So you want to get your blog URL listed in the DMOZ directory.
DMOZ is practically the web’s most trusted directory. It is a giant database of links accompanied by descriptions and organized into categories. To get a site listed in DMOZ is your passage into the realm of serious blogging.
There are general rules of thumb when submitting a website to DMOZ. Consistent page structure, consistent topics within the content, an acurate description, and submitting to the proper category.
These are the most important things for any site. But when it comes to blogs the guidelines aren’t quite as clear. There are certain DMOZ categories for listing Weblogs, but now you are getting narrowed down into more obscure topics. So the idea is to get your blog up to speed enough to be able to submit to higher, broader category ranges. More…
I have these occasional moments where I can be really smart. Sometimes I even get the chance to record one of those moments in text or on video.
Recently, I was talking about a way to get more links from DMOZ and then there was a blast of Writing for print vs. writing for the web and it really got me thinking this would be a good topic to follow on this blog. I might have some bright ideas in the area of web development after all. I’m not going to buckle it down hard because this is still my flagship blog and personal playhouse so I require the freedom to talk about whatever I want on a given day.
So why should you listen to me?
You really shouldn’t. I wouldn’t recommend it at all. I really don’t know much about the web and my blogging skills are not what I would call developed. I’m constantly asking questions to more experienced bloggers. But I am a writer by nature and I can be a fun read.
I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers, and thats’ why I’m not really running a help blog or offering any tech support to you.
These, however, are some articles that I enjoyed writing and people have enjoyed reading. Just some good ideas I have had in the way of this whole blogging and copywriting development scheme that I have going here. However small the bursts may be, if you are here to read those, then dig in and enjoy.
So please, check out these articles and browse the archives. If you enjoy them, leave a comment. If you dig them, digg them.(Isn’t it weird how spending too much time on the web makes the normal spelling of Digg seem wrong?)
Are you having trouble finding just the right DMOZ category to submit your URL to? Do you think that your site would benefit from an extra listing in a different category on DMOZ? The benefits of listing this way include high PR backlinks, out-of-the-box branding, and ofcoarse, an increase in traffic.
But you already know why its good to be listed in DMOZ.
Times that by 2 or 4 or (if you can do it) even 4 and you are on the same track as this post.
The idea here is to gain more than just that single, high PageRank and trusted DMOZ link. Before we get started, there are a few things you should know.
This is not a quick fix, Loophole, Scheme or Blackhat technique of any kind.
This requires a TON of relevant content from a given blog and a lot of hard work
You need to be able to edit your site’s theme (coding, not just images and colours)
Still with me? The basic idea is that a well structured blog, brimming with relevant and useful content, if it is able to categorize properly could be able to pass off its’ categories as mini-sites to directories like DMOZ. The mini-site is part of a larger network that makes up your website.
Many large scale sites that cover a number of topics, have their subfolders listed on DMOZ pages. It is a way to include websites that may not fit in so neatly in a major or sub-category.
Your categories must be well organized and, chances are, not all of them will be able to make it. I would recommend spending a few weeks building up two or three major categories (with sub categories or not) into strong groups of articles that could survive on their own blog.
i.e. If you have a website about Cats, and your categories are something like:
Veterinarian Reviews
Diet / Nutrition
Famous Kitties
Cats in the news
and say Veterinarian Reviews and Famous Kitties are packed with some of your best posts, you may be able to suggest http://mycatsite.com/veterinarian-reviews/ * as a URL in the appropriate category, and still maintain the link to your link in http://www.dmoz.org/Recreation/Pets/Cats/
*It is important that you edit your permalinks to read blog.com/category-name and not blog.com/categories/category-name/, which is the default.- Some background reading on permalink structuring:
Another thing you must consider, is that each category template needs to be unique. Your main nav can still be there, but if al the sidebar links have more to do with the rest of the site than the category, chances are its not going to cut it. This could mean cutting Top comments, Recent and Most Popular posts right out of your sidebar. The best thing to do would be to keep those widgets on your Main Index Template, and arrange slightly different sidebars for each individual category.
A good place to start figuring out how to do this is Wordpress’ very own default theme. The default theme displays different sidebar messages depending on the page, type of archive, or category the visitor is in. Simply changing the markup on this sidebar function is a quick way to set up new and unique sidebars from within each topic.
Well thats all the blogging around here for today, Camp. Until next time. Oh and before I go, I just want to apologize to all the hard-working DMOZ editors getting a sudden slew of subdomain submissions from unlikely page-rank-happy bloggers who didn’t bother to read this whole article.
Have you ever found yourself applying techniques or ideas that you picked up from designing?
I was redoing my resume recently and I was having some trouble getting my word processor to do what I wanted. Suddenly it hit me. Why don’t I just code my resume with XHTML and CSS? So I did. And believe me, it went much smoother after that. Once the initial tables and such were laid out, I just had to copy, paste, and update the content of my out-of-date resume into the feilds.
