How to Submit Your Site to DMOZ

With the new year upon us, I thought I would start the year off with a helpful suggestion everybody should do.  Many search engines out there rely on Dmoz.org for both information, and use if a web site is listed or is not listed there to weigh out how you perform in the search engines out there.  Submitting your web site address to one of the many categories on Dmoz is an easy thing to do – and I will cover everything you need to know before, during and after the process.

Getting Started Submitting Your URL to DMOZ

I would suggest you read through “Step One” as described on the Dmoz page dedicated to submitting a site.  The basics though would be don’t try to cheat the system, that should cover most of what they list there.  Also remember:

• Do not submit mirror sites. Mirror sites are sites that contain identical content, but have altogether different URLs.
• Do not submit URLs that contain only the same or similar content as other sites you may have listed in the directory.  Sites with overlapping and repetitive content are not helpful to users of the directory.  Multiple submissions of the same or related sites may result in the exclusion and/or deletion of those and all affiliated sites.
• Do not disguise your submission and submit the same URL more than once.
  Example: http://www.dmoz.org and http://www.dmoz.org/index.html

Find Where in DMOZ You Want to be Listed

Now that we got the warnings out of the way, lets make sure you are not already listed.  Visit Dmoz.org, and search for your web site title or domain name so you don’t try to get yourself listed twice.

Once you are sure you are not listed anywhere in the directory, the fun begins. From Dmoz.org, start hunting through the categories, diving deeper and deeper till you reach one that meets your needs and best describes what your web site is about.  For example, my web site Firefox Facts is listed under:

Computers > Software > Internet > Clients > WWW > Browsers > Firefox > FAQs, Help and Tutorials

The more specific you can get, the better chances you have of being listed.

Submitting Your Information to DMOZ

On the category page you want to be submitted to, click the suggest URL link at the top of the Dmoz.org page.  You will then be asked to give:

• Site URL:
• Title of Site:
• Description:
• E-mail Address:

Try to be short, to the point and honest.  With the web site description, remember it should be no longer than 25-30 words. When you are sure all your details are correct, hit the “Submit” button at the bottom of the page.

One thing to remember would be that once your site has been accepted into the Open Directory, it might take 2 weeks to several months before you show up on the other web sites that use this data, such as Google, AOL Search, AltaVista, and more. 

Hope that helps you get your web site started on the right foot in 2010!