What to do if your site is not accepted

After submitting your site, go to 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 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 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 Open Directory, then 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, first step is to write to editor of category. Scroll down to bottom of category to which you are trying to submit your site and click on name of editor. If that category does not have an editor, go to category above that in hierarchy. For instance, suppose you are trying to submit to Computers: Consultants: Business Systems category. At time of writing of this article, that category did not have an editor. In this case, you should go to Computers: Consultants category and click on one of editors there. Click on "Send to editorname" link, and in Comments field, write a very polite message to editor. Tell her that you have been trying to submit your site to Open Directory and you have been unsuccessful. Give her complete details of your submission, i.e. category to which you submitted, your URL, Title and Description that you used and 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 mistakes to you so that you can correct them.

If, after two weeks, you don't get any reply from editor and are not accepted into Open Directory, then look for another category which is applicable for your site using method outlined earlier and submit your site to this category.

Getting Multiple Listings in Open Directory

If you have already got your site listed in Open Directory, you may try and get your site some additional listings in it. Begin by selecting two keywords which are different from keywords you selected earlier. Then try and locate another category which is applicable for your site and submit your site there with a new description which contains two new keywords you have selected.

If you are lucky, you may be able to get a listing in this new category, especially if editor of this category is different from editor of category where your site is already listed. Again, if second category to which you want to submit your site is a regional category (i.e. a category applicable to 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 regional categories, then getting your site listed in one of general categories is also possible, assuming that 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 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 home page. Submitting an internal page has benefit that Title no longer needs to be official name of your site. This allows you to include keywords in Title. Before submitting one of internal pages of your site, you should change title of page (here, by "title", I mean Title tag of page, i.e. Title that is displayed at top of browser window when page is opened) to Title that you want page to be listed under in Open Directory. This improves chance that Open Directory editor will accept 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 category to which you want to submit page.

Might not replace your old opt-in email list - but it can be a lucrative addition to it! Take advantage of all those targeted contacts.

6. Link Building. Blogs are link heavens! Build your links thru blogs. All these links will boost your link popularity and increase your search engine rankings.

Plus, by giving viewers/readers a way of adding your RSS Feed creates targeted links to your site. This reason alone is why your site should have RSS!

7. Viewer/Subscriber Feedback. Instant feedback from your subscribers or viewers is easy with blogs. Creating trust and credibility is so much easier when there is immediate communication between two parties.

8. Keyword Content Building. Blogs are especially good for building 'keyword targeted content' for your site. All these links will boost your keyword rankings in search engines. Google places a high value on 'anchor text' and blogs are a good place to put all those links.

You can also start different blogs targeted at specific related keywords covering major topics of your site. Again, search engines love related keyword linking so you can boost your site's rankings by using blogs.

9. Monetize Your Content. Blogs are an excellent way of monetizing your content. Blog sites like Eblogger (owned by Google) even encourages you to use 'adsense code' in your blogs. If you have a popular blog - this may bring in extra income.

Plus, publishing your ezine or newsletter in a blog can bring in revenue for months if not years to come. All those affiliate links and product promotions get indexed by search engines and become accessible to a wider audience, i.e. market.

10. Because Everyone Else is Doing It! Might sound a bit 'Jonesish' but you do have to keep up with what other web sites are doing. To remain competitive - you must put RSS on your site.

Sites without 'AddtoMyYahoo' link or 'xml' button will be exception rather than rule in just a few years - if not months. It's simply another way of getting your information 'out there'. It's an opportunity and advantage that you cannot afford to miss.

Proceed without RSS at your own risk!

Titus Hoskins