Should I have bothered to submit my site?

dmoz

[JenniferL]

Ok, I'm sure this have been covered about 1.5 million times already, but I could use some clarification. I submitted my site to dmoz, but the more I read their forums, the more convinced I am that I shouldn't have bothered. The reason I say this is the fact that I use dropshippers for all of my products, and that means all these things can be found on other sites too. I'm assuming that this means I have zero unique content and won't be accepted anyway. I have multiple dropshippers, so I don't think that there is another site out there exactly like mine. Am I correct in thinking I have very little chance of getting in?

[hutcheson]

What you say is partly true. It is extremely hard to tell the difference between a fright mask for a drop-shipper, and a genuine small business. But that is why the "no drop ship" ODP rule is so important to surfers, as well as absolutely essential to editors. We can build a directory of sites with unique content, or we can build a list of all the people who've copied the SMC order-taking scripts onto their own page, but we can't do both.

By flooding the internet and search results with affiliate-order-takers, the drop-shippers have virtually destroyed the internet's usefulness to genuine mom-and-pop businesses. And the ODP's commitment to the mom-and-pop businesses is perhaps best demonstrated by our continued herculean efforts to (1) list genuine online retailers while (2) weeding out the drop-shippers' doorway domains.

I've said before, and it is always worth repeating -- the ODP has enough dedicated editors to review every single legitimate submittal within ten minutes of its submittal -- IF there time were not taken up by the thousands of near-duplicated affiliates, doorways, advertising banner collages, and other non-businesses that daily flood the queues. This is only one of the many ways that genuine businesses and shoppers are harmed.

[bekyed]

Jennifer, In my opinion dmoz is a complete waste of time and effort. Submit and forget, if you are lucky you will get in.
Some of our sites are listed, but a lot of the categories are low in pr which will not help your website, they will only count as a normal link to google.
Your time is best spent getting links from sites similar to yours and concentrating on them.

I know i will get a lot of stick for saying this, but a lot of people will agree with me that a majority of editors in the odp are in fact site owners and submit their own websites.

Bek.

[hutcheson]

Yes, spammers are a problem, whether they stay on the outside and throw mud, or slip in and collect it.

But your conspiracy theory is too small. There are many people who are not your competitors, and who still have no particular interest in your business (whatever it is.) There are even billions of people who were never even ODP editors and STILL never added a link to your site!

So why single out your competitors? They've done nothing that millions of other people have also done.

[coconutz]

>> editors in the odp are in fact site owners and submit their own websites.

Submitting your own site(s) is not considered a conflict of interest [dmoz.org] for editors.

Everyone is welcome to apply to join the ODP, including those who own, maintain and promote websites. Editors may have business or other types of affiliations relevant to the categories they edit, and may add their own sites or sites with which they are affiliated.

[blaze]

ODP is worthwhile, probably the most worthwhile directory on the internet.

I believe Yahoo is starting to use ODP a lot more as well now, according to an article by their director of SE.

A lot of people will tell you that that it isn't worthwhile, but generally they've just come face to face with a number of rude, holier than thou editors on ODP which are giving it a rather bad name.

Attitude aside though, a submission can't hurt. Maybe you have unique content you aren't thinking about. And besides, amazon uses drop shipping and they are in the directory.