Your Best Chance of Getting Listed in Dmoz

I’ve been an editor at Dmoz for years. Over that time I’ve heard more than my fair share of complaints about how hard it is to get a website listed. The single best tip I can give you is this:

Make sure you submit to the right category and comply with the Title and Description requirements! 99.9% of sites I review need to be moved to the right category and have their Title and Descriptions re-written to comply with the rules. If there’s lots of sites to edit you can imagine how time consuming this will be.

Don’t make it hard for the editors. You’ll find your site gets approved far quicker if the only thing an editor needs to do is hit the “approve” button.

5 thoughts on “Your Best Chance of Getting Listed in Dmoz”

  1. Sophie

    I’ve has sites been turned down before and what with the negative press recently I am wondering if they are going out of fashion with search engines and users?

    In all honesty if I asked anyone outside of the web industry if they had heard of DMOZ I would expect 99% would not, so I’ve always wondered why its been held up so highly.

    Not anti DMOZ, I just used to submit and forget, but just curious you know? 🙂

    Daz

    PS are DMOZ in need of new fresh blood, er I mean editors? 😉

  2. I hear you Daz. The thing is with Google and the Sandbox/Trustbox issues IMO a link from Dmoz is a good link to get.

    I do agree it’s pretty much submit and forget but if you make sure your submission is spot on you have a much better chance of being approved. The majority of submissions I see are from web designers, seo’s and internet marketers and it amazes me how few seem to know the guidelines. If I was paying someone to submit for me I would expect better.

    > PS are DMOZ in need of new fresh blood, er I mean editors?

    Sure. Email me if you like and we can chat about the best way to get accepted.

  3. Sophie…not sure that getting listed in DMOZ is even worth it anymore. Over the last 5 years, I have submitted all of my clients sites to the directory and only 2 have been accepted. In both cases, I have achieved outstanding organic results for extremely popular key terms.

  4. I am also an editor, and I agree, this is good advice. I’ve actually had it where a site I listed just wasn’t spammy enough for the owner, so they tried to update it to a “less than acceptable” title and description. I ignored the request, but kept the site in the directory with the title and description I gave it.

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