Dmoz

[avi2l]

What are the requirements for DMOZ? I've submitted a site about 6 months ago and haven't heard back. I think my site is legitimate and looks so, so I don't understand why they wouldn't accept me.

Also, I haven't wanted to submit more sites so it doesn't look spammy on my part. Do they limit the amount of sites by a person, even if they are decent and real working sites?

 

[Peter]

The problem with DMOZ is that they have hundreds of editors who are not obliged to accept your submission. I know an editor who purposely ignores sites who compete with himself (he is the editor for a category in which he has a shop listed in it). another problem is that a lot of categories are not maintained by an editor so listing rarely get reviewed.

there are of course many guidelines that also affect your submission such as the wording of the post must not contain things like the name or url of the site (to ensure keyword stuffing isn't taking place). The listing must not read like an advert but a description instead.

Take a read of the following page to get a sense of what is and is not allowed:-

http://www.dmoz.org/guidelines/describing.html

As far as I am aware they do not limit the number of sites a user can submit (in fact you can submit anonymously so the editor may never know who submitted it).

 

[Keral_Patel]

DMOZ is more or less dead in some sections from many months or years.

I personally don't have anything against them but yes I can imagine that after a person posts on a fast forum like NP he tends to expect fast responses and this is what that doesn't happens at DMOZ

 

[~ServerPoint~]

Hello!
I have heard a lot of threads about dmoz and would like to know why people rush to be listed there?

 

[John Doe]

Hello!
I have heard a lot of threads about dmoz and would like to know why people rush to be listed there?

Because Dmoz listing gives you highly valuable backlink for your SERP. There isn`t so much alternative options to have free inlink from PR8 authority site.

 

[~ServerPoint~]

Interesting guess. I personaly do not believe in that.

 

[John Doe]

Interesting guess. I personaly do not believe in that.

Try out And put your main keyword to site title in Dmoz. Works well.

 

[snowbird]

The problem with DMOZ is that they have hundreds of editors who are not obliged to accept your submission. I know an editor who purposely ignores sites who compete with himself (he is the editor for a category in which he has a shop listed in it).

If this is true, you can report the editor so he can be investigated since doing that is against the editor guidelines and policies.

another problem is that a lot of categories are not maintained by an editor so listing rarely get reviewed.

This is not true. An Editall editor has access to edit any and every category all over the directory. You should also know that if a category does not have an editor, look at the category above it. Editors at a level higher up have editor priveleges of categories below him/her as well. Just because a category does not have an editor listed at the bottom of the page, it does not mean that category does not have an editor who will review new submissions.

As far as I am aware they do not limit the number of sites a user can submit (in fact you can submit anonymously so the editor may never know who submitted it).

Even though there is no limit on the number of sites you submit, they do keep track of how many times a site is submitted. So it is advised to just submit the site once and wait and see if it gets added or not. Submitting your site again will usually write over your last submission with a newer date which means if the editor reviews by date order, your site will become relisted at the bottom of the queue. There are also situations where there may be duplicates of the same site in the list and you could lose both your submissions when the editor is trying to clear out duplicate submissions.


As an ODP editor, I have decided to respond to this post to help clear up some questions about submissions. This responce is not an official ODP statement, but rather the opinions and input of a volunteer editor trying to help out people trying to submit sites.

 

[avi2l]

Snowbird, so are there any tips to getting approved besides just submitting the site.
I submitted a site that is a legitimate site over 6 months ago, its not an MFA or a parked page. So, I don't understand why it would not be accepted if the point of the directory is to list good relevant sites. It seems that it has become some kind of exclusivity club more than a functioning directory.

 

[Prof. Goldbloom]

I was an editor for them for a while (maybe I still am...I don't know). I never was sure why they got so popular so fast. Before I was an editor, I had waited a good 2 years to get listed.

Once I became an editor, I had resolved to clean my area up. I went through making the additions and updates...even though all the3companies I was listing were my competitors. But the 'senior editor' was also a competitor, and knocked my additions out.

In short--good luck. You're at their mercy. My only suggestions are:

#1 - stick to the rules when submitting your URL so that the editors have very little to do (you want them to feel right in just hitting the approval button).

