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I can think of several factors in determining the best category. best is defined to get better ranking in Google on keyword X.
-category with keyword x in title (FOR improving keyword rank en theme?)
-category with high pr (for improving PR)
-category with minimal links in it (for imrpoving PR)
And then choose the best combination of these 3 factors
Am I right or do i miss something?
Am I right or do i miss something?
Unless by coincidence the category you choose based on that strategy is also the appropriate one according to DMOZ guidelines, the best you can get out of your approach is a delay of a review in the right place. I won't go into details of the worst case scenario.
Your submission may be a catalyst for the editor to split the category and move the sites who-knows-where.
Or to whizz through the submission queue and add another 100 sites, making the category very crowded.
Or to whizz through the category and delete the dead wood, so few sites remain.
Submit to the most appropriate category, and you have the bst chance of being added relatively quicky.
Submit to a less appropriate category, and you risk doubling the review time (the first editor simply punts it over to the other category).
So, focus on the best catgory from the ODP's perspective.
If the reason you think your site is perfectly suited to two different categories is because one is a Regional widgetry category for the exact town your factory is based in and the other is a Business category for the exact kind of widgetry you produce, though, I have good news for you: you may submit to both. That is actually the ONLY situation (except for multilingual sites) in which the ODP welcomes two submissions of the same site, and frequently awards two listings. (-:
If the site's appearance in DMOZ is worthless, then you can be fairly sure that the reviewing editor would have come to that conclusion too, and not added the site.
Some stats -- DMOZ reached 4,000,000 sites at the beginning of December 2004. It is now 4,490,295. That's a net growth of around 2000 sites a day.
Which means (what with deletions, declined submisions, submissions being re-sorted after inaccurately targeted submission; plus all the non-submission-queue research editors do) there's probably 2,500 new sites added every day, plus an indeterminate number being given an initial or partial review.
Being one of the 2500 for a day is not that hard -- much easier than being in the Google top 10 for many search terms:
Of course, it helps if the right category is not one that is spammed to death. If you've chosen a business model such that a spammy cat is the right one for you, then that's a risk that should be up-front on the business plan.
But...
Victor said: "Monitoring submission status after you have confirmation that the site suggestion has been recieved, is a little pointless."
BaseVinyl says: "Not really pointless. It's like ordering a product and asking for a UPS shipping number to track the progress of the order. You may have confirmation that your order was recieved and payment was processed but wouldn't you like to see the progress of the shipment? It's easy to say "yes it was shipped and we have your money" but show a customer a tangible link to the transaction and they will remain confident. If you call and request the shipment status on an order and someone says "Your package is awaiting approval in the queue...time delay unknown" then you may just have to hope that the product you ordered is not time-sensitive. Delays and generic responses will make a customer wonder if it is a viable organization"
[edited by: BaseVinyl at 1:06 am (utc) on Aug. 1, 2004]
Are you sure DMOZ editors would agree that there are 2 categories that are equally suitable for your site to be listed in? Look at the sites that are already listed in those 2 cats. Then compare your site to that, and consider which are most similar to your site.
Which one is better to submit to?
No such thing as a cat with no editor at the ODP. Meta editors and editalls can edit *wherever* they please in the directory. And if the cat has no listed editor, any editor higher up the tree can edit there. Also, just because a cat has a listed editor doesn't mean that editor is very active. Or very active in that cat, which is possible if they are a listed editor in a number of different cats. At the ODP an editor will remain listed for 4 months after their last edit. It's quite possible that listed editor in that the close but overcrowded cat *died* 3 1/2 months ago. If so, that editor obviously wouldn't be able to resign. ;)
Thus, your assumption that your site would be reviewed faster if you submitted to that close but overcrowded cat may be wrong.
It's a big misconception among the general population that a category with a named editor automatically gets more attention than a category without. Sites in all subcategories of an editor's category get called to his or her attention equally. So a category with no named editor, but with a highly active editor one level up, could get much more attention than a category with a named editor who logs in infrequently. It's probably a bad idea to try to second-guess things like that.
When you submit to the wrong category because it has a named editor, you don't know whether the editor is active now. You don't know whether the editor has been active in the last six months. You don't know whether the editor has EVER edited ANYTHING in that category. All you know is that when last the page was modifed, the editor had edited something, SOMEWHERE, sometime in the previous four months.
That, IMO, is not a very useful bit of trivia.
On the other hand, when you submit to a category that is not the absolute best one, what happens is ... you wait for some editor to review the site. Upon reviewing, the editor will move it to something CLOSER to the absolute best category ... where it will wait in that heap for an editor to pick it for review (and possibly move it still closer for another wait.) [Although it is possible to do so, editors generally will NOT list a site outside the category they're working in. For many good and sufficient reasons, they'll wait until they're working in the other category.]
So after multiple waits for review and possible multiple missed opportunities for review FOR LISTING, the submittal ends up in the place where you didn't want to submit it because it might wait too long.
This, IMO, is not the optimum approach.
Another factoid you might want to bear in mind: in "competitive" categories, over 99% of the edits are made by editors who are NOT listed as editor of that category.
So you can chase a fractional 1% of the fish with outdated and flawed angling guides, or you can ... help the nice ODP editors find the best category for your site.
BaseVinyl said: Not really pointless. It's like ordering a product and asking for a UPS shipping number to track the progress of the order. You may have confirmation that your order was recieved and payment was processed but wouldn't you like to see the progress of the shipment? It's easy to say "yes it was shipped and we have your money" but show a customer a tangible link to the transaction and they will remain confident. If you call and request the shipment status on an order and someone says "Your package is awaiting approval in the queue...time delay unknown" then you may just have to hope that the product you ordered is not time-sensitive. Delays and generic responses will make a customer wonder if it is a viable organizationActually, the reality is more that site suggesters are our potential suppliers, not our customers so your analogy above is incorrect.
t's like ordering a product and asking for a UPS shipping number to track the progress of the order.
It's more like sending a press release. It will turn into a news article -- if it has anything news-worthy in it.
But it is unlikely to get turned into a Page 1 banner headline news article just because your marketing strategy depends on that.
You can use the OPD public forums to ask the equivalent of "did you get my press release?" but you can't expect the equivalent of busy journalists (for whom press releases are just one source of information) to instigate a press-release tracking system that reports back to you.
And sending press releases to the wrong department at a newspaper is a good way to get them lost. The arts editor isn't going to publish your breakthrough in low car rental prices just because the Arts dept is less busy than the comercial editor.
