Submitting your site to the Open Directory.
By Sumantra Roy
Getting your site an optimum listing in the Open Directory (DMOZ)
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". 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
of your submission 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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Article by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected
and recognized search engine positioning specialists on the Internet.
For more articles on search engine placement, subscribe to his
1st Search Ranking Newsletter by sending a email to
1stSearchRanking.999@optinpro.com
or by going to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com
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