How Does DMOZ Review Your Site?

If you’ve ever submitted your website for inclusion in the DMOZ Directory, you know how frustrating of a process it can be. The review process for DMOZ is very long and you are lucky if your website is even looked at. Here is how the review and publishing process works, according to DMOZ itself.

1. A member of the public visits DMOZ, finds the appropriate category, and suggests a URL for inclusion in the directory.
2. Spam filters allow repeated, multiple, automatic, and malicious submissions to be removed immediately. DMOZ claims that “only suggestions made in clear defiance of the site suggestion instructions are removed at this point”, but the instructions are very specific so this could include a lot of submissions.
3. After a few days, the suggestion is added to the unreviewed submissions pool for the category.
4. The suggestion sits in the unreviewed pool until an editor with permissions in that category decides to review the website. According to DMOZ,  this could take “a few minutes to a year or more”.
5. Once you are lucky enough to have someone actually look at your submission. The editor will then review the site and decide if it should be listed in the directory. If not, the submission is deleted at this point.
6. If the editor decides the website should be included, he or she will then consider if the current category is the best one for the submission. The editor may also determine that it is necessary to rewrite the description. If the editor thinks the website should be listed in another category, the submission will be moved.
7. If your submission is moved to another category, your hope should be that the same editor has permissions to list the site in that category. If not, the submission goes back into the unreviewed pool and the process starts over.

If you are actually one of the fortunate few that gets your submission approved, your website will be listed within a couple of days of being approved. The database that the search function works from is only updated once a week, so your site will not show up immediately if you search for it.

My experience with the DMOZ has been that it is extremely inefficient and does a bad job of choosing quality websites. I have found many sites that have excellent information, but are not included in the directory. Unfortunately, the directory still carries a lot of weight with the search engines, so it is worth a shot at submitting your site. It is free to do, just don’t get your hopes up for a quick inclusion. DMOZ is just one of the of the top 25 strongest web directories.

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