Frustrated with DMOZ

The Open Source Directory project is a great idea, but it needs more transparency.

DMOZ is a free, not for profit version of Yahoo! and Alta Vista. Inclusion in it helps a web site's rating on web searches. It's considered important to getting high listings on your website.

The problem with DMOZ is the process of adding a site seems to be arbitrary and totally opaque; submitters have no idea if the site has been reviewed or declined. All you can do is wait and see if your site appears in the directory.

Today I submitted the PC Rescue site for the twelfth time in ten years by my count (it may actually be more). Not once have I succeeded.

I've tried different categories in case I've chosen the wrong section and different wordings in case the editors thought my descriptions were inadequate. The response has always been the same; nothing.

Lest I be accused of spamming DMOZ, the submissions have been months, if not years apart.

Yet strangely, IT Queries appeared of it's own accord. All I can assume is a DMOZ editor
stumbled on it and thought it was suitable for inclusion.

I have a lot of sympathy for the DMOZ volunteers. Their workload must be huge and the backlogs in some categories must be horrible.

But I think DMOZ can improve things by more being transparent. Giving a little bit of feedback on whether the site has been evaluated and the reasons if rejected would make the job easier for everybody. It would also defuse a lot of the criticisms DMOZ receives.

As I said at the beginning I'm at a loss to see how to get PC Rescue into DMOZ. So from last month, I've decided to resubmit my application every six weeks. Perhaps this might eventually get some response.

My apologies to the hard working editors if I'm making the work load worse, but I don't see any other way of dealing with it.