Being a webmaster , personally … I feel a lot of other webmasters can actively help in the Open Directory Project , instead of constantly venting about the difficulty in submission , acceptance . I have also been able to harness a good amount of utility / benefit while being a voluntary editor and have recently been invited to share them on the Official Dmoz Blog .

OK , so I am somewhat happy , that I got accepted by the Boss if you know me , you would ask that I don’t work for someone , I am my own boss … so who is it that Boss and what did he accept me for, right ?

Well , I do work also as a volunteer editor on the Open Directory Project . Almost an year ago i joined under a small category and I have been learning the ropes . It’s been a informative ride mostly , save few incidents which has confused me recently in Regional/ . I like working in regional , as it helps me build up the categories with sites of local business and organizations, events and public / government utilities or important ones such as Education.

But in order to diversify my interests , I have also applied for a topical category recently . And in most occasions I have been accepted by my superiors ( Metas ) as being ready for handling more sites and categories and thus encouraged . The last category I applied for was interestingly accepted by the Dmoz Editor -in-Chief ( rdkeating25 ) – thus the Boss :p . To be frank , I was of the opinion ( from forum threads ) , that he is usually dormant / inactive in day to day operations of the directory . But maybe that is not true for all days .

You will however find him more in the new and Official Dmoz Blog – which is currently being regularly updated .

10 things to remember if you want to satisfy a Dmoz editor – this was not my original blog title , but i decided to change this as i continued writing and noticed , this is what i want and also what many others might want to know.

1. I visit many a webmaster forum and even though I am a web developer myself, it often pains me to see quite a few webmasters constantly cribbing about how ODP editors do not wish to hear their requests, DMOZ does not give attention to its customers and Dmoz is no longer valuable. Such posts does not do you much good ( i for sure do not enjoy seeing it, nor does it make help your cause.) Your time is more valuable than ranting about it.
2. I would have liked to write ” don’t be the problem, be the solution” . But i know the smartass answer to that . That being, ‘DMOZ meta editors are a secretive and scheming bastards and they do not approve XYZ’s application, so if my attempt at being a solution is blocked, i would rather be a problem‘.
   Wrong again – DMOZ meta editors who have the extremely difficult task of handling multiple responsibilities, along with checking your submitted applications are bound by even more difficult set of protocols and norms to maintain while review yours. Make sure you comply with all the requested tasks in the application form. if you have complied with it , you have already done your bit. Do not dilute that good deed.
3. During my not so illustrious career as DMOZ editor, my first few days was filled up by studying the guidelines , which drives my editing operations every day. As an editor I am supposed to find and select links, websites and resources to fill up my category. A librarian’s bookmarks, a link list created by an obsessive surfer cum webmaster of a particular genre / interest, were the origin of web directories . As an editor, I will take more time in locating such over user submitted websites . Deal with it . And even better – become the resource I have a probability to find.
4. The next part of the guidelines also explained how to write titles for a website. When you create a website, you already have a true name for it – it is helpful if you keep that in mind while submitting . If you are Bill’s Plumbing, i will name you as Bill’s Plumbing only and not Plumbing, Pipes, Cheapest plumber, Best Customer Support etc etc. Sounds good ?
5. Coming to descriptions – I know what would irritate me . If i see an Ad on the local yellow pages of a carpenter , and visited his shop only to see that he currently only sells hammers and nails . Or again, How would you really feel if you decided to order a 5 tier birthday cake and went to the bakery, only to see it is a single guy standing outside a shop with a basket with a few muffins ? I am hoping you understand what I am getting at here .
6. Describing a site, I feel requires knowing it’s content , and also gaining some knowledge about the owner / organization of the site and his/ her intent. If you have ever purchased an SSL Certificate before , you will understand this scenario – just like the certifying authority ( such as GoDaddy , Verisign etc ) , I am certifying , in a way , that your site is what I am saying it is . So please , make it obvious on your website what you really do and even better – have examples of what you have done / can do, and identify yourself / your organization .
7. You have made a product , or you are offering a service – very few times there would be someone better than you who can best categorize you or your website . So make sure when your submit your url, do it in the exactly right category. It could so be that where you have submitted may not have a exact category editor , and it may be reviewed by someone with relatively less knowledge on the topic . If that happens, your submission may cause the passing reviewer more trouble in choosing the right category for you, and if it does not get sent to the proper category , it may remain in the loop – thus extending the delay of your approval.
8. Do not submit your site in the DMOZ if all you need is a link from a PRX page . There are hundreds of other ways to get that . Inside the directory , if you are submitting for the first time and if you have a physical business, it is of utmost importance that you submit it first in your local regional category, even if that means submitting to a page with Zero Pagerank . There is a high probability that such a low level category might have lesser submission reviewing workload for the editor. It might also quite possibly happen that the editor who is reviewing your site may already know of your business.
9. Do not offer bribes , donations, congratulations letters masked as submission status requests, endorsements of any kinds. If you really want to do good , save the world from corrupt dmoz editors, there is a button for that . ( Push the button ) :p
10. Do not create duplicate , triplicate clone websites just for submission to the ODP . I can not possibly recommend business strategies for you , so you can easily have multiple websites for gaming, seo , traffic , profit and all important reason, but do not make it your intent to submit all of them to us – we can by rule only accept and review any one of them.

