Directories can be quite beneficial for those trying to increase the number of backlinks. If PageRank is important, directory listings can help improve your score. Perhaps the most popular directory is DMOZ, an open directory project that employs human editors for the submission/approval procedure. The use of human editors is founded on furthering the quality of the directory content.

However, human prejudices can factor into the approval process, something that is hard to overcome if you are considering submitting to a competitive category. During the research process, I came across numerous statements about people having to wait months and even years before their site gets accepted into the DMOZ directory.

The following is an example I found on the SitePoint forums offered by Pavel Nedved:

“I know this is largely dependant on who the admin is for your particular category, but approximately how long is the average Submit -> Listing delay? I submitted in early June... should I check back at Christmas?” Pavel’s statement was a humorous look at the wait for DMOZ acceptance. But it begs the question: How long should someone have to wait before they are approved, denied, or contacted about either?

Depending on the amount of submissions a DMOZ category gets, users should expect to hear SOMETHING back from the human editors at some point. Because of the slow response times and rejections for unknown reasons, there has been an increasing amount of vocal displeasure aimed at DMOZ. Some question whether the intentions of a few editors are actually pure.

SitePoint poster Kimberly commented about her experience with DMOZ, “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.” Judging from Kimberly’s statement, it would appear that she was the victim of another’s ethical shortcomings. If editors allow personal feelings and competitiveness to affect their judgment, obviously they shouldn’t be part of the approval process.

This particular discussion led to one of the more damning posts about DMOZ I’ve read. JakeCop has had some negative experiences with the open directory and lets his frustration out on SitePoint: “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 submitted one of my major sites back in April, and don't expect to ever be listed… I even had 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.”

Again, this is a case of personal prejudices and overlapping business interests interfering with a simple approval process; something that doesn’t have to be considered when an automated spider crawls your site. To be fair, every editor that volunteers to DMOZ isn’t going to mistreat your submission, although it may be awhile before it gets approved.

At the Cre8asite forums, Kensplace again gives some really good feedback concerning DMOZ and the approval process. Ken speaks about using DMOZ as a search tool and how the editor’s lack of punctuality and/or the one site - one submission standard can damage the effectiveness of DMOZ: “do you not think you would be even more satisfied if the millions of sites that didn’t make it into dmoz were available for you when you search? Think of all the bargains you are missing, think of all the information, research and technical data that is NOT available on dmoz due to its behavior.”

Granted, not every testimonial I read was negative. A thread on the Digital Point forums spoke of a DMOZ editor assisting a web site owner in the approval process. The poster had waited about 3 months and still no approval, so they decided to email the category editor. After receiving the mailing, the editor “promptly added [the] site to dmoz.” So there is still hope.

The thing I’m left wondering is if all it took was an email to get the approval going, what was going on the 3 months beforehand? Was the editor that busy? Or were they being negligent to their submission queue? Such are the risks when relying on human intervention.

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Former WebProWorld Admin

The way I understood the matter is that DMOZ is not a service for website owners but a service for the searching public. Think of all the sp@m you miss by searching in an edited directory! I agree it is not suitable for all purposes, but it serves well in many cases. I find I am searching more and more in directories and on globalspec for technical matters. I am fed up of being offered Viagra when I am looking for safety glass or something else!

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Simon - Biogas, Rauchgasanalysator and Rauchgasanalysegerät

I've pretty much given up on DMOZ. Oh, I make the attempt to submit from time-to-time, but usually the categories I need to submit to don't have editors at all!

I've tried over a dozen times to get one of my client's sites moved to a more appropriate category or even get the description corrected with no success. (Again, no editor for that category.)

My clients are primarily industrial.

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MAWells
www.web-kare.com
www.industry2industry.com

I was a site editor for DMOZ for a couple of years until i got tired of the juvenile antics of the next up the ladder site editor who would circumvent my site approvals in favour of his/her own. The way the system works is the higher ups on the root directories have editor priveledges over the lower editors and even if the category editor accepts the listing the next up the ladder can refuse and remove it. DMOZ is one of the biggest jokes going as some snot nose kid who doesnt have a clue can control a whole category just because he/she was first to accept it. There is no screening process for the editors so some 10 year old can be controlling a category that they know nothing about.
As a search engine forget it unless you want totally biased useless sites that promote the site editor.

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

This is actually very similar to what I encountered.

I submitted my site and waited and waited and waited. while do 1=1 {wait();} endwhile

After several months - I tried submitting the site again.

I wrote several a complaints to DMOZ - and after several months... finally received a rejection letter stating my site didn't "fit the category".

After this - I submitted another site we had - under the same categories... but one that no one (in my industry knew about yet) - and the site was accepted - in all categories - within days.

