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There was a time when getting your website in the dmoz open directory was the holy grail of web promotion and provided the foundation needed to get your site the proper exposure to be on it’s way to SEO super stardom. This was the primary reason I became a dmoz editor. I wanted to learn as much as I could about the directory that search engine marketers would sell their first born to get in.
My first application attempt to be a dmoz editor was in 2000. I attempted to to become an editor in the Financial Services area. More specifically “Credit and Collection“. I operated a few sites in this area and for whatever reason I could never get my sites accepted by the dmoz editors in these sections. My first attempt was met with a crude rejection letter.
I re-applied to become an editor in 2001 in the Anime area. This time they accepted me. Even though anime is not as prestigious as financial services I figured I couldn’t learn if I wasn’t on the inside. Once on the inside it was nothing like I thought it would be. Evidently they had be without an editor in the anime area for quite some time and it was back logged big time.
Once you become a dmoz editor they assign a mentor/manager to help you deal with the complex rules and regulations or answer any questions you may have. I had a serious learning curve to overcome. You just couldn’t start editing sites, you had to go thru a certain process. After a lot of reading and coaching from my mentor I thought I was ready to begin editing the 1000’s of backed logged website submissions.
IMHO dmoz had one of the most unorganized and inefficient processes at editing website entries.
Many times I would log on to find another editor approved or removed a site that I already handled. It was sort of like an old boy network. Like the mob. My mentor would come down hard on me about something that was well within my rights as an editor to do. For instance, I re-organized the editor picks in the Anime area only to be met with an email from my mentor telling me that I’m making to many changes.
I thought my changes made prefect sense, but without reason outside of “making too many changes” my mentor changed my top picks and some of the page orders back to the way they were. I didn’t get it. After finally becoming an editor to be met with such a lack of professionalism.
After a short time I started to hear grumbles from other webmasters about having to pay to get listed in certain areas in dmoz. After researching the editors forum I could see how the dmoz infrastructure was flawed and could allow for something like this to happen.
Even though I was an editor I was still on the outside of the old boy network at dmoz. Personally, I never accepted money for placement also I have no solid evidence others were accepting payola for placement. All I have is what I heard from webmaster submitting sites and the crime-like activities that seemed to be taking place with some of the top dmoz editors.
I’m sure there are many honest editors at dmoz. But unfortunately there are probably some crooked ones as well. After a short while I lost all motivation and stopped editing my area. Which of course was met with a lack of activity boot email.
The funny thing is that I see some of the same potential for this sort of thing at Wikipedia.
Do you have any experience like this with DMOZ or WIKI?
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