I was pretty impressed with myself, then I started wondering what other aspects of my life has it infiltrated. Whats next?
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Or get into DMOZ for a blog.
So you want to get your blog URL listed in the DMOZ directory.
DMOZ is practically the web’s most trusted directory. It is a giant database of links accompanied by descriptions and organized into categories. To get a site listed in DMOZ is your passage into the realm of serious blogging.
There are general rules of thumb when submitting a website to DMOZ. Consistent page structure, consistent topics within the content, an acurate description, and submitting to the proper category.
These are the most important things for any site. But when it comes to blogs the guidelines aren’t quite as clear. There are certain DMOZ categories for listing Weblogs, but now you are getting narrowed down into more obscure topics. So the idea is to get your blog up to speed enough to be able to submit to higher, broader category ranges. More…
I have these occasional moments where I can be really smart. Sometimes I even get the chance to record one of those moments in text or on video.
Recently, I was talking about a way to get more links from DMOZ and then there was a blast of Writing for print vs. writing for the web and it really got me thinking this would be a good topic to follow on this blog. I might have some bright ideas in the area of web development after all. I’m not going to buckle it down hard because this is still my flagship blog and personal playhouse so I require the freedom to talk about whatever I want on a given day.
So why should you listen to me?
You really shouldn’t. I wouldn’t recommend it at all. I really don’t know much about the web and my blogging skills are not what I would call developed. I’m constantly asking questions to more experienced bloggers. But I am a writer by nature and I can be a fun read.
I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers, and thats’ why I’m not really running a help blog or offering any tech support to you.
These, however, are some articles that I enjoyed writing and people have enjoyed reading. Just some good ideas I have had in the way of this whole blogging and copywriting development scheme that I have going here. However small the bursts may be, if you are here to read those, then dig in and enjoy.
5 More reasons that less is more in blogging
5 mistakes made by webmastersÂ
So please, check out these articles and browse the archives. If you enjoy them, leave a comment. If you dig them, digg them.(Isn’t it weird how spending too much time on the web makes the normal spelling of Digg seem wrong?)
I told you things would be slow this month.
Are you having trouble finding just the right DMOZ category to submit your URL to? Do you think that your site would benefit from an extra listing in a different category on DMOZ? The benefits of listing this way include high PR backlinks, out-of-the-box branding, and ofcoarse, an increase in traffic.
But you already know why its good to be listed in DMOZ.
Times that by 2 or 4 or (if you can do it) even 4 and you are on the same track as this post.
The idea here is to gain more than just that single, high PageRank and trusted DMOZ link. Before we get started, there are a few things you should know.
Still with me? The basic idea is that a well structured blog, brimming with relevant and useful content, if it is able to categorize properly could be able to pass off its’ categories as mini-sites to directories like DMOZ. The mini-site is part of a larger network that makes up your website.
Many large scale sites that cover a number of topics, have their subfolders listed on DMOZ pages. It is a way to include websites that may not fit in so neatly in a major or sub-category.
Your categories must be well organized and, chances are, not all of them will be able to make it. I would recommend spending a few weeks building up two or three major categories (with sub categories or not) into strong groups of articles that could survive on their own blog.
*It is important that you edit your permalinks to read blog.com/category-name and not blog.com/categories/category-name/, which is the default.- Some background reading on permalink structuring:
change-wordpress-permalink wordpress-categories-in-permalink-structure-behavior
wordpress-permalink-customisation-caution-for-beginners
Another thing you must consider, is that each category template needs to be unique. Your main nav can still be there, but if al the sidebar links have more to do with the rest of the site than the category, chances are its not going to cut it. This could mean cutting Top comments, Recent and Most Popular posts right out of your sidebar. The best thing to do would be to keep those widgets on your Main Index Template, and arrange slightly different sidebars for each individual category.
A good place to start figuring out how to do this is Wordpress’ very own default theme. The default theme displays different sidebar messages depending on the page, type of archive, or category the visitor is in. Simply changing the markup on this sidebar function is a quick way to set up new and unique sidebars from within each topic.
Well thats all the blogging around here for today, Camp. Until next time. Oh and before I go, I just want to apologize to all the hard-working DMOZ editors getting a sudden slew of subdomain submissions from unlikely page-rank-happy bloggers who didn’t bother to read this whole article.
Have you ever found yourself applying techniques or ideas that you picked up from designing?
I was redoing my resume recently and I was having some trouble getting my word processor to do what I wanted. Suddenly it hit me. Why don’t I just code my resume with XHTML and CSS? So I did. And believe me, it went much smoother after that. Once the initial tables and such were laid out, I just had to copy, paste, and update the content of my out-of-date resume into the feilds.
I was pretty impressed with myself, then I started wondering what other aspects of my life has it infiltrated. Whats next?