Floris
23rd February 2005, 06:57 AM
Getting your forum listed in DMOZ
The Sandman from TheAdminZone.com has given me permission to publish this great guide on the vBulletin fan web site here! Quentin wrote an amazing guide for those who want to learn more and know more about DMOZ and how it helps their community.
Quentin: "Being a DMOZ editor for 2 large forum categories, I have to review a lot of submissions. I can see the best and the worse in these submissions, the bulk of them being closer to the worse. In this short article I will describe how dmoz works, what editors look at when reviewing submissions, and provide a few tips, dos and don't for getting your forum listed. Some of those tips are general advice, others are more specific to forums."
Author: quentin
Web site: http://www.big-boards.com/ (http://www.big-boards.com/)
What is dmoz ?
DMOZ, or the Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org/), is a human-edited hierarchical directory. The footer currently states
which makes it the largest human (and volunteer) edited directory on the web, even though many of the listings are not up to date and many of the editors have become inactive.
Why being listed in dmoz ?
While not many people use dmoz as a search engine (which is too bad because searching for a category often produces relevant results), it has a direct consequence on the traffic to your website. The reason is that DMOZ has a high Google PageRank (read this article to learn more (http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2893)), and getting a link from one of its categories will bring you benefits in all search engines. These benefits are increased by the fact that many sites (http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/Open_Directory_Project/Sites_Using_ODP_Data/) use DMOZ's data (available as XML dumps) to feed their own directory, the most well known of these being the google directory (which link may even be more beneficial than DMOZ's).
So why is the need for an article ?
Getting listed into dmoz is not as easy as it is to enter Google or Yahoo's indexes. For those you basically just need a link from an already indexed site, but since the open directory is manually edited, your site will be manually reviewed, and may get rejected.
The process of being approved can be very frustrating. It can take months before your site is just reviewed, and that does not mean it will be indexed. This because the number of active editors is much lower than the number stated above, and because of the huge amount of submissions the directory receives. The backlog of sites waiting to be reviewed in some categories is massive.
However a huge number of unreviewed sites or a not-so-active editor are not the only reasons that can make a submission wait forever, the submission quality itself is very important. Therefore, it is important to make your submission as well as possible, so that you don't make the delay even longer and so that your site does not get rejected.
Now here's a few things to do, or not to do, when submitting your site.
1) Submit one URL to one category only.
When reviewing a site, a dmoz editor can see several things: url, title, description and email provided during the submission, date of the submission and all notes written by editors during previous edits of this URL.
Anytime an editor takes action on a URL, a note is associated with his move, which will be seen by any other editor reviewing this URL.
If you spam-submit your site to 50 categories thinking you are increasing your chances of getting listed, think that if 30 editors reject your site because it was not submitted to the appropriate category, the editor of this appropriate category will see these 30 rejections and may not even bother looking at the site. An editor will also see it in these notes if your URL has already been added to a category, and will in most cases delete it instantly with an "already listed" comment (some editors may provide several listings to the same site though).
You may make several submissions for different parts of your site, but be sure to submit a different URL for each of these submissions.
2) Submit to appropriate categories.
This is very important to reduce the time needed for being included in the ODP. If you submit to a wrong category, you will have to wait a lot. Wait for the category's editor to review your site. Since it's the wrong category, he will either delete your site (worse case scenario, but many editors think they don't have to bother looking for the right place for your site if even yourself could not do it) or move it to another category he feels is more appropriate, but most of the time will not be yet the right category. Your site will then wait in the queue of the new category to be moved once again, and so on. It will not jump the queue because it waited once. It will stand in the "sites sent here by other editors" but that does not mean it will be reviewed faster than the other ones.
This will end either with your site being deleted by an editor not in the mood to move misplaced sites, or your site waiting in the queue of a category without an editor, or (if you are lucky) your site finally landing in the appropriate category.
So, you can save yourself a lot of waiting time by submitting directly to the right category.
In the case of forums, you must first find the most precise category fitting your topic, and submit to the Chats_and_Forums subcategory. If there is not a Chats_and_Forums subcategory, you will have to figure if it is better to submit to the main category for your topic (it should be most of the time), or to a Chats_and_Forums subcategory of a parent one. Your best bet is to look at your competitors / sites similar to yours, and see in what category they are listed.
