Come on DMOZ sort yourself out. I've tried and tried to get my site
listed and I'm not getting any feedback at all. The category I've been
trying to get in does not even have any editors. The next level up with
editors is the top one, and the editors listed there do not have the
category in their profilers??!! Very confusing.

I've even tried to become an editor and you keep refusing me. Even down
to a group that only has 10 entries.

You get alot of bad press in here, when honest people try and help, you
throw it back at us, such as my application being turned down.

DMOZ is supposed to be an impartial directory used by Google. Its a
known fact that you need to be listed in DMOZ to get some rating from
Google at least. Waiting over a year is ridiculous, especially without
any correspondance back from them.

Please sort it out, its not fair to the good honest sites who need you.

Please, please....please !!

You can now bring legal action in the Uk against DMOZ for witholding
data about you on a computer without the necessary Data Protection Act
1998 license. You can use this Act to force DMOZ to supply all data
about you and your site. see =
http://www.ico.gov.uk/eventual.aspx?id=1037&expmovie=1
If DMOZ fail to supply all the relevant data an enforcement notice can
be issued. Failure to comply with that notice is a criminal offence.
If any editor is electronically holding information about you without
the neccessary Data Protection Act license they are committing a
criminal offence.
We have already ilicited a lot of information and details of editors
from this forum who can expect very shortly to be prosecuted.
In our opnion DMOZ also are contravening the Competition and enterprise
Acts. see =
http://www.oft.gov.uk/Business/Legal...on/default.htm As soon
as we have gathered more evidence we fully intend to issue proceedings
under these Acts. We suggest you make a complaint to the OFT as they
have statutory powers to criminally prosecute this organisation and its
editors.
In our opnion DMOZ has throughout the UK and Far Eastern business
community lowered the reputation not just of itself but also that of
AOL and Google.

Hi folks,

First of all, I do not work or have worked for DMOZ but have been
waiting for months for my site to be listed, I have also tried to
become an editor to give the guys a hand and was turned down straight
away.

Nevertheless, I believe the expectations you are nurturing might not be
as it is in reality. My website (www.webalorixa.net, in Portuguese
only) has been indexed and pageranked in 3 months after its realease
with just a couple of linkbacks. All I did was to make the site as
accessible as possible, use validated code (XHTML, in my case) and work
on the content as well as I could. Once again no guarantee it will work
for you.

I am not against asking more transparency from DMOZ's side, although
personally I couldn't bother less (whatever will, will be). I wouldn't
take them to court either because that would create a responsibility on
volunteers that they should not carry. Just imagine how many people
will be willing to join DMOZ if by joining as a volunteer you become
liable of something you are better off without. Truth is, since the
advent of SEO, DMOZ has been inundated by requests of so-called
volunteers (not referring to you or me) that are either SEO people or
website owners willing to give that 'hand' they need since their own
sites are not listed yet.

Accepting this help from webmasters with pending interests compromise
the whole modus operandi of the DMOZ project: editors have to have no
strings attached in order to be impartial. In the real world (except in
politics, Tessa Jowell anyone? ) you should not be part of a body
that will evaluate you or anything and anyone related to you.

On the other hand, people are starting to question how far does the
DMOZ glowing shadow will make your site look any better than a site
like mine. AS far as I can see there are people listed in DMOZ with
1000 pages more than my site and still I rank better than them in
search results.

My humble advice is save your time and please don't kill the tree
because it has no leaves, it might just be autumn. Nevertheless,
whenever I get my site listed there and I have no more pending
interestes with them, I will definitely give them a go again as a
volunteering editor and if they turn me down again, well... that is
life, I just gain more time for myself.

Best of luck for all of us!

Luis de la Orden Morais
Editor - Webalorixá Magazine
www.webalorixa.net

as we have gathered more evidence we fully intend to issue proceedings
under these Acts. We suggest you make a complaint to the OFT as they
have statutory powers to criminally prosecute this organisation and its
editors.

That seems a bit long-winded. In as much as DMOZ might treat sites in
different European countries differently, why not report it to the
Competitions Directorate in Brussels - DG IV?

http://www.dti.gov.uk/ccp/topics2/ecpolicy.htm

"Article 82 prohibits the abuse of a dominant position insofar as it
may affect trade between member states. There is no possibility of
exemption."

Spécifically:

Any abuse by one or more undertakings of a dominant position within the
common market or in a substantial part of it shall be prohibited as
incompatible with the common market in so far as it may affect trade
between Member States.

