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 Getting your site an optimum listing
in the Open Directory (http://www.dmoz.org)
is vitally important as far as search engine positioning
is concerned as Google gives a lot of importance to sites
being listed in the Open Directory.
In this article, we focus on how you can get your site an
optimum listing in the Open Directory. Even if your site
is already listed in the Open Directory, you should read
this article to find out how you can get multiple listings
in the Open Directory.
Before you submit your site, go through your entire site
and ensure that there are no missing graphics, no links
leading to empty or non-existent pages and no "Under
construction" symbols. Also, check for typos and
grammatical errors. Furthermore, your site must provide
good content. If your site simply contains links to
various affiliate programs, you will find it difficult to
get through. The Open Directory does not mind sites
containing links to affiliate programs, as long as you
provide proper content.
You now need to select the two most important keywords for
your site based on their popularity. If you don't yet know
the keywords which are applicable for your site, have a
look at my article on "Choosing the correct keywords
for your site", available at http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?4901&keywords.htm
In this article, I have mentioned that while selecting the
keywords for your site, you should look at both the
popularity of the keywords as well as their
competitiveness. However, for the purpose of this article,
don't worry about the competitiveness - select keywords
only on the basis of popularity.
We now discuss how you should write the Title and
Description of your site's listing in the Open Directory.
You don't really have much choice regarding the Title as
the Open Directory insists that the Title be the official
name of your site. There is no way around it.
When you write the description, your aim should be to make
the Open Directory editor's job as easy as possible. You
should not give the editor the feeling that he/she needs
to edit your description in any way. The moment an editor
starts to edit your description, you risk having your
keywords removed from your description.
Your description should be a single sentence which conveys
what your site is all about and contains the two keywords
you are targeting as close as possible to the beginning of
the description. However, your description should not just
be a list of keywords - the description that you use
should be a proper sentence and should be grammatically
correct.
Broadly, here are the rules that you should remember when
forming the description:
i) Make sure that the description can tell a visitor what
your site is all about. Things like "Have a look at
our site" or "Welcome to my site" does not
tell a visitor what your site does.
ii) Avoid hype of any sort. Avoid using ALL CAPS or
exclamation marks. Phrases like "The best web site
dealing with widgets!!" or "Offers the BEST
QUALITY, CHEAPEST WIDGETS you can find anywhere" are
inappropriate.
iii) Don't capitalize every word in your description -
capitalize only the first word. Of course, if some of the
words in the description are proper nouns, then you should
capitalize them.
iv) Write the description in the third person. Don't say
"We offer financial planning and credit counseling
services", say "Offers financial planning and
credit counseling services.".
v) Don't make your description too long - limit yourself
to 15 words at the most. If you are lucky, you may be able
to get accepted with a description longer than 15 words.
However, longer the description, higher the probability
that the editor will want to edit it.
vi) Check your description for typos and grammatical
mistakes.
vii) End your description with a period. If the editor has
to add the period to the end of your description, she may
also end up editing the description, which is not what you
want. Your aim is to have the editor accept the exact
description that you had written in order to ensure that
your keywords are not removed from the description.
Now, we come to how you can select the right category for
your site. Go to the Open Directory, and search for the
two keywords you have established. Does a particular
category come up at the top for both the keywords? If so,
go to that category, and see whether the sites present in
the category are similar to yours. Also see whether that
category has a Description and/or a FAQ. Read them and
find out whether that category is applicable for your
site. If so, this is the category you should submit your
site to.
If different categories come up at the top for the two
keywords, go through all the categories and find out which
is the most appropriate category among the different
categories.
For some keywords, you will find that the Open Directory
does not display any categories. In this case, find out
which category most of the top sites belong to and submit
your site to that category, assuming it is applicable for
your site.
Once you have selected the right category, click on the
"add URL" link at the top. Type in the address
of your site in the first text box, the official name of
your site in the next text box, the description that you
have earlier developed in the third text box and your
email address in the fourth text box. Although the Open
Directory says that including the email address is
optional, I would recommend that you include it - if, for
some reason, your site is not accepted, the Open Directory
editor may want to tell you why your site has not been
accepted.
What to do if your site is not accepted
After submitting your site, go to the category where you
have submitted your site every day and see when your site
gets listed. If you find that your site is not in that
category, it may so happen that you have been placed in a
different category. Type in your domain name in Open
Directory's search box and see whether your site comes up
in the results. I have seen some sites getting accepted
within 1 day and some sites in about 2-3 weeks.
If your site has not been listed after three weeks, then
re-submit it to the same category and wait for another
three weeks. If your site is still not accepted, then have
a look at your site again. Does it contain any missing
images or links, links to empty pages or under
construction signs? Does it provide good content? Does it
have any spelling or grammatical errors?
If you are absolutely convinced that your site is eligible
for being accepted by the Open Directory, then the fact
that your site is not being accepted may signify one of
two things:
i) The editor of that category is inactive, i.e. he/she
has not been reviewing sites for a long time.
ii) He/she is your competitor, and does not want to list
you.
In this case, the first step is to write to the editor of
the category. Scroll down to the bottom of the category to
which you are trying to submit your site and click on the
name of the editor. If that category does not have an
editor, go to the category above that in the hierarchy.
For instance, suppose you are trying to submit to the
Computers: Consultants: Business Systems category. At the
time of writing of this article, that category did not
have an editor. In this case, you should go to the
Computers: Consultants category and click on one of the
editors there. Click on the "Send to editorname"
link, and in the Comments field, write a very polite
message to the editor. Tell her that you have been trying
to submit your site to the Open Directory and you have
been unsuccessful. Give her the complete details of your
submission, i.e. the category to which you submitted, your
URL, the Title and the Description that you used and the
dates on which you submitted. Ask her as to whether there
are any mistakes that you are making and whether she would
be kind enough to point out the mistakes to you so that
you can correct them.
If, after two weeks, you don't get any reply from the
editor and are not accepted into the Open Directory, then
look for another category which is applicable for your
site using the method outlined earlier and submit your
site to this category.
Getting Multiple Listings in the Open Directory
If you have already got your site listed in the Open
Directory, you may try and get your site some additional
listings in it. Begin by selecting two keywords which are
different from the keywords you selected earlier. Then try
and locate another category which is applicable for your
site and submit your site there with a new description
which contains the two new keywords you have selected.
If you are lucky, you may be able to get a listing in this
new category, especially if the editor of this category is
different from the editor of the category where your site
is already listed. Again, if the second category to which
you want to submit your site is a regional category (i.e.
a category applicable to the geographical region in which
your company is located), that again improves your chance
of getting a second listing. Alternatively, if you were
originally listed in one of the regional categories, then
getting your site listed in one of the general categories
is also possible, assuming that the products or services
you are selling are not intended for a regional market
only.
However, you have a much better chance of getting a second
listing if you submit one of the internal pages of your
site to a different category (assuming you can locate a
category which is applicable for that particular page),
rather than again submitting the home page. Submitting an
internal page has the benefit that the Title no longer
needs to be the official name of your site. This allows
you to include keywords in the Title. Before submitting
one of the internal pages of your site, you should change
the title of the page (here, by "title", I mean
the Title tag of the page, i.e. the Title that is
displayed at the top of the browser window when the page
is opened) to the Title that you want the page to be
listed under in the Open Directory. This improves the
chance that the Open Directory editor will accept the
title that you had submitted.
However, don't go overboard with submitting internal pages
- you can be penalized for spamming. Don't start
submitting any doorway pages that you have created - they
will be rejected. Any internal page that you submit must
provide some unique content and must be relevant to the
category to which you want to submit the page.
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