Read the category description and the category charter. If there are some specifics for being included in the category you target, they will be explained there. Failing to comply with this specifics is likely to lower dramatically your chances of being listed.
If you are still hesitating between several categories, submit primarily to one that has a listed editor (if there is one his name will be listed at the bottom of the category page), then to the one with the higher PageRank (because you will get more benefits from it).
3) Do *not* submit an inactive forum.
If your forum is new, or inactive, or has an overall low amount of posts, do not submit it. I know it is tempting because the startup is the moment the listing is the most needed, but chats_and_forums categories are clogged with empty/inactive forums. Most editors for these categories will instantly delete a forum that seems new and/or does not showcase some activity. I, as an editor of relatively general forum categories, will delete almost every time a forum with less then 5000 posts or that did not receive at least a post in the last 2 days. Probably however, the more specific the category you are targetting, the lower the activity requirement of the editor will be.
Remember that DMOZ's policy for listing sites is that they should present unique content. Since "unique content" is not really applicable for forums, it is generally activity that is considered.
4) Write a good title and description.
The easier you make the life of the editor, the faster you will get listed. Writing appropriate title and description results in the editor not having to figure one by himself, and will probably shorten the time needed for being listed.
The title must be your forum's name. For writing the description, the best thing you can do is look at the existing ones in the category you target, and mimic them.
A few examples from my current unreviewed list:
This one has about everything wrong (although not the worse i have seen). Do not use all-caps, do not use "!", do not use words such as "guaranteed", "great", "best", etc. Do not use "please", or anything like "come and join". Be objective and describe your site as someone not too excited about it would do it.
While this one stays relatively objective and neutral, the second part of the description is too general. Be precise, forget about "etc.", "stuff", "and more". Do not "talk" to the reader, using "you", and do not talk as the owner/staff of the site using "we".
This one is good. Objective and concise.
5) Do not make editor's life difficult.
Link directly to the page that should be listed. If your forum requires registration, you should think about making it readable for guests (because it's a much better format). If you do not want to for some reason, you should provide a test username and password the editor can use in your submission's description. Imagine the editor with 30 registration-only forums in its unreviewed list, he might register for the first 5 ones, and since it is likely they will be empty he might get more lazy for the following ones.
6) Spend the necessary time and money on your site.
If you don't have your own URL or use a free one, if your board uses free hosting and the screen is filled up with ads, your chances are lowered, a lot.
7) Think one shot.
Try to keep in mind the "notes factor" described in 1). The more "moves", "delete", or bad comments entered in your URL editing history, the less chances you have it will ever get listed. Try submitting once to the right category, and at the right moment.
8) Do not resubmit your site many times.
Seeing 5 times the same site in the queue is generally not a good sign. If the category receives a lot of spam submissions, you will probably get deleted without having been reviewed.
9) Instead, check your site status at resource zone.
You will not be informed if your site gets rejected.
Submit once, and if nothing happens after 3 months, go to resource zone (http://www.resource-zone.org/), a public forum maintained by editors where you can get your site's status. Read the rules there. Then enquire about your site's status, and take action depending on the answer you get.
10) Got one? Grow your site and get more!
If you are not too unlucky and your site has good content / your forum has good activity, you will probably get listed. Keep growing your site, create content beside your forums, and probably you will be able to get more listings.
As always when it comes to SEO and internet marketing, be patient.
Do not get angry at editors. It will not help you getting listed, most of them are only here to help, and imagine the unreviewed queues full of empty / spam sites they face. If there is no editor to the category you want to edit, maybe can you volunteer to edit that category ? It is accepted that editors list their own sites if they do not abuse this power, and editing the ODP is definitely a fun experience.
Copyright ©2005 Quentin, TheAdminZone.com and vBulletin.nl
Original thread: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/articles.php?do=viewarticle&aid=4819 (http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/articles.php?do=viewarticle&aid=4819)
You can discuss this article here (http://www.vBulletin-Fans.com/showthread.php?t=9522).
