[Webnauts]

Myself and my team optimized our web site strictly with humans and search engines in mind.

We tried to achieve the maximum accessibility, usability and credibility, editing 100% valid markup with excellent semantical structure, strictly adhering to the W3C/WAI Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and the Evidence-based usability techniques of the U.S government, and additionally we also have implemented a valid P3P.

More details you can find on our web site technical statement.

Even if we tried to submit 2 or 3 times since the end of last year, we had no chance to get included in your respective directory.

Some weeks ago we found a site that claims that they can arrange an entry for a fee of $99,00.

The price becomes visible at the bottom of the list where the payment button is, when you click in the check box before your directory name.

I reported the issue here http://report-abuse.dmoz.org/ on the 3rd of June and I am checking from time to time if the issue is checked, but I get a message that my report is new.

As professionals we are aware that it is not legitimate to charge submission services for submissions to your directory, so we assume that there is obviously an abuse issue which might be worth to be investigated as soon as possible.

And the most insane thing about it is, that they are included in your directory.

I would also like to add here, that I was a moderator at the forums WebProWorld with the alias "Webnauts", and last year on the 20th of August I reported an abuse issue a member reported.

Well after all I have understanding that the editors are working voluntarily and they have to deal with an enorm number of submissions, but we still hope that we will also have the chance to be included in the directory.

We are not willing for any price to get our site submitted in your directories. We simply hope we deserve that after all.

[crowbar]

Well, you lost me after the first sentence, I'm tech challenged, but we take abuse reports very seriously, and you can trust our metas to investigate it. We hate abusers more than you do, believe me.

Just wanted to give you some kind of reply until one of our metas gets an opportunity to answer you.

[Webnauts]

Crowbar thanks for the prompt reply. I am sure that you hate those abusers more than myself, as I could not expect anything else from an ethical editor of DMOZ like yourself.

I also hope though, that you love challenged designers and SEOs like myself and my team, and that you would support us to get our site indexed, if you or that category editor considers that our site qualifies and deserves that.

[motsa]

While it might be unscrupulous to charge people to submit their site to a free directory, it isn't technically against any rules. Now, if they were guaranteeing a listing for a fee and were actually able to accomplish that because they had an employee who was an editor, then that would definitely be abuse. The company in question clearly says "We can't guarantee an accept with DMOZ as DMOZ is a free directory nor do we offer a money back guarantee if your site is not accepted."

[Webnauts]

motsa said:

While it might be unscrupulous to charge people to submit their site to a free directory, it isn't technically against any rules. Now, if they were guaranteeing a listing for a fee and were actually able to accomplish that because they had an employee who was an editor, then that would definitely be abuse. The company in question clearly says "We can't guarantee an accept with DMOZ as DMOZ is a free directory nor do we offer a money back guarantee if your site is not accepted."

So does that mean if I pay them $99 to get submitted at DMOZ it wll be OK?
If I got you right is that not unethical? We had a client asking two days ago if we can help him to get into DMOZ. So we can charge him for that, without money back guarantee. That sounds interesting. Good to know.

Not that we will provide such kind of service though.

[spectregunner]

It appears that what they are doing is charge for the service since they cannot charge for the results.

They are also probably preying on human nature where people understand what they want to understand, rather than what they are told.

I work for a major financial institution, and until very recently I worked debit cad disputes -- and if people would just take a second to read that is presented to them, they would not get ripped off as often.

Take, for example the company that offers to provide consumers with free Credit Reports. Certainly they do provide the free reports, but in doing so they also sign the people up for a monthly service they they charge $12.95 a month for. People don't read the disclosures, don't realize they are being signed up, click right through the terms and conditions, and then start screaming when they find out this company has grabbed $12.95 a month from them for the last 15 months.

They then call us all sorts of interesting names when we tell them that we cannot dispute the past charges because they did agree to them, even if they did not know they did sign up.

Not a bad racket, and all they have to do is print the confirmation screen and they have proof that they provided the service. If you have enough customers you could make many hundred dollars per hour, and if you are marginally competent, some of those sites will eventually get listed.

[crowbar]

Quote

I also hope though, that you love challenged designers and SEOs like myself and my team, and that you would support us to get our site indexed, if you or that category editor considers that our site qualifies and deserves that.

To be honest, I'm not fond of SEOs and some of their tactics at all, and I could give you a real earful on that topic, :D, but we honestly don't make judgements about companies or what they do, we judge sites and their unique content, and whether it adds value to a category for the benefit of people who are looking for information.

I have to stay unbiased in my editing because the Directory aims to be a comprehensive resource on all topics, so no matter what religion I practice, what moral values I have, or what political party I endorse, I have to set that aside and treat each site suggestion equally and show no favoritism.

It's a level playing field for all sites, whether they're professionally designed, or a simple mom & pop outfit trying to do it themselves, and with all the suggestions we get, we really don't have time to do anything more than look for the unique content, make sure it's in the right category, and write an ODP compliant title and description for it.

If SEOs/webmasters want to become more effective, you could join with us as outside editors in building the Directory, and be of service to both us and your clients.