A couple months later... I found out that the Editor for the categories I requested... was the owner of the #1 position website.

I have also had this issue with Yahoo... have since found out a Yahoo Editor (I think that's what they are called in Yahoo also) was a "friend" with the owner of the website in the #1 position - the same website which was listed in the #1 position of DMOZ.

You would think dirty tactics like this could not occur.

I have given up on dmoz. I tried to get my SEO website in and after months and months of waiting I asked in their forums and it turned out that my prices were using "," in stead of "." and therefore the site was rejected.

So I changed that, and waited and waited and..... nothing. I then decided that dmoz appearently is more governed by the self proclaimed greatness of the editors rather than by any logical rules. It seems that the editors feel powerful because they can decide for a website if they are in or out.

The whole goal of dmoz was never reached. I find sites with multiple listings as there is appearently no automated check on how many times the same site exists in dmoz. Dmoz is the perfect example of why human intervention without any control doesn't work. It´s close to anarchy.

Many people think that you need to be in dmoz, but it really is just a link. That one link won't make a difference.

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Otimização de Sites (SEO in Brazil)

I have a "competitor" who used to work for me and now makes knockoffs of my fork lift ramps. A couple days ago i noticed that DMOZ says that copyright infringement will get you removed from the directory. now since they use part of my sales brochure as the page header on almost every page in their website i figured aha gotcha. i contact dmoz and was told there was nothing i could do to "prove" copyright infringement and as such there was no chance they would remove the offending site from their directory. further they are listed in a half dozen places in dmoz also offending against the terms and conditions to be listed.
while the editor i was talking to seemed a nice enough fellow it really doesn't seem that they make any effort to enforce their own rules.
to add joy to my life while my erstwhile employee has been able to list a number of times in dmoz none of my submissions has been listed in the last year.


Brian McDonald
Export Manager
W M Manufacturing Ltd
Redramps.com

I applied for my multimedia company to be in the DMOZ over 1 1/2 years ago. You can go to a message board to see if your accepted http://resource-zone.com/ . I went to that board asnd was told I was accepted over a year ago. I still haveen't been placed into the directory. about half a year ago I applied to become an editor since the editor wasn't doing thier job. I was rejected by the editor of that area. I found it strange that the same person that's not doing the job imediatly rejected me. I have over 20 other companies that I have submitted to them, and none of them have been put in the directory, but all of them have been accepted within a week of submiting. Un fortunatly the people who are listed get much better ratings in google. I think there needs to be a closer look at what is really going on with the DMOZ. Any company who canaccept you but doesn't post you because of competion, shady practices and so on should not be recognized by a company such as google or any other search engine for that matter.

I joined http://resource-zone.com/forum/ to discuss getting a clients site listed and I was told that they received my submission and I am not to inquire again for 6 months. Now, if these editors are so busy that it will take 8 months to get one site reviewed why isn't this category accepting applications for more editors? Additionally, one of the discussions on the aforementioned forum is how they select editors - seems that not every snot-nosed 10 year old can become an editor. One guy has been rejected multiple times and they won't be specific as to why. Seems like the dmoz is quite the little clique and some of us are just not "cool" enough to join in.

I submitted, waited 6 months and then posted as to the status. A rude editor told me that I'd been denied because my site was too much like so many others and not to waste time resubmitting. When so many sites sell the same thing, we're going to have some of the same descriptions and pictures. Why is that any different than any other ecommerce site that sells a popular item???

Another editor told me to resubmit to my local/regional section, so I did. In the nearly a year we were waiting to get listed there, our company decided to switch the PO we were using due to the congested traffic and the amount of time it took to pick up the mail each day. Doing so meant our mailing address was now a different town. We were denied because we listed a different town than the city we submitted to.

The original category I submitted to has not been, as far as I can tell, added to in all the time I've been watching. Granted, I don't have the list memorized but I do check it fairly often and I'm very familiar with the sites that are listed (they are competitors, so I "know" their sites) and I've never noticed any new names listed.

I'm told "we're only human volunteers and we do the best we can". Fine, I respect that, but if someone doesn't have the time or desire to do the job, then why do they volunteer or continue to keep the volunteer position?

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~Beth

Wedding Invitations

Fan Wedding Programs

One of my domains, http://www.designingonline.com had a listing in DMOZ, (you can still see a link to it's position in the Google list of linked sites), then one day i noticed it was gone. I submitted several times over the past year and received no reply, nor has the site been added again.

The frustrating part is that there is no way to know why a change has occured and there is no way to counter what was done.

just today, I started using a thumbnail image site to add website thumbnails to certain links, but they use the DMOZ as a base and more than half of the legitimate sites I work with, aren't listed.