The above list is not exhaustive, neither endorsed in any way by DMOZ , Netscape, and any one else but me in my personal capacity as a adviser of you – my web visitor . . I do not take responsibility of any good as well as bad effects which may or may not occur to you and your website in its endeavor in getting listed in the ODP. However , if you do get a kick out of it , and also benefit from these points, feel free to share this article to your friend and social circle .

Wishing you all the best .

Yesterday was suddenly an important day for my DMOZ editor life. I received feedback from a Meta editor, who started by saying “This is a unsolicited feedback…” . The exact contents of the full email is not something i should divulge here , but nevertheless i was critically questioned for my wrong grammar , however minimal it might have been.
Interestingly, I was also “promoted” , so to say and given wider privileges on the ODP and allowed to manage a full locality. I had actually applied for this category after being an editor for its sub-cat for some weeks. Considering the localities i edit in have considerably less webmaster submissions, and also relatively low number of sites to mine, this particular category is nothing large within the ODP … but truly what my meta scolded me for makes more meaning. An editor within such lesser number of sites should be even more meticulous in his editing style.
My additional category requests (mentioned above) were sitting for sometime, so I had opted to do some greenbusting (apply to help out in larger branches of the ODP without being a named editor ), and surprisingly I got that approved yesterday too.
For a visitor to this blog or a webmaster thinking about DMOZ : may take note about the ODP and its quality. People often ask why DMOZ says it has low resources , why the editors are not bothered with site submissions and things such as receiving reply for rejection and such. Surely it is evident that because the resources are used for maintaining the high quality of editing , wherever possible.

Yes , my life has changed quite a bit ever since i became a editor at the ODP . previously i have made a post on this blog , where i did already mention that I have this new identity , but i was rather little unsure if I should be mentioning that I am an editor , whether that would be breaking any protocol , whether I would be marked by others or will become a target for unfair advances . Well, no longer I have those confusions .
The protocol I was afraid of does not prohibit me from disclosing that I am editor, rather it is upto me whether I feel safe in disclosing that I am an editor at DMOZ, because there exists uncountable hostile elements , who blame DMOZ because they have nothing better to do .
Yes, there is always the undesirable feeling that I may be target of various kinds of underhanded and illegal advances – bribery or otherwise – but after being an editor over 2 months, i have come across incidents where largely guarded DMOZ editor’s identities have been unearthed and contacts made via – Email, roadside, over phone and what not . So it does not make any difference if your identity is guarded or not . Rather , it is of importance that one remains as indifferent as before and sensible and objective in their work .
What we surely are not allowed to disclose is the internal discussions, and reasons for discussions in open forums , there definitely remains a protocol for external communication.
While being an editor at the ODP , i have come across many discussions where there is an open conflict between various webmasters and individuals who volunteer at the ODP … and it has been stated that DMOZ does not like webmasters .
I am a webmaster myself , and I have come to understand what the above statement means …. which simply means DMOZ likes the regular layman web visitors more .
Google , MSN , Yahoo also seriously does not like webmasters ( to the same effect ) , and they try to make their search capabilities and index more cleaner for the regular web searcher and not the educated webmaster .

Disclaimer : All the statements above are comments made by me as an individual , and not endorsed by the DMOZ or AOL.

DMOZ is the original Open Directory Project, one of the oldest and most reputed directories on the internet. Along with BOTW , Yahoo Directory and Business.com , if anyone serious in getting exposure and enlistment in their topic – it is the directory to be in . Numerous seo tools use a listing in DMOZ as a criteria for evaluating a website’s value. Since it’s inception as an Open Directory Project – meaning contribution can be provided by anyone with an interest and time and energy to devote, DMOZ has kept on enlarging and diversifying into various countries and languages .

However in the past – because of its basic slowness and often inactivity among volunteers , it has become the point of anger for numerous webmasters . People often read about horror stories of not getting listed for months and years , people also hear stories about corrupt DMOZ editors – who allegedly or maybe even truly taken bribes for enlisting websites. DMOZ , like WIkipedia , is not operated by a single group of people ( as far as my knowledge goes) , rather from different ends of the Internet – thus demystifying all the theories and stories might not be possible , but to come somewhat closer to its active audience – they had opened a Public Forum . It did serve some purpose and i believe several actual rules and guidelines are better explained in there , as I was just visiting it . But since past 2 years they closed down the DMOZ Site Submission Status forum , which once again angered many a people . On visiting it today I found out that AOL staff governing DMOZ has initiated a Official DMOZ Blog . Undoubtedly this is another step in having a more public face for the ODP , keeping with the current day trends for every well known websites as well. But it remains to be seen if this will become another bloodbath between the Editors and the Webmasters and also die a unnatural death like the forum. Be as it may , I am still planning to subscribe to it’s RSS feed to stay updated .