There are many things you could do to help us, and we need and want your help. These are some of things you can do from outside:

1. Send all site suggestions to us with an ODP compliant title and description, those get spotted quickly by editors, and we're more likely to look at those first because it saves us time and we appreciate it. We might have to tweak it a little, but it saves us time.

Titles and descriptions are something we can talk about in here, so we could help to train your people to understand what we're looking for.

2. Submit to the correct category. As an editor with an extremely wide area to edit in, much of my time is spent in moving sites to the proper category, instead of reviewing sites for a possible inclusion. This is something we can also help you with in here. We have specific guidelines on where to place a site, many times it's explained in the category description.

3. Submit a suggestion only once. Again, much of my time is spent in deleting duplicate site suggestions of sites that are already listed, or that we have several copies of.

4. Don't submit mirrors, we'll hunt them down, tag them, and delete them, and then we'll get all irritable because we had to waste the time doing that, instead of listing a legitimate site suggestion.

I'll stop at just those 4 things, but it would have a big impact on the Directory and these awful waiting times you justifiably complain about.

We can't and won't review any urls in here, but, I see no reason you couldn't show us the title/description in here to get some advice, or generally describe the type of site it is and ask for advice on category placement.

I would personally welcome your assistance. You are an important industry, there are many of you, and I would rather see us all working together, than butting heads.

[Webnauts]

Crowbar, thanks for the very insightful post. I am very aware that DMOZ lacks man power capacity and support from out side.

I applied I guess a month ago to join the editors team, but because I have been honest, my application have been rejected.

I assume that the reason was that I mentioned my site, which I submitted, but not have been included yet.

I would do the same again, as I am from my nature very honest.

I was a moderator at WebProWorld since 2003, but because of some interests conflicts, I had to give up a week ago. So the time I invested there is now free for a new challenge.

I would be glad and honestly very proud, if I could join the DMOZ community, supporting where I can or being needed. As an ODP editor? As a moderator in the forums here?

But I guess that would not work, so long my own site is not indexed here.

And that, because I do not want to do all that, just to help myself or my clients to get our sites in DMOZ. That is a FACT!

I will wait until my site included, if ever, and then I will re-apply as an editor again.

If you have something specific in mind, I am always open to discuss. :)

[motsa]

Quote

I applied I guess a month ago to join the editors team, but because I have been honest, my application have been rejected.

I assume that the reason was that I mentioned that I have a site, which I submitted, but not have been included yet.

Having a site that belongs in the category you want to edit does not prevent someone from becoming an editor. If you know your application was rejected, then you must have received an e-mail telling you so. That e-mail would have either given you a list of common rejection reasons or some specific feedback about the application. If it was just the common rejection reasons, then I would recommend looking at all of them as one or more would have applied to your application -- don't get fixated on thinking that it *must* be because you own a site that would go in the category. If you're still concerned about your site being a reason for rejection, you could always apply for a category where you don't have an affiliated site.

Quote

I would be glad and honestly very proud, if I could join the DMOZ community, supporting where I can or being needed. As an ODP editor? As a moderator in the forums here?

Only ODP Meta editors can be moderators here at this forum.

[Webnauts]

spectregunner said:

It appears that what they are doing is charge for the service since they cannot charge for the results.

Do you want to say that is ethical? Or professional?

Every SEO professional knows how DMOZ works. It can take ages to get a site included, or could happen that it will never be.

OK, you might would say that they charge for optimizing the title and meta description tag to conform to the ODP guidelines.
But if that is the case, I would expect that it would have been mentioned.

Anyway, it is a fact that there are out there so many scammers, so one more of them, shouldn't make any difference.
Don't you think?

So after all, it seems that what they are doing not violate the ODP guidelines, but still I consider such activities as unprofessional and unethical.

Just my opinion.

[crowbar]

One of the three sample sites that I used when I first applied to become an editor was my own site, so that wouldn't probably be a reason. I treated all three sites equally, followed the guidelines, wrote a proper title and description for each, claimed my ownership of the site, and made sure all three belonged in that category.

What I meant was that you don't have to be an editor to be in partnership with us, a lot of helpful things can be done as a non editor.

If I were to lose my editor privileges for some reason, I could still do many of the things I do now, from the outside. I could go find new sites on my own, write a proper title/ description and submit them.

I could build categories by concentrating on just one and finding as many good sites as I could for it, and believe me, if an editor comes along and spots all those quality suggestions in a cat, all ready to go, they're going to stop, give them a quick look over, and list them. :D

I could also concentrate on cleaning up a particular category by finding the dead sites, redirects, parked or hijacked, and misplaced sites and giving the metas here a headsup about them (there's a thread here for that).

The only thing I couldn't do is to hit the add or delete button myself, but, I could certainly act as an editor from the outside.

But, my point was that if all webmasters would do those four things from outside, it would help all editors immensely, and give us more time to review and list site suggestions.

It is just an idea. Our metas have much more experience and knowledge than I do, so there may be problems with the idea that I'm not aware of, but I thought it was worth suggesting to you.

