DMOZ: How long does it take?

[Pavel_Nedved]

I know this is largely dependant on who the admin is for your particluar category, but approximately how long is the average Submit -> Listing delay?

I submitted in early June... should I check back at Christmas?

[stymiee]

That's a bit optimistic.

Just kidding...mostly. I've gotten in a just few days and others have taken many months. It really is a crap shoot.

[kimberly]

I submitted under a heading only to learn 3 months later that the #3 player in my market was the editor.

So I picked another heading..,.at least I am in now. It is not a fair system

[immotive]

Originally Posted by kimberly

So I picked another heading..,.at least I am in now. It is not a fair system

100% agree :-) anyway, nothing in this world is fair.

[JakeCop]

Originally Posted by kimberly

I submitted under a heading only to learn 3 months later that the #3 player in my market was the editor.

So I picked another heading..,.at least I am in now. It is not a fair system

Dmoz really is a corrupt system. If the editor in the category has a site in that same category, he'll simply deny any application in the interest of defeating competition.

I've had well documented problems like this myself in the past. I submitted one of my major sites back in April, and don't expect to ever be listed.

I even had one one of my sites edited so that it went to a different URL, google bombing my main keyword to a competitor. Dmoz should be burned in the fires it was forged.

[iFroggy]

Hey,

I do believe that most people (including DMOZ editors) are good and try, but...

Originally Posted by JakeCop

Dmoz really is a corrupt system. If the editor in the category has a site in that same category, he'll simply deny any application in the interest of defeating competition.

I've had well documented problems like this myself in the past.

Me too. I had something blatant happen to a long time DMOZ listing of mine. I had a banned slimeball user from one of my communities who tries to do what he can to hurt me/my community become an editor of one of the categories we were in. He removed my site and added his site, which does the exact same thing that mine does. It was reported, in detail. As far as I can tell, the higher ups laughed/didn't care. A friend of mine who was a long time DMOZ editor (did a great job) resigned in protest.

There are a lot of terrible human beings out there. At the end of the day, I have to laugh that someone put in that much effort to do such a thing.

But, humans just don't do it better. I'd take a machine.

[ebonage]

Originally Posted by iFroggy

Hey,

I do believe that most people (including DMOZ editors) are good and try, but...



Me too. I had something blatant happen to a long time DMOZ listing of mine. I had a banned slimeball user from one of my communities who tries to do what he can to hurt me/my community become an editor of one of the categories we were in. He removed my site and added his site, which does the exact same thing that mine does. It was reported, in detail. As far as I can tell, the higher ups laughed/didn't care. A friend of mine who was a long time DMOZ editor (did a great job) resigned in protest.

There are a lot of terrible human beings out there. At the end of the day, I have to laugh that someone put in that much effort to do such a thing.

But, humans just don't do it better. I'd take a machine.

DMOZ is a crap shot for sure! Try listed your site to Zeal.com Directory I believe that is owned by Looksmart. All you have to do to submit a site is pass a 20 question quiz that is pretty easy. And you can start submitting sites left and right.

[fatnewt]

Yeah, it just depends on the editor in that section.

[petertdavis]

You can always try asking at the resource zone, sometimes you can get helpful responses from dmoz metas there.

[Athorn4941]

3 years on one site 1-1/2 on another site. Both are still awating review for me.

[M.Zeb Khan]

Off Topic:


Whats the best way to check that i am added yet to the dmoz or not?

[Perseus]

To check to see if you're listed in dmoz, do a search for your domain (ie, yourdomain.com).

To check your site submission status you can do to this URL http://resource-zone.com/forum/ then go to the Site Submission Status page and ask for the status of your site. I've done this and have been told my site is waiting to be reviewed and check back in 6 months if it hasn't made it into the directory before then.

[aliEn]

Dmoz really is a corrupt system. If the editor in the category has a site in that same category, he'll simply deny any application in the interest of defeating competition.

I agree it's quite corrupted, but not every editor (or atleast I don't).

Have you report it via the "report abuse/spam" link for that category?

[JakeCop]

Originally Posted by aliEn

Have you report it via the "report abuse/spam" link for that category?

I did, but it didn't work. But then, I didn't expect it to.

[Pavel_Nedved]

This is all very interesting and very helpful. Thanks.

[GlobalFusion]

Off Topic:


I have to agree.

As a public directory, the editors need some restraint just as they would if they were working for a public firm in *real life*.


