Submitting your website to the Open Directory Project

Submitting your website to the Open Directory Project
The Open Directory Project is a directory that uses a layout similar to Yahoo and Looksmart's ones. The ODP is however different because volunteers (37,000) review the submissions, meaning that they don't get paid and neither the owner of the site pays for that submission. In this case the submissions are made much faster, but sometimes because of lack of personal some categories remain un-reviewed for a long time.

Why to choose ODP?
Everybody site owner wants his site to be inserted into Yahoo's directories because of the large traffic it brings. ODP also brings traffic, not like Yahoo and Looksmart, but it brings it. It has several partners AOL, HotBot and Lycos, which use ODP as a search engine and they help ODP bring traffic. Usually the updates are made once at a few months so it takes a time before a submitted site will appear on those search engines.

Many search engines use ODP's listing and place the sites found in its directories than those that aren't. Many are surprised by this but it's the truth. Since the humans do the review of the sites listed in the ODP, the biggest search engines, such as Google and FAST, have considered this a good thing and have rewarded the sites present into ODP directories.

How to submit to ODP
Prior to submitting to ODP read the official submission instructions and the ODP's editor guidelines page. They will help you avoid some mistakes most if the submitters do. When you first submit, it is best if you submit your home page. Considering that the home page has been accepted you could try submitting a couple of your best sub-pages to different categories. Submit the sub-pages only if you think that the site is very good, and has great content. Otherwise the editors might consider it spam and you risk having all of your pages removed from their directories.

If you really want to submit sub-pages be sure that they have much unique content as that is what the editors look for. If they are available in multiple languages the editors will be even more impressed. Multiple language sites can have both (or in how many languages they are available) submitted, but as long as the translations don't change the content of the site. Try to translate it perfectly before submitting the page, and your effort will be appreciated.

What to do in case of submission rejection
There are some rare cases when ODP does not accept some submissions of the site. We will consider that you have read our article and the instruction on their page prior to submitting, and that you have sent them the home page not a sub-page. If you have received an e-mail with the reasons why your site hasn't been accepted make the changes required, then try to submit again.

If weeks have passed since the second submission try to contact the editor responsible with the directory you wanted to submit to. The contact address is displayed at the bottom of the page. In the e-mail ask him politely the reasons why your site hasn't been accepted, but don't forget to send him the title, description, the address and the dates of both of the submitting as well.

If you don't get a reply, write another e-mail to the editor of the above category. Write that you have written in the previous e-mail but mention about the previous e-mail. Wait for a month, and if nothing happens try to improve your site and submit to another category.