So long to be listed – Do You Respect DMOZ After all this Years?
January 11, 2010 by
Filed under Bloggers & Writers
DMOZ is a web directory that was originally created in 1998 by employees of Sun Microsystems. The board was sold to Netscape which is now part of AOL / Time Warner. Is supposed to have about five million sites listed, some seventy thousand publishers, and some 590,000 categories. These statistics are hard to believe if one thinks of the frustrating process to appear in your directory, if you get it. It is believed that those who have the good fortune of being accepted, must have a godfather in DMOZ. Indeed, in recent years to be accepted or be an editor for a specific category is all a nightmare.
The importance of DMOZ but has increased in spite of the tendency to use search engines to find Web sites faster than having to review many categories. A value that has been involved in ODP, is the pagerank, which is a number that Google uses to ensure the importance of Web pages. One of the most important factors to increase pagerank, is the number of incoming links your site has and the importance of sites that link to yours.
DMOZ is not only important that it is a great board, but because many search engines have adopted it for its ease in collecting data and using this information for their own purposes. For example, the Google Directory is based on the one DMOZ. The searches of AOL using the resources of this directory to display its results. The number of links it provides this directory is translated into thousands, and this by itself makes it imperative for any online marketing strategy.
There are many stories and complaints about DMOZ. The most noteworthy is undoubtedly the lack of information given to the Webmasters. There is no standard method to know if you’ve been accepted or rejected, and if it was the latter option, the reason to fix it. The list of grievances includes a little of everything, from lack of interest in making improvements to its board at the time it takes to review sites.
The truth is that once you send a page, the key is having patience and not worry too much about whether to appear or not in the directory. Although a good source of incoming links, there are many other ways to get traffic to our site with other well known SEO techniques. For the moment, appear in DMOZ is still a complicated task.
How can I get appear in DMOZ?
There are categories of dmoz.org whose website has a PageRank of 7 or 8, so that getting a link in DMOZ is really valuable. Also, Google takes it as reference to build its own directory ‘directory.google.com’. Do not choose the category with the highest PageRank, but that which best fits the theme of your website.
But do not think that is an easy task appear on dmoz.org, as publishers include only quality web sites and you really have to do with the theme of each category.
Browse through categories of DMOZ. Discover which one best fits the theme of your website, and click the link ‘Add URL’. If you have a website in Spanish, it is best to choose a category of ‘World> Spanish’.
You must be patient with your request. Usually take several weeks but should not overwhelm the editors. Anyway, you can contact and discuss with them in ‘www.resource-zone.com’. If within six months you have not got links, suggest you should go back to your website.
Should you wait to have the web site really ready before suggesting people DMOZ link. If you suggest a website ‘under construction’ certainly not going to accept you, and you may not review the next time you suggest. Do not rush and make things easy.
Getting a website is listed in DMOZ can be very frustrating. We know that being listed will probably help our rankings on Google, but getting into can be time consuming. In this article I will explain because it takes both normally and that the cause of the delay is usually when you make the request for entry of your website. But first, explain that DMOZ is and why it is important for websites to be in it.
DMOZ, also known as “The Open Directory Project (ODP) or Open Directory Project is a comprehensive categorized directory of websites and pages run by volunteers. Every website and page is added to the directory must be manually reviewed before inclusion. Being listed in the directory is free.
Actually, not many people use DMOZ to their searches in the same way they use Yahoo!, So the directory itself is of little value in terms of generating visitor traffic. However, their data can be downloaded free of charge, and each website, however small, can use it. A not so small website that downloads and uses the data from DMOZ is Google. In fact, Google’s directory is nothing less than a discharge from the DMOZ directory.
This has significant implications for websites that are listed in DMOZ. PageRank is an integral part of Google positioning algorithm, PageRank, and more help to get better positioning. The PageRank within a website is augmented by pages which link to it, and the more PageRank the pages you have the link, the better for the website that receives.