Floris & Staff
The Sandman from TheAdminZone.com has given me permission to publish this great guide on the vBulletin fan web site here! Quentin wrote an amazing guide for those who want to learn more and know more about DMOZ and how it helps their community.
Quentin: "Being a DMOZ editor for 2 large forum categories, I have to review a lot of submissions. I can see the best and the worse in these submissions, the bulk of them being closer to the worse. In this short article I will describe how dmoz works, what editors look at when reviewing submissions, and provide a few tips, dos and don't for getting your forum listed. Some of those tips are general advice, others are more specific to forums."
Author: quentin
Web site: http://www.big-boards.com/ (http://www.big-boards.com/)
What is dmoz ?
DMOZ, or the Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org/), is a human-edited hierarchical directory. The footer currently states
which makes it the largest human (and volunteer) edited directory on the web, even though many of the listings are not up to date and many of the editors have become inactive.
Why being listed in dmoz ?
While not many people use dmoz as a search engine (which is too bad because searching for a category often produces relevant results), it has a direct consequence on the traffic to your website. The reason is that DMOZ has a high Google PageRank (read this article to learn more (http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2893)), and getting a link from one of its categories will bring you benefits in all search engines. These benefits are increased by the fact that many sites (http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/Open_Directory_Project/Sites_Using_ODP_Data/) use DMOZ's data (available as XML dumps) to feed their own directory, the most well known of these being the google directory (which link may even be more beneficial than DMOZ's).
So why is the need for an article ?
Getting listed into dmoz is not as easy as it is to enter Google or Yahoo's indexes. For those you basically just need a link from an already indexed site, but since the open directory is manually edited, your site will be manually reviewed, and may get rejected.
The process of being approved can be very frustrating. It can take months before your site is just reviewed, and that does not mean it will be indexed. This because the number of active editors is much lower than the number stated above, and because of the huge amount of submissions the directory receives. The backlog of sites waiting to be reviewed in some categories is massive.
However a huge number of unreviewed sites or a not-so-active editor are not the only reasons that can make a submission wait forever, the submission quality itself is very important. Therefore, it is important to make your submission as well as possible, so that you don't make the delay even longer and so that your site does not get rejected.
Now here's a few things to do, or not to do, when submitting your site.
1) Submit one URL to one category only.
When reviewing a site, a dmoz editor can see several things: url, title, description and email provided during the submission, date of the submission and all notes written by editors during previous edits of this URL.
Anytime an editor takes action on a URL, a note is associated with his move, which will be seen by any other editor reviewing this URL.
If you spam-submit your site to 50 categories thinking you are increasing your chances of getting listed, think that if 30 editors reject your site because it was not submitted to the appropriate category, the editor of this appropriate category will see these 30 rejections and may not even bother looking at the site. An editor will also see it in these notes if your URL has already been added to a category, and will in most cases delete it instantly with an "already listed" comment (some editors may provide several listings to the same site though).
You may make several submissions for different parts of your site, but be sure to submit a different URL for each of these submissions.
2) Submit to appropriate categories.
This is very important to reduce the time needed for being included in the ODP. If you submit to a wrong category, you will have to wait a lot. Wait for the category's editor to review your site. Since it's the wrong category, he will either delete your site (worse case scenario, but many editors think they don't have to bother looking for the right place for your site if even yourself could not do it) or move it to another category he feels is more appropriate, but most of the time will not be yet the right category. Your site will then wait in the queue of the new category to be moved once again, and so on. It will not jump the queue because it waited once. It will stand in the "sites sent here by other editors" but that does not mean it will be reviewed faster than the other ones.
This will end either with your site being deleted by an editor not in the mood to move misplaced sites, or your site waiting in the queue of a category without an editor, or (if you are lucky) your site finally landing in the appropriate category.
So, you can save yourself a lot of waiting time by submitting directly to the right category.
In the case of forums, you must first find the most precise category fitting your topic, and submit to the Chats_and_Forums subcategory. If there is not a Chats_and_Forums subcategory, you will have to figure if it is better to submit to the main category for your topic (it should be most of the time), or to a Chats_and_Forums subcategory of a parent one. Your best bet is to look at your competitors / sites similar to yours, and see in what category they are listed.
