DMOZ Tips

Some people call it ODP (Open Directory Project) - others call it DMOZ as in `http://www.dmoz.org/

Call it what you want, it really matters. At the time of writing (March 2006), Google still takes its directory directly from DMOZ and uses it to supplement its web search results. Netscape, Lycos, AOL Search, AskJeeves, Hotbot
AltaVista and Direct Hit also use the ODP index to power search results.

More importantly, Google gives sites listed at DMOZ a PageRank (PR) boost, and indexes them faster. You do not have to wait in the Google sandbox for months (up to a year) if you can get your site listed in the directory.

Recent examples from my client base are:

TheRecoveryProcess.com was registered in January, 2006. The site was finished by Feb. 1, Listed in DMOZ by Feb. 10, and fully indexed by Google before March. The ONLY link prior to Google indexing was on a DMOZ PR 6 page.

Arboraria.com was registered in January, 2006. The site was finished by Jan. 15, Listed in DMOZ by Feb. 25, and indexed by Google in the first week of March. This site had about 100 back-links in addition to the DMOZ link (PR5 page.)

TIP One: You must have a quality, complete, original website that adds value to the internet. Affiliate sites (usually), duplicate content sites, incomplete sites, and sites without and individual URLs will have an uphill battle getting listed.

TIP Two: Find EXACTLY the right category to list your site. Click on the Description button on the right hand side of the Category listing page.

If you submit to the wrong category, your submission will be sent off to another possible category, or worse, deleted.

TIP Three: Submit the correct URL, title, and description.

The URL should be your top level page, with the trailing slash. Example, http://www.yoursite.com/

The Title will be: Your Site
Do not add extra text to the title area. The title is the name of your business, or web site only.

The Description should be just that, not a sales ad. If is easy for the editor to add, you stand a better chance. Do not use the Title in your Description.

Description Example: Specializes in wholesale black and white online product sales. Site includes software downloads and interactive gallery. Located in Austin, Texas, USA.

This is the format most editors like to see.

TIP Four: Relax! Do NOT re-submit your site. Listings can take weeks (or months!) to get out of the unreviewed queue and listed in the directory. If you re-submit, your listing drops to the bottom and has to work its way up again. Resubmit too many times and you will be considered a spammer and your URL will get the ax.

The following is a check list of items that must be correct prior to submitting.

If your websites consists of: ads, links to other websites, affiliate links, affiliate ads, lots of advertising (more than 2 small ads per page), offsite links, spelling errors, poor grammar, long download times (more than 20seconds), broken links, bad words, hatred, vulgarity, racism, links to porn, poor web design, lots of animated .gifs (more than 1 per page), huge page sizes that require left to right scrolling, any pop up ads, huge photos, too many photos, forced 'add to favorite' script, forced 'join our newsletter' script, any forced script, any script that changes a visitors web browser in any way, activeX anything, redirect of any kind, incorrect page title, incorrect page description, irrelevant key words, key words that are spammed (appear more than once), hidden script, hidden text, forced icon changes and ANYTHING ELSE WHICH MAY ANNOY A WEBSITE VISITOR - you will not be listed.

CONTENT!!! Each editor looks for content, the website must provide something useful which is not in cookie cutter format. The content needs to be valuable to the majority. Websites need to offer visitors something of value.

NEXT Article: Contacting DMOZ regarding your listing or potential listing.