Submitting your site to the Open
Directory Project: some dos and don’ts
By
Donald Nelson, copyright 2003
One of the most important steps
in any site’s publicity campaign is the submission to the Open
Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.org)
as this directory provides search results for many of the most
important search engines and online portals. This directory is
not a robot driven spider, but a human edited directory and
you must observe a few important points if your submission is
to be successful.
1.Make sure that your site has original content.
If you are only publishing a collection of affiliate links or
if your site is a clone of other sites that are plentiful on
the web, then your submission is likely to be rejected. If you
are dealing with affiliate products you can of course add
content, such as product reviews or additional information and
thus show the editors that your site has something original to
offer.
2. Check your site for spelling errors and in general, make
sure that your site looks good.
Though the editors are looking for original content, they are
only human and will be annoyed by errors and by a clumsily
built site. It is my experience that professionally designed
sites, with good content, always make it into the directory
eventually (more on the time factor later).
3. Be sure to put your contact information on the web site.
An e-mail address is not enough. I spoke to one editor and he
told me that if he doesn’t see a physical address or telephone
number then the entrants in his category “are toast.”
Especially if you are selling something, you need to build
credibility with your customers, and in this case, with the
Open Directory editors, by giving proper contact information.
4. Choose the right category for your submission.
When you submit a URL to a robotic search engine there is not
much to think about, but whenever you submit to a directory an
important part of that submission is choosing a proper
category. Go online and see where sites similar to yours have
been placed in the directory. When you find the category that
you think is best, then press the add URL link. In some
categories the editors put a note mentioning the restrictions
for that category. Please heed these notes carefully and don’t
submit to this category if your site doesn’t meet the
criteria.
5. Record the date and category of your submission.
It is good to keep a record of when you submitted and to what
category you submitted your site. If your category has an
editor make a note of who the editor is. This information will
be useful if you need to make an inquiry about the status of
your submission. How long does it take to get listed? I have
had one site listed within two weeks of submission and I have
also waited eight months for other sites
6. Don’t spam the Directory!
Submit your site one time and be patient. Generally you are
only allowed to submit to one category, though if your site is
huge and has many subdivisions, you may be able to submit
sections of the site to different categories. It takes time
for entries to be processed, especially in categories where
there are many submissions. If you hastily resubmit your site,
then it will end up on the bottom of the list of sites to be
reviewed, as they are stored according to date.
7. Contact the Directory through proper channels if you
have questions about your submission
If the category where you submitted has an editor, it will be
indicated at the bottom of the page, and you can send him or
her a message. Another excellent way to make contact with the
editors is through their online forum locate at
http://resource-zone.com/ubbthreads.php .There you can ask
about the status of your submission, but you must give them
the date and category to which you submitted your site. You
can ask questions about the procedures etc, but one more
thing, don’t argue with the editors. Find out how the editors
of the directory work and do your best to meet their
conditions and you will be successful.
Donald
Nelson is a web developer, editor and social worker. He has
been working on the Internet since 1995, and is currently the
director of A1-Optimization (http://www.a1-optimization.com),
a firm providing low cost search engine optimization,
submission and web promotion services.
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