#2 - see if you can become an editor for the category yourself...or maybe an editor for an alternate category.

Hope this helps.

 

[Peter]

This is not true. An Editall editor has access to edit any and every category all over the directory. You should also know that if a category does not have an editor, look at the category above it. Editors at a level higher up have editor priveleges of categories below him/her as well. Just because a category does not have an editor listed at the bottom of the page, it does not mean that category does not have an editor who will review new submissions.

I have edited the ODP myself and know how it works. Regardless of having editors that can edit everywhere there is just way too many catrgories within DMOZ for this to help much unless there are a substantial number of them.

And regarding your point that editors can edit sub categories within their category. Yes this is true but if there is no problem with submissions then why do people wait as reported in this thread up to 2 years for a decision 1 way or another? I myself submitted a site 6 months ago and it has not been reveiwed as of yet.

 

[snowbird]

I have edited the ODP myself and know how it works. Regardless of having editors that can edit everywhere there is just way too many catrgories within DMOZ for this to help much unless there are a substantial number of them.

And regarding your point that editors can edit sub categories within their category. Yes this is true but if there is no problem with submissions then why do people wait as reported in this thread up to 2 years for a decision 1 way or another? I myself submitted a site 6 months ago and it has not been reveiwed as of yet.

There is no way of the submitter knowing wether or not a site has been reviewed unless they have editor access to the category the site was submitted to. You are right that it does take a long time for sites to be reviewed. But part of the problem is the fact that there are so many people submitting sites that it is sometimes hard to keep up. One of the biggest problems I notice as editor is that 70% of the people who submit sites do not follow submission guidelines. I recieve submissions every day where the description is full of just keywords rather than a description of the site. The problem with this is that dmoz requires editors to FIX the descriptions to make them comply with the rules of the directory. This is part of what consumes my time. The other part is deleting duplicate submissions and checking for cloans of sites that are already listed. Then lastly, there are far more submissions as there are editors. So if anyone wants to join the ODP, they are more than welcome to. The more editors we have, the faster submissions get reviewed. If I had it my way, I would reject submission that did not follow submission guidelines. If a user cannot follow directions on how to write titles and descriptions, then that is their problem. Lots of times its submissions like those that hold up the submissions that are done correctly. That is why I look through my queue of 3,000+ sites (counting sub cats as well) for submissions that followed the rules first. Then I tackle the ones that were done incorrectly by correcting them and adding them to the directory.

 

[longroad]

I submit there for fun, never expecting to be listed.
Out of about 20 submissions I've had one site accepted. This site is considered an authority, has high SE rankings and had little or no advertisements on it at the time of acceptance into DMOZ.

I cant say its boosted my site at all, although hard to tell if thats the reason I get positions 1-3 in Google. I have a feeling I'd get those anyway without DMOZ but Im not about to have my listing deleted to find out :D

 

[SSandecki]

Visit digitalpoint.com, sadly many DMOZ editors accept "payment" to get your site added in the "Buy, Sell & Trade" section. It is a bad practice but the best way to get listed in DMOZ if you REALLY want to be in there.

 

[Keral_Patel]

Visit digitalpoint.com, sadly many DMOZ editors accept "payment" to get your site added in the "Buy, Sell & Trade" section. It is a bad practice but the best way to get listed in DMOZ if you REALLY want to be in there.

Humm.... never heard of threads like this. But I think will check it out LOL.

 

[longroad]

Corruption at its finest :D

 

[iceshards]

DMOZ is now a directory with payment. If you don't pay they will not include you site on their directory.....Since many reports about it that some that are already included in the directory is being wiped out for the sake of payment...

 

[dave9713]

They have a forum nowadays, go there and enquire about what your doing wrong. Don't PM though... i've heard the mod's get pretty angry, i guess they get 1000's of PM's a day.

 

[ajviloria]

Never knew that they practice that such bad manners...well im just there to submit and hope and pray that my site will get listed.

 

[angilina]

I submitted a site a year ago and never heard from them, I am giving up, will give try to submit any site at Dmoz as its use less