submission rules state that sites with flash navigation should not be submitted to ODP? <<
No. Submit them if you want. Just be aware that if the editor that goes to review your site cannot review it (and they are under no obligation to do so), then they will drop it back into the unreviewed pile for someone else to do at some later time (who and when is completely unknown). So, if you want a quicker review then use common sense site design with a "skip" button. An editor is no more than a surfer visiting your site. If your site has rubbish navigation, poor design, is a pop-up hell-hole, then once you are listed in the ODP we would be inflicting your painful site on a greater audience than without that listing. Design your site to please Joe Surfer, and your site will have a non-problematic review by Joe "ODP Ed" Surfer too.
>> Do the submission rules state which validator should be used to be certain all sites are viewed in all browsers (not all validators provide the same info)? <<
I refer you to the answer I just gave.
I am still waiting to see any hard evidence that the problem is as great as you suggest
DMOZ is not the be all and all for getting into Google. All you need is a couple of inbound links.
and if it takes you hours to do it you must be doing something wrong
The funniest thing is that ODP says: [dmoz.org]"The Open Directory team welcomes comments and feedback about the directory generally. Please let us know what you think, and how we can improve the service. Thanks!". I've been hunting that page for the mailto link but can't seem to find it :)
Yes, we do know there is no queue, just a "pool". We can go elsewhere of course, if we don't like the ODP procedure. But suggestions along those lines are surely not in the spirit of ODP? I thought it was about creating the most useful collection of sites for ODP users and surely we are helping you achieve that by making our careful submissions? ;) Us going away isn't going to help, is it? :)
Or do some editors see it as doing us webmasters a favour?
Submission of the same URL to two different categories does not a spammer make. Submitting multiple related pages, folders, subdomains, and domains to either the same or to multiple (related or unrelated) categories could cause you problems.
>> I thought it was about creating the most useful collection of sites for ODP users and surely we are helping you achieve that by making our careful submissions? <<
When building categories, editors can pick from the (about a) million suggestions held in the "unreviewed" database, or from the at least 4 BILLION pages that have not yet been submitted at all. In general it is often more productive to skim through the top 50 to 100 results in a Google search than it is to open the spam-filled unreviewed sites list.
Submitting multiple related pages, folders, subdomains, and domains to either the same or to multiple (related or unrelated) categories could cause you problems
You keep reiterating things that aren't in contention. Who's talking about multiple submissions? The point was that the choice has to be made carefully as we don't have a facility to edit the submission we have in the queue/pool. Talking about multiple submissions is muddying the waters.
editors can pick from the (about a) million suggestions held in the "unreviewed" database, or from the at least 4 BILLION pages that have not yet been submitted at all
Umm, let me clarify this. You said:
>> >> you don't want to commit the cardinal sin of using the wrong cat because there's no going back ;) << <<
to which I said:
>> Submission of the same URL to two different categories does not a spammer make. <<
the meaning of which was supposed to say:
If you submit to some category and realise your mistake, that you should have submitted elsewhere, then there is no harm in re-submitting to the correct category. If you made a mistake and want to resubmit the same URL to the exact same category, then there is absolutely no problem with doing that at all.
.
>> Can we submit pages now? <<
No. You cannot suggest multiple pages, folders, sub-domains or domains.
>> You pick pages to list? <<
Yes we do. Deeplinking is at the discretion of the editor.
Submitters should submit one root page from one domain to one category (noting the exceptions above). Editors, however, upon looking at the site, may create additional listings for sites that are rich in unique content, give added breadth to the directory, and useful information to surfers; noting the may not will.
>Isn't it ironic that this was a "removal" :)
No, not at all, it obviously has to be so; and you could have figured it out if you'd ever worked for any organization that cares about any kind of objective standard for quality.
Which is more dangerous, what you don't know or what you know that ain't so?
I worked for a company that does income tax returns. A customer calls and says "I need you to do Form 1047XQ." Another customer calls and says, "I need another option on the Mailing Labels template". The third says "You're calculating line 21 of form 1153Y wrong!" Two of these calls will get placatory responses. One of these calls will get programmers scurrying instanter. Can you figure out which one?
Your grocery store doesn't carry your favorite brand of salad dressing. And their roast beef is way past its sell-by date. Which one of those problems will get instant attention from a manager?
American Airlines doesn't offer flights from Chicago to Texarkana where your relatives live. On the other hand, yesterday'se flight that was scheduled to go to Phoenix ended up in France (or in flames). Which of these, think you, will get priority attention?
The ODP is no different. If there are 100 widget crafters, and we list 49 of them and a face-painting clown in the widget crafting category, what has to be the priority problem?
You're a volunteer, just like I am. You can offer to help the ODP, or you can refrain. You can submit to the right place, which is a more help, or to the wrong place, which is much less. You can give a good description, which helps us determine quickly the site is in the wrong place, or not.
And if it's not spam, it won't be to no avail. If it's spam, we're supposed to care how much time it cost you, and how futile it was?
