This is a topic I brushed upon back in October of 2007, but a recent blog comment on this subject begged the question yet again. The question of automatic status checks or a vehicle for submitters to manually check the status of their suggested URL’s is an often asked one.
At present there is no official avenue for someone to check the status of a site suggestion. In the past the forums at the Resource Zone offered a place where submitters and site owners could ask for a status of their submissions. This was a failed experiment for many reasons. The major problem as I see it, is in what the purpose of the status check would accomplish that would be beneficial?
At the moment there is no official avenue for submitters to check the status submissions. Frankly I see nothing positive for anyone (except of course the professional spammer) that could come from providing status checks. You see there really is only a couple of responses that can be returned on a status check:
- Your site has been rejected. – Sites that don’t meet the criteria or guidelines for inclusion will be discarded/not included. In the vast majority of cases, sites that fail to be guideline compliant for a listing cannot be made compliant. As the failed experiment at RZ proved, telling someone that their site isn’t listable rarely has a positive side. Besides tailoring a site to fit guidelines of one directory or a group of