They need a *strict* approval checklist. If it meets the criteria, then it gets approved. if not.. well. better luck next time.

As for Waiting time?

Well... 2yrs and im still waiting for my main site... (http://www.globalfusion.com.au) - But it is in a competitive category.


I have also applied to be an editor (cant remember which category)... and that was about a year ago now.. still no response on it..

[TicoGrande]

I joined this Forum just to reply to this thread.

I have been a DMOZ editor for about three years. I edit only one category, and I receive about 3-4 submissions per month. MANY categories, receive upwards of 200-300 per month. Some as many as 500. Browsing through other categories, I have seen backlogs of thousands of sites awaiting review.

Of the few I receive, only about one in four contains the correct URL! That means I have to FIND the website in order to review it. Sound easy? It is not. It takes time... a lot of time. If I had to find 200 instead of 2 or 3, I guarantee I would not take my personal time. I'd dump it. It is incredible how many people do not know you cannot capitalize a directory name and if you do, the site will not resolve unless it is capitalized on the server. There are a ton of other errors as well. How can you submit a website for review and NOT know your own web address??? Incredible, but common.

I get submissions from the "free hosting" web hosts. Many of them place daily limits on bandwidth, so when I check, I get a message saying to try back later. OK.. in my free time.

Some websites just plain suck! Many are so poorly designed you cannot browse though them to even understand what is the product or service. They appear to have been designed by a 12 year old who takes drugs and received FrontPage as a present.

The DMOZ submission guidelines are pretty clear. They tell you what you can and cannot say when promoting your website. Few of MY submissions even come close to these guidelines... so I must re-write those as well.

When I DO re-write them, I ALWAYS embed keywords in the Header. I do this so the user WILL get picked up more easily by the SE's. As I KNOW all the keywords, this is easy and takes little time.

No website has ever waited more than two weeks for me to review them, but as I said, I get only a few each month.

As for editors who trash competitors, I just don't know. I have never done it, but there are just too many editors to not think that it could happen.

What I wanted to say is that I firmly believe most editors are honest, but overloaded and faced with submission and websites of such poor quality that what should be a short job takes hours. You can help by reading the guidelines before you submit. Use the correct URL. And write a website that doesn't require 30 minutes to decypher. Also, if a website is composed of nothing but links to another website, don't expect the submission to be successful. You HAVE to have content.

Just my 2 cents....

TG

[kili]

If time is an issue in delays for a site to be listed then surely the categories with a backlog of hundreds or thousands need more editors, should categories have multiple editors? This would reduce the pressure on individuals and ease the process for submitting sites.



A very long time ago I applied to be an editor in a category I knew something about, because I also had a site on that subject I was rejected, an understandable response so I applied to become an editor in a completely different category I was rejected.



There needs to be a relaxing of the rules to becoming an editor. If it's perceived now that many DMOZ editors are corrupt I cant see what difference it would make in relaxing the rules in order to take on temporary editors to shift the backlogs, they can once major backlogs are cleared be removed as editors and held on a list as willing temporary editors in times of heavy loads.



Kili

[iFroggy]

I agree with you. As I said, I believe that most people (and most DMOZ editors) are good and try to do their work well. It is a few bad ones who severely hurt things (as with most things... one really terrible experience can ruin the whole experience).

I run a site that requires me to review entry after entry after entry. I also manage and oversee teams that have to deal with "poor quality" submissions and I have to deal with them myself. I know the kind of work it is.

[soulwolf]

I didn't realize how widespread the problems with DMOZ went until I saw the article on it today.

I have submitted 3 different types of sites over the last 2 years and have never been listed. For two commercial sites, I have never received any sort of rejection or anything.

For my personal site, I submitted a listing to the breed specific category and after not being listed, I emailed the editor of the category and was told she refused to list anyone unknown in the category unless they had met certain health testing requirements on their intact dogs. WTF?!?!?!?!

Yeah... that's not a little bit biased. Fine, be concerned about the wellbeing of the breed but keep it seperate from your job when it comes to an "Open Directory".

I then tried to list the site in the breed specific "Pet" category, instead of "Breeder" category and again, no response whatsoever, no listing.

I GIVE UP!

[MarkDavy]

Originally Posted by Pavel_Nedved

I know this is largely dependant on who the admin is for your particluar category, but approximately how long is the average Submit -> Listing delay?

I submitted in early June... should I check back at Christmas?

Never before have so many, been blocked by so few, at the detriment of the majority, for the betterment of the minority!