Quote

Every SEO professional knows how DMOZ works. It can take ages to get a site included, or could happen that it will never be.

Or, it could happen in one day. What SEOs don't seem to understand is that there is no system to work because we're volunteers and editing is a very haphazard sort of thing. Many editors edit in just one small category that they're interested in. Other editors like myself, have permissions in thousands of categories across a wide area.

I can't edit in all of them at the same time, so which category I happen to choose out of thousands is very haphazard. I might edit in California one day, and in Idaho the next, or I might stay in one state for a month.

[Webnauts]

motsa said:

Having a site that belongs in the category you want to edit does not prevent someone from becoming an editor. If you know your application was rejected, then you must have received an e-mail telling you so. That e-mail would have either given you a list of common rejection reasons or some specific feedback about the application. If it was just the common rejection reasons, then I would recommend looking at all of them as one or more would have applied to your application -- don't get fixated on thinking that it *must* be because you own a site that would go in the category. If you're still concerned about your site being a reason for rejection, you could always apply for a category where you don't have an affiliated site.

Only ODP Meta editors can be moderators here at this forum.

Thanks Motsa for trying to clarify my issue. Unfortunately I have deleted that mail, but I remember very well that I could not see any other reason than I have mentioned above.

I just visited the page Open Directory Editing Guidelines, and reading there the sub-topic Affiliation Disclosure I have felt confirmed about my previous statements:

Quote

Affiliations are generally any website in which you have a direct personal or professional association. You should disclose the following types of affiliations.

* Sites you've built, coded or designed; or assisted in any of these activities.
* Sites for which you've authored content.
o If content is syndicated, include original URL.
o If you've authored articles for a larger community site (e.g. Wikipedia), include a few URL(s) to specific page(s).
* Sites you own or have owned, including personal and business homepages.
* Sites you've managed personally or professionally (e.g., performed webmaster responsibilities).
* Sites you've marketed, promoted or optimized as a function of your employment, business or on someone else's behalf.
* Sites for organizations which you are actively involved in promoting a web presence.

Before I applied, I read on the page Becoming an Editor that to become an editor, I would need to fill out an application, then go to the category that interests me, then click on the "become an editor" link at the top.

Anyway I think I will give it another try. But I will not apply to an SEO affiliated directory, as I consider that myself as a conflict, due to my affiliation to that category.

Before I apply, I would like to ask here, which categories might need support, so I can be more helpful for the community.

[motsa]

Any category for which you know a number of listable sites that aren't listed yet could use help. If you have trouble finding 2-3 suggested sites for the app, then I'd probably go with a different category. A small category related to a hobby or to the city or town in Regional where you live or grew up is always a good try.

[Webnauts]

motsa said:

Any category for which you know a number of listable sites that aren't listed yet could use help. If you have trouble finding 2-3 suggested sites for the app, then I'd probably go with a different category. A small category related to a hobby or to the city or town in Regional where you live or grew up is always a good try.

My company is located in Germany, but the language of my web site is English. What do you suggest in that case?

[Webnauts]

crowbar said:

We can't and won't review any urls in here, but, I see no reason you couldn't show us the title/description in here to get some advice, or generally describe the type of site it is and ask for advice on category placement.

I just read the thread again and I guess I missed your point before.

I am using on my site now:

Title: SEO Workers Search Engine Optimization Consulting Company

Description: Start ranking higher and increase your revenue potential with SEO Workers professional search engine optimization services.

For sure I did not use that title or description tag when I submitted the site before.

I thought of using now the following:

Title: SEO Workers

Description: Providing the means necessary to make web sites available to the largest possible audience, using the latest web site development standards and search engine optimization techniques.

Would those be Ok? If yes, do I need to submit again? I think I did already 3 times since 2006, and I assume that is not really wished here, or?

Thank you and the other members here for your kind support.

This post has been edited by Webnauts: 10 July 2008 - 11:15 PM
Reason for edit: Spelling/grammar errors

[spectregunner]

Title: Name of the Company
Description: What a surfer can find on the website -- not an advertisement for the company or a bunch of keywords or promotional language.

[mollybdenum]

Located in Germany, English language site.....you would want to find the appropriate category in the Regional categories then.

mollybdenum

[Webnauts]

mollybdenum said:

Located in Germany, English language site.....you would want to find the appropriate category in the Regional categories then.

mollybdenum

Thanks for your kind support. What do you think. Would these title and description tags be ok?

Title: SEO Workers

Description: Providing the means necessary to make web sites available to the largest possible audience, using the latest web site development standards and search engine optimization techniques.

And which region would you recommend if not Germany? United States? Can you be a bit more explicit?

[jimnoble]

We publish website descriptions, not mission statements. If you suggest what you proposed above, some editor will rewrite it for you :).

If the website has localised significance, suggest it to the locality where it's based.

[Webnauts]

Jimnoble, thank you very much for the very constructive feedback. I just submitted here http://www.dmoz.org/...nd_Development/ since are primary targeted market is California, we are hosting in Los Angeles and our Marketing Director is also located in California.

I used the title and description as I edited above.

I hope this time we will have a better chance.