A listing in DMOZ creates two significant links to a web site – one from DMOZ (Google indexes DMOZ as elsewhere) and one of the Google directory. They usually have a decent PageRank. From here, add links to thousands of small websites who have downloaded and use the DMOZ directory, and can be seen which is usually quite beneficial for a web site be listed in DMOZ. Simply being listed in DMOZ can improve the PageRank of a website for 3 to 4 and even 4 to 5 in the Google toolbar.
Because it takes so long to be listed?
At the time of writing, the Google home page displays “57.251 editors” (volunteers who review and add websites to the directory), but this is misleading. In fact there are so many publishers or anything near that amount. That number is the total number of editors they have had since the project started. Most of them are no longer editors. And as for those who are still publishers, a significant proportion of them are not active or slightly active. So the number of editors who are actively reviewing and adding sites is relatively small.
Moreover, there are a lot of websites waiting to be reviewed. Each publisher can only practice in their own categories. Some publishers have small categories with very few requests to discuss, and can be treated very quickly. Others are simply overwhelmed by the mountain of websites for review, and there is very little chance of being listed in the near future.
But the cluster and the relatively small number of active editors, are not the only reasons why websites seem to expect to be listed for ever. Many times, the wait is the fault of the person who made the request to list that website. Imagine that someone sent the website to a category that is reasonably close to the theme of the website, but the website actually belongs to a different category. What happens? The call waiting often not reviewed web sites of the category in which it was submitted. Sooner or later your turn comes and the editor’s reviews, but finds that belongs to another category. This editor can not edit this other category, so the request is passed to the other cateogíra, where it is added to the queue of unreviewed sites. Do not jump the queue simply because he has been waiting in another queue. Eventually, your turn will come again and will be reviewed – again.
This is the simple course of events that happen when a website is sent to the wrong directory. In practice, however, is quite different. When the first web site editor reviews, usually after making a lot of time having been sent, and finds that the category pertecene, usually think? “If you do not bother to find the correct category, I will not make me.” So the website is normally sent to a category which is close to where it belongs but not necessarily accurate. The editor there, eventually reaching and sends a little closer to the right – probably correct this time, probably not – and the delays grow simply because he was sending the website did not take long enough to ensure that was sent to the appropriate category first. If that made the request can not worry because I had to do another?
So, when you submit a website, take time to find the right category for this. Do not be tempted to send the request to a higher level of industry sector, because there will not be accepted and, in doing so, unnecessary delays can quasar motivated.
Because some websites are denied?
DMOZ policy is to include websites with unique content, which means that many sites do not qualify for inclusion. Among the sites that are likely to be rejected are those who have much content on affiliated nature. Some affiliate content is acceptable but when it occupies too much of a website, then this will probably be denied.
Another reason why a site may be denied is because of the request. If the title and description provided in the consignment does not follow the directives of DMOZ, then some editors will think, “If you can not be bothered to spend some time on it, because it would bother me to rewrite it?” And refuse website. Personally, I can not believe that publishers do that, but I hear it happens. So, when sending a web Sitri, read and follow directions. The description is intended to give people objective information than you can find on the site, and not to promote it.
People are not informed that their site has been refused, and there must be many people out there who thinks her requests are still pending when, in fact, have already been denied. There is only one way to know the status of a request and that is that you tell someone in DMOZ. Fortunately, there’s a place to do that. Is “Open Directory Public Forum,” which is led by some editors. They are very helpful to finding out the status of a request. If you have been refused, you say, and usually will give you the reason. Sometimes even one very late review, but only if the particular category has no editor or publisher of that class has not released anything in a while.
About DMOZ editors
As I said before, not many active editors compared with the number shown on page main DMOZ, but most of those assets are acute. Treble to add websites with unique content, and treble to improve the directory, in fact, they remind me of an ant colony giving themselves and work around their nest (the directory), building it, bit by bit. Contrary to what most people think, take care of the board and add new sites, but it’s an uphill battle because not enough.
