Kent WebSite Design

Anecdotes are not always humurous.

I recently was engaged in talks with a couple of small local businesses about creating a website and associated marketing.
Initially, it was at enquiry stage, so I sent off a letter about the marketing opportunities and benefits, with an adequate pricing structure.  Rather than hassle these new prospects I decided to wait some time before getting feedback. The business was notorious for its careful expenditure so I had been told. So I knew I wouldnt get an immediate reply.

A few weeks later , I noticed in the local paper that one of the companies had a centre page review with one of the local reporters. It detailed the “new services” of the existing business, photographs and interview.

Now, I am starting to think Missed Opportunity here! I cannot really blame the company in one respect. They are a small outfit and like most small business, concentrating on just surviving.
However, it did not even cross my mind to state on my introductory letter that any important new services or announcements could be of benefit to a new website. Well, in that respect, I re worded my intro letter just to state that from now on. A lesson for me, but what about the company?

The next business review of another company in the paper did not have pictures, just a paragraph on the company,  but it did have the URL to its website!
I am imagining that those reading the article probably went on to visit the website if they were interested in the topic. I am also imagining exactly what my prospect has lost. What did they lose from this free marketing? Yep, I said Free Marketing!

• Free Traffic
• Free Links (Most articles are re-published online in the newspaper website)
• Most of the news websites have lots of content and thus good Page Rank
• Marketing opportunity to sell the new service online.
• I could have created a one off landing page and booked new customers!
• Niche Market, beauty products; probably a few Bookmarks too
• Newspaper has around 10,000 circulation locally

Well thats a long list to lose out on eh?

• Its important to follow up leads within a suitable timescale. Yes, harranging people on a daily basis will lose prospects, but make some definate time scale to follow up leads.
• Always state the benefits of getting the website online quickly and always enquire about new products and services in the first instance.
• Set up unique landing pages before a press release. Better still, work in a press release into the cost of your charges and let the world know. It`s not only big companies who have something to say, especially for local services.

Ironically, the other prospect I had replied to, responded to my letter. They want to set up a website and market for the 2006 christmas sales. But it`s December 2006 already.  And thats another story!

In a previous post I argued the point that a non functional DMOZ directory was harming its credability. You can view that post to read my comments.

However, DMOZ Submission is now well, alive and kicking. Editing is working for the editors, apparently. Its not clear as yet the technical difficulties DMOZ were suffering. Vague information and no press releases only further harmed its position. Seeing that it was bought for around £1M USD a few years back, one would think that technical issues wouldnt be too hard to solve considering its importance.

Its a start at least. In light of the importance of the ODP data to the search industry, DMOZ has an important role to play. I like the idea of human editing, provided its policies are transparent and the thing actually works.

Personally, I cant see server technical issues causing such a long lay off of editing or submissions. Maybe somebody pulled the plug on financing or somehow the ODP was hacked, compromising the integrity of the ODP Data. Either or, its something that will not be shouted from the roof tops by the administration or owners.

Personally, I am just happy that DMOZ is working again and that the data being used by big players in the Search Industry, is relevant and a fair playing field for the rest. Though Google were ominously quiet about the whole saga.

I am quite sure that every SEO beginner is be told from the outset that the DMOZ Open Directory Project is a must for inclusion. Get your site listed within it, they are told. A number of SEO optimisation programs have checks for the inclusion of your site into the directory too. Aside from a decent link building campaign, the DMOZ inclusion appears to be a good thing.

However, since becoming involved in seo topics, I have witnessed somewhat of an under current of annoyance toward DMOZ.
Yes, generally these are from site owners or web masters that have failed inclusion. It appears, that the most popular reasons for not being listed after submission to one of the categories, is that the site content is not up to the quality required. Or the site was submitted to a wrong category editor. That`s fair enough reason.

I have researched a few disgruntled comments regarding the lack of transparency of DMOZ. It does appear that some comments have some weight in the argument.
In referencing URLs that have not been included in the directory, against URLs that are, I have found that the quality of the submitted site does tend to be as good or better than current entries. So why aren’t they included?

Another wild accusation is that the category editors could be somewhat associated to the business category they edit. Personally, I do not hold much credence with this argument. Okay, if it were true, that might affect one or two different categories, but not the whole directory.

Another major bugbear seems to be with DMOZ submission itself. For some time the submission response has been “We apologize for the inconvenience while we resolve technical problems. Please check back in a day or two.”
Technical problems? Server problems,? Editorial problems?
This “day or two” has been an ongoing situation for many months. Is DMOZ dead?

Now, considering the importance of ODP Data. Everybody knows that the data is used for the Google directory and various other directories and Search. The benefit here is that you get a nice healthy pagerank link from the respected DMOZ and another from Google. Nice if you can get it. Obviously, there are other forms of backlinks that you can obtain in the long run, but that’s not the discussion here.

Moreover, I cannot see any contact links within DMOZ. I think I have good eyesight. Therefore, its not really transparent in its operation if you cannot even contact the directory for comment.

We appear to be in a post DMOZ era. The haves and the have nots. What really baffles me is why does a creditable company like Google take the data from such a skewed way of operating? If the data isn’t consistent, then is it of use?

Anybody can design and host a website and publish content. Sooner or later a search engine will apply its algorithm to the pages and work out its value to the Internet. This is a process fair, equitable process, applied equally to all sites. I think the Internet must move on from patchy data such as DMOZ, especially companies like Google.

DMOZ says “Humans do it better”. I am not so sure.