Read the category description and the category charter. If there are some specifics for being included in the category you target, they will be explained there. Failing to comply with this specifics is likely to lower dramatically your chances of being listed.
If you are still hesitating between several categories, submit primarily to one that has a listed editor (if there is one his name will be listed at the bottom of the category page), then to the one with the higher PageRank (because you will get more benefits from it).
3) Do *not* submit an inactive forum.
If your forum is new, or inactive, or has an overall low amount of posts, do not submit it. I know it is tempting because the startup is the moment the listing is the most needed, but chats_and_forums categories are clogged with empty/inactive forums. Most editors for these categories will instantly delete a forum that seems new and/or does not showcase some activity. I, as an editor of relatively general forum categories, will delete almost every time a forum with less then 5000 posts or that did not receive at least a post in the last 2 days. Probably however, the more specific the category you are targetting, the lower the activity requirement of the editor will be.
Remember that DMOZ's policy for listing sites is that they should present unique content. Since "unique content" is not really applicable for forums, it is generally activity that is considered.
4) Write a good title and description.
The easier you make the life of the editor, the faster you will get listed. Writing appropriate title and description results in the editor not having to figure one by himself, and will probably shorten the time needed for being listed.
The title must be your forum's name. For writing the description, the best thing you can do is look at the existing ones in the category you target, and mimic them.
A few examples from my current unreviewed list:
This one has about everything wrong (although not the worse i have seen). Do not use all-caps, do not use "!", do not use words such as "guaranteed", "great", "best", etc. Do not use "please", or anything like "come and join". Be objective and describe your site as someone not too excited about it would do it.
While this one stays relatively objective and neutral, the second part of the description is too general. Be precise, forget about "etc.", "stuff", "and more". Do not "talk" to the reader, using "you", and do not talk as the owner/staff of the site using "we".
This one is good. Objective and concise.
5) Do not make editor's life difficult.
Link directly to the page that should be listed. If your forum requires registration, you should think about making it readable for guests (because it's a much better format). If you do not want to for some reason, you should provide a test username and password the editor can use in your submission's description. Imagine the editor with 30 registration-only forums in its unreviewed list, he might register for the first 5 ones, and since it is likely they will be empty he might get more lazy for the following ones.
6) Spend the necessary time and money on your site.
If you don't have your own URL or use a free one, if your board uses free hosting and the screen is filled up with ads, your chances are lowered, a lot.
7) Think one shot.
Try to keep in mind the "notes factor" described in 1). The more "moves", "delete", or bad comments entered in your URL editing history, the less chances you have it will ever get listed. Try submitting once to the right category, and at the right moment.
8) Do not resubmit your site many times.
Seeing 5 times the same site in the queue is generally not a good sign. If the category receives a lot of spam submissions, you will probably get deleted without having been reviewed.
9) Instead, check your site status at resource zone.
You will not be informed if your site gets rejected.
Submit once, and if nothing happens after 3 months, go to resource zone (http://www.resource-zone.org/), a public forum maintained by editors where you can get your site's status. Read the rules there. Then enquire about your site's status, and take action depending on the answer you get.
10) Got one? Grow your site and get more!
If you are not too unlucky and your site has good content / your forum has good activity, you will probably get listed. Keep growing your site, create content beside your forums, and probably you will be able to get more listings.
As always when it comes to SEO and internet marketing, be patient.
Do not get angry at editors. It will not help you getting listed, most of them are only here to help, and imagine the unreviewed queues full of empty / spam sites they face. If there is no editor to the category you want to edit, maybe can you volunteer to edit that category ? It is accepted that editors list their own sites if they do not abuse this power, and editing the ODP is definitely a fun experience.
Copyright ©2005 Quentin, TheAdminZone.com and vBulletin.nl
Original thread: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/articles.php?do=viewarticle&aid=4819 (http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/articles.php?do=viewarticle&aid=4819)
You can discuss this article here (http://www.vBulletin-Fans.com/showthread.php?t=9522).
Floris & Staff