Submitting your site to the Open
Directory
By Sumantra Roy
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. AOL,
Netscape
& Lycos
all take their results from the Open Directory. Google
gives a lot of importance to sites being listed in the Open
Directory. In addition to this, getting registered by the Open
Directory will also help you improve the link popularity of your
site.
In this article, we focus on
how you can get your site an optimum listing in the Open
Directory so that your site gets a high ranking in the search
engines which use results from 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.
Now, we need to review the
factors that AOL, Netscape and Lycos use to rank sites from the
Open Directory. You should not be too worried about the ranking
of your site in the Open Directory itself - not too many people
use the Open Directory for finding information. However, the
algorithm that the Open Directory uses is similar to the
algorithm that Netscape uses, and hence a high ranking in
Netscape generally means a high ranking in the Open Directory
and vice-versa.
Before we begin reviewing the
factors influencing the ranking of your site, you 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?1039&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.
Broadly, here are the factors
which influence your rankings in AOL, Netscape and Lycos:
i) Presence of the keyword in
the Title and Description
If you want to rank highly for
a keyword, the Title and the Description that you use to submit
your site to the Open Directory should contain the keyword. Note
that this Title is not the title that you have used in the home
page of your web site and that this Description is not the
description that you have used in the Meta Description tag of
your home page. Rather, it is the Title and the Description of
your site's listing in the Open Directory.
ii) Prominence of the keyword
in the Title and the Description
"Prominence" means
how close the keyword is to the beginning of the Title and
Description. Other things remaining the same, closer the keyword
to the beginning of the Title and the Description, higher your
ranking.
iii) Presence of the keyword in
the URL
Other things remaining the
same, your site will get a higher ranking if a keyword or a part
of the keyword is present in the URL of your site.
iv) Presence of the keyword in
the Category name
In Netscape, other things
remaining the same, if the keyword is present in the name of the
Category, your site will get a higher ranking. Even if only a
part of the keyword is present in the name of the category, your
site will get a higher ranking. Note that this is applicable
only in Netscape.
v) Number of sites in a
category which contain the keyword in their descriptions
In Netscape, other things
remaining the same, more the number of sites in a category which
contain the keyword in their descriptions, higher the ranking
for all sites in that category. Once again, this is applicable
only in Netscape.
Now, as you can see from points
i) and ii), if your site has to be ranked at the top for a
particular keyword, the keyword needs to be present in the
Title. However, the Open Directory insists that the Title be the
official name of your site.
Hence, unless the official name
of your site contains the keywords, you have little or no choice
with respect to the Title. Short of changing the official name
of your site, there is not much that you can do.
Now, assuming that your target
keyword is not present in the official name of your site, search
AOL for the keywords which you had selected and find out if the
top 10 sites in AOL all have the keyword in the Title. If they
do, your site will not be able to get a high ranking for those
keywords. In this case, select two more keywords based on their
popularity and again search AOL for those keywords. If the top
10 sites all contain the keyword, reject the keywords and select
the next two keywords. In this way, find out two keywords for
which the top 10 sites don't contain the keyword in the Title.
Of course, if the official name
of your site contains the keywords, then you are in luck! This
means that your Title will contain the keywords and there is a
good chance that you will get a high ranking for those keywords.
Now we come to how you should
write the description of your site. 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 for which you are already
ranked well. 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.
Article by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one
of the most respected search engine positioning specialists on
the Internet. To have Sumantra's company place your site at
the top of the search engines, go to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/
For more advice on how you can take your web
site to the top of the search engines, subscribe to his FREE
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