There Is No Excuse For DMOZ
DMOZ Directory, Karel Patel, Link Building, Open Directory, ShoeMoney, Yahoo Directory
First off don’t get me wrong, I don’t see DMOZ as a bad place. I have known about it for years and at one point in time I was even an editor. All in all its a great place to get your site listed in, if you can. Good luck with that. LOL!!! Over the years though, there have been a lot of issues with DMOZ, one of which involved ShoeMoney getting blackmailed into having to pay $5000 dollars to keep his link. Needless to say, he didn’t pay the money and consequently he is no longer listed in DMOZ. I don’t blame him either, $5000 is a lot of money, even for a guy who has his blog logo imprinted on the bottom of his swimming pool. 
While I really enjoy the concept of DMOZ, I would really like to see improvements on their internal management system. DMOZ is a volunteer organization and they take a lot of pride in their community on building their directory of quality links. Karel Patel wrote a recent post claiming that DMOZ isn’t a dead network; however, I have to say that if DMOZ is as back logged as they ALWAYS claim to be, then it might be in their best interest to allow more editors in.
For those who don’t know, DMOZ is like near impossible to get in as an editor. While I can somewhat understand why, it’s important to make sure that they screen for good editors who can do a great job while not having to worry about abusing the power of being an editor, but on the flip side, perhaps a new system needs to be put in place so that they can accept more editors into their network to get rid of the backlog.
I don’t see it as being a valid excuse. DMOZ is dead in my eyes if they can’t process the incoming volume of high quality links. Secondly, DMOZ is dead if they continue to operate with corrupt editors who contact blog authors with higher authority and threaten them to remove their link if they don’t pay money.
While I don’t really know if what ShoeMoney said is true, I’ll tell you this, ShoeMoney did a very good job of documenting and going public with his story. I can totally see this happening a lot. Situations like this is one of the many reasons why I gave up being a volunteer editor for DMOZ.
If you’re looking for a good quality backlink, bite the bullet and pay $299 and get listed in dir.yahoo.com.
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Date/Time: 6-18-2008 01:44:59 Comment #15660
i gave up long time ago getting listed there. it is impossible…
Date/Time: 6-18-2008 02:00:51 Comment #15661
I don’t even bother trying to get into DMOZ anymore. Cause non of my websites have ever been accepted.
Date/Time: 6-18-2008 10:43:45 Comment #15675
I agree with you Garry. And although I have never submitted a site to DMOZ, I never will because of the wait time.
Plus, one link from a high PR page isn’t going to do a whole lot for you. Not to mention, I have heard that DMOZ doesn’t really send a whole lot of traffic anyways. People just want in for the link. You have to have quite a few links to have the juice transferred over if you really want to increase you PR.
I would rather spend my efforts promoting my site by other means where I have a much better chance to garner traffic.
I think they really should allow more editors like you were saying.
If a few quality people got together and really tried, I think they could come up with something better then DMOZ and keep it successful. The only problem would be getting Google to give it authority.
But, with the right kind of people backing something up, anything can happen.
Date/Time: 6-18-2008 12:54:20 Comment #15683
I agree with you 100% on DMOZ, but not sure I would go as far as paying $299 NON REFUNDABLE for a Yahoo listing, when you can get it for free.
On most of my sites 2-5% of my traffic comes from Yahoo, 65-80% comes from Google, not even sure that Yahoo is worth a listing.
Only problem is having all those eggs in one basket, and there are ways around that too!
Date/Time: 6-19-2008 10:10:57 Comment #15711
Hmmmm….as you probably know, I’m such a newb when it comes to stuff like this. Safe to say though, if you and others don’t think it’s worth the time, then, I shall not put any effort into that area of linkage
Date/Time: 6-19-2008 18:49:45 Comment #15736
DMOZ is dead to me, I think that places like Mahalo are much better at doing what DMOZ does and Mahalo does a lot more on top of that.
I understand that places like Google and Yahoo treat sites listed in DMOZ much more favorably then those who aren’t but DMOZ is useless in my opinion.
Date/Time: 6-20-2008 11:05:40 Comment #15755
It’s kind if funny if you think about it. The Yahoo listing is considered to be a good link and most believe Google gives the link a lot of credit to your PR.
Doesn’t paying $299 for it make it a paid link though?
Date/Time: 6-21-2008 11:08:54 Comment #15803
Ha! I got one of my blogs listed in DMOZ last year, after subsequently submitting the blog two months before. So in two months I got in, while other friends I know, who have more powerful and popular blogs then mine, are still waiting for years to get in the directory. It’s completely messed up! Guess I got really lucky anyway
Date/Time: 7-17-2008 10:16:22 Comment #17024
Hey
Just found your blog from my technorati page.
Wanted to say thanks about blogging on my DMOZ post.
You have a cool blog here and I have favorite it
You misspelled my name though h eheh Its Keral. Patel.
Thanks a lot