DMOZ is one heap of self opinionated egotistical eggheads, who placed themselves as moderators to protect the very industry they are themselves in, to achieve their own internet site prominence at the expense of so many others that they block or ignore....Na Christmas is to soon, try never!
.

[JakeCop]

Originally Posted by MarkDavy

Never before have so many, been blocked by so few, at the detriment of the majority, for the betterment of the minority!

I want that phrase on a T-Shirt!

For the Dmoz editors here who defend the actions of their little faction in a 'we were only following orders' manner, could you tell me why my site was redirected to a competitor's URL, meaning searches for my site's name produced my competitor at #1 in Google?

Rather than fix the listing, or delete it as I asked, they simply renamed it to be my competitors site - thus my listing has now been assimilated into my competitor.

Could you tell me then why when I filed an abuse report it was ignored?

Please try. I'm all ears.

[nkisberg2000]

I'm a fairly new DMOZ editor but I wanted to give my view:

I'm fairly sure abuse does happen but 9 times out of 10 if it is reported it gets dealt with appropriately by the metas. As far as I know they have a zero tolerance policy on this. Any sites that are submitted to my category usually get reviewed within 1-2 days, however, there are categories that get literally 100's of submissions per day and have 1000's waiting to be reviewed. Many editors are going to these categories to clear the backlog but as you can see from DMOZ's frontpage there are ~64,000 editors and over 590,000 categories.

DMOZ is well organised when it comes to clearing up categories with too many unreviewed sites in and it's just a matter of time before yours is done. While you're waiting you may want to head over to resource-zone but all they can really say is "rejected" or "waiting to be reviewed".

The more specific the category you submit in, the more chance you have of being accepted. If you submit into a category with 1000's of sites in, which is too broad for your site, you may be waiting 2 months only then to be moved to the back of the queue in a more appropriate category.

[2010]

"DMOZ is well organised when it comes to clearing up categories with too many unreviewed sites in and it's just a matter of time before yours is done."

How are other things on your planet?

DMOZ does many things right, but clearing up categories with "too many" unreviewed is of course not one.

[pinesprings]

I received an email from WebProWorld highlighting this subject, “DMOZ Isn't An Open Directory”.
http://webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=153096 (which began here at sitepoint)

After reading all of the posts and wishing to post my own experience (which was not to bash DMOZ, but to state my experience along with the links to my communication with DMOZ which has responded to every post I have ever made to their forum in less than an hour or two).

Instead of getting to read more posts with information from other’s experiences and dmoz editor’s responses, the thread was locked due to a WebProWorld Moderator that has a history of attacking those that he does not want to allow their opinion to be stated. It is not the first thread locked due to his attacking and aggressive tactics. In addition I have seen many threads die out when he steps in and starts his tactics. A history of his post will confirm this. I would guess that he is right most of the time when he defends his positions for whatever the cause may be at the time.

But is his unrelenting attack style needed on a public forum? Can’t the open forum have some space that folks can state their opinions and experiences without the thread being dominated by such an moderator calling them liars and worse?

Can’t the viewers decide for themselves that some of the posts made by others are unfair complaints without the moderator attacking post after post individually by name and calling them liars?

If his style and attitude is any indication of the overall attitude at DMOZ, then there is a problem and intensifies the beliefs that many appear to have regardless of the actual situation. DMOZ would be better served having a dipomatic "higher up" to address the issues with perhaps an acknowledgement that the directory itself couldn't exist without websites! I have more to say about that later.

The thread ended as many do. The members are attacked and attack back in defense to the point that they give up and the other viewers stop posting to the thread, in order to not be attacked, or just because they are turned off.

There were still seemingly valid issues coming out, but you lose sight of the purpose of the thread with such an atmosphere.

The moderator in question generates more ill will towards DMOZ since he himself is an editor there. He does not present a positive image for WebProWorld or DMOZ.

Also, the moderator that decided to lock the thread attacked the WebProWorld Site Administrator that started the thread in the first place before he locked the thread.

Couldn’t the moderator locking the thread simply warn the attackers to stop or THEY would be disallowed to participate themselves, instead of locking out everyone.

My final point would be this. Is it good for WebProWorld to have an attack Moderator and another Moderator attacking the Site Administrator stating that the Site Administrator has posted a non-newsworthy subject and in turn LOST his creditability?

It is a newsworthy subject regardless of the two moderators opinions and desire to silence the viewers.

pinesprings

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