Such abuse may, in particular, consist in:

(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices
or other unfair trading conditions;

(b) limiting production, markets or technical development to the
prejudice of consumers;

(c) applying dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with
other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive
disadvantage;

(d) making the conclusion of contracts subject to acceptance by the
other parties of supplementary obligations which, by their nature or
according to commercial usage, have no connection with the subject of
such contracts.

There can be no doubt whatsoever at law that Google is the dominant
search supplier. But their choice of DMOZ biases the results of such
searchs unfairly and makes Google liable, IMO, under Article 82 should
any pair of differentially-treated organisations trade across EU
boundaries.

The great advantage of DG IV is that once it's wound up and let go, it
powers itself and no one can stop it. And the taxpayer picks up the
bill.

Google dumping DMOZ would dramatically improve the quality of its
search results.

I wish all these people who keep suggesting legal action against DMOZ
would bring it on rather than keep spouting hot air...but please read
what you agreed to when you suggested a site.

Gareth - IWTO .... please stop submitting your site - every time you
resubmit, you just overwrite the previous one with the new date and
move your site to the back of the list - you have been putting yourself
at a disadvantage. Submit ONCE and forget about it.

The opposite would be the case. Google do a lot of testing and they
must have decided that weighting DMOZ is obviously beneficial or they
would have dropped it already.

Probably the very reason that Google uses DMOZ is the very reason that
webmasters complain so much about it!! ie its selective (50% of
submitted sites are rejected); it can't be mmanipulated for SEO needs;
its NOT a listing service for webmasters -- most of the complaints in
this thread are based on the flawed assumption that this is what DMOZ
is and its not.

Thank you to p...@isham-research.co.uk for some excellant guidance. If
anyone reading this feels aggrieved by DMOZ we urge you to e-mail
http://www.dti.gov.uk/ccp/topics2/ecpolicy.htm and/or
http://www.oft.gov.uk/Business/Legal...on/default.htm and/or
http://www.ico.gov.uk/eventual.aspx?id=1037&expmovie=1


To seo 101 please note that many businesses did not submit sites
themselves - instead half complete submissions were made by their
competitors in the knowledge they would fail. Many businesses, like
ourselves, are not even aware the submissions were made until it comes
to light e.g. in a discussion on a public forum. Consquently they had
no oppurtunity to 'read what you agreed to when you suggested a site.'


'I wish all these people who keep suggesting legal action against DMOZ
would bring it on rather than keep spouting hot air'

On this point i totally agree with you however such action takes time
and trust me the wheels are in motion.

More than half the sites listed in DMOZ were never submitted. But DMOZ
has logs of IP addresses and the email of those who submitted. Are you
still willing to claim that you did not submit your site?

'Are you
still willing to claim that you did not submit your site?'

Notice of legal proceedings have now been issued. For the pruposes of
legal privcay we are unable to at this stage to reveal any other
further details.

Hi seo101,

Thanks for your message. I'm not trying to create a storm here, and its
obvious there are some people here who have a BIG problem with DMOZ,
and this may not be the place to have a pop at them either but it just
seems they are shooting themselves in the foot.

I submitted my site to a category with only 15 entries which is why I
am amazed ithas not been looked at yet. Then again, as I said before, I
tried looking to see who the editors of this section were, and the only
ones listed were those on the top most level. None of thier profiles
stated that they looked afer this category, which makes me wonder if
anyone is looking at it at all. Its true I have submitted my site three
times now, and I take your point that a 'date stamp' probably
overwrites the previous application, but is it acceptable that someone
SHOULD have to submit 3 times, without any correspondence back.
Perhaps, if the database registers that a url has already been
submitted, an automatic email can go out stating this and to be
'patient' !

Secondly, yes I submitted an application to become an editor of this
section based on the facts above. Yes, I do have a site which I would
like listed, so there is a possible conflict of interest, but in a my
application I recommended sites that are in direct competition to me. I
recommended them based on the fact that I am an honest person who
believes that DMOZ is a good thing, and I personally think that
competition is healthy. I would not be doing this if I did'nt think
like that.

DMOZ needs help, its plain to see from the countless messages here and
in other forums. If its to shake off this image and become the entity
it once was, it needs to recruit all the help it can get to edit the
sections, recruit some impartial people to police the editors, and stop
treating honest applications as 'guilty' before proven innocent.

DMOZ is a great concept...the human touch so to speak. I think its time
to smell the roses.

DMOZ is a backward thinking organisation whose editors fills their
pockets with SEO scams using their postion in DMOZ to get a a higher
than usual listing in google. .When are Google going to realise that a
lot more businesses will use their sponsor programmes as soon as it
dis-associates itself from DMOZ.