Those within DMOZ who do perform wonderfully are being poorly overshadowed because of many others who have let their own interests interfere with the job they freely accepted to do, but are doing more damage than good.

I agree, DMOZ is not OPEN. It can be slanted and very unclear. If there is a governing set of rules for editors, a better way is needed to see that they are adherred to.

Finally and meanwhile, I would rather that other search engines and businesses would stop using DMOZ as their base for listing sites. In that effect, one sour or tired editor could cause a website to virtually disappear from many seach engines. That's alot of power for an individual to be handed...without having anyone to answer to and without having to provide explanation of any kind...perhaps it's time for a revolution.

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Web Design by David Nelmes, Webmaster - Designing Online, Inc. Home and Garden Design solutions, Online Magazine, Shopping Mall, Custom E-Cards, Home and Garden Resources and many more family oriented features. http://www.designingonline.com

I've attempted to be an editor several times. I can say as an editor that the rest of the "Community" is as harsh as a bath in barbwire. Not a single submission i made was not hammered to hell and back. I found that it was a big Egotist race to who can be the best DMOZ editor. Well being im not getting paid to deal with other peoples crap i left dmoz.

My most irritating moment was when they would not approve www.franchising.com into the directory because it was in affiliation with www.franchise-update.com. Now Franchising.com is a Franchisee focused site aimed at people looking to get into franchising. Franchise UPDATE on the other hand is a trade magazine that has been disributed for over 20 years and is aimed at Franchisors, IE. The owner of Yum Brands Food Chains. While both covered entirely different spectrums of the franchising industry it was refused. To me this is saying that PC Magazine cant be listed because Playstation Magazine is already in there. And being They are tied together by Ziff Davis only 1 can be listed.

So to make a story short. I havent had 1 single good experience with DMOZ.

B.Foley

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Benjamin Foley
Web Development & Marketing
http://www.bfoleyinteractive.com/
bfoley@bfoleyinteractive.com

The DMOZ is run by the people who won't add sites to the listings that help them; so in general the DMOZ is a hoax and shouldn't be recognized as a open directory. Which brings me to my bigger question, are they giving us false information in their policies? from my experience their policies were instituted just like or constitution. Great ideas to give equality to all. unfortunatly for the DMOZ their policies are not inforced nor are they recognized by most editors of the DMOZ. You could even question if their name alone is false advertisment "open directory", that's a laugh.

I applied to become a DMOZ editor in my area of expertise.

Many of the included sites in my area didn't even exist anymore. Some listings were obviously not appropriate for a directory. The directory was organized poorly. And many of the top sites in the field were not included. (I worded my application far nicer than that :-)

I read all the requirements and studied the forum. I wrote succinct yet compelling descriptions for 3 sites (is that the # for the application? I forget) that are among the leaders in the field. I tried to convince the powers-that-be that I was not only an expert in my field, but that I love my field and wanted to make 'my' portion of the directory as useful to searchers as was humanly possible.

In less than 24 hours I was rejected as not having met their high standards...whatever those standards were.

They still don't have an editor. I guess nothing is better than something.

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The best resellers membership site also has the best monthly newsletter. No ads. No pitches. Just great articles and free resale rights products! Reselling4Profit.com ...where YOUR profit is our product

I have try for year get sites into dmoz.
WE have no problems any other places
DMOZ always declined or listings and for no good reason.
It very easy see the editors are favoring there own sites.
DMOZ IS TOTAL UNFAIR!

DMOZ is a travesty. I have some very high profile sites that do terrific business as well as provide lots of information about specific topics. I've now had THREE sites rejected simply because either the "editor" deemed our domain name too advantageous (not mine, but think Cars.com or CreditCard.com) or the "editor" owned a site in the same category we applied for and simply blocked us.[/img]

I tried for quite some time to get one of our sites listed on DMOZ. Finally, I got tired of waiting and became the editor for the category we were trying to get listed in. I remained an editor for awhile, but finally dropped out when time became a factor.

From my experience with DMOZ, it has a wide range of personalities as editors. Most of the ones I worked with were serious about their work, were very helpful, and generally good people to work with. On the other hand, well, let's just say it takes all kinds.

Now we have several sites we have been trying to get listed on DMOZ again, but it's not happening. Anyone want to volunteer to be an editor?

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mkinzie1
Pistol Pete Maravich Videos

DMOZ is a nonsense. As a directory it is useless and badly structured, as a search tool it is bug-ridden and ineffective. One of my sites has been waiting 17 months for review, another 6 months. Many of the sites that are actually in there are appalling, both in content and in presentation. I have no interest in having my sites in the directory, it's simply the link from the associated PR6/7 pages that I want. I have no idea what the editors actually do, but whatever it is it clearly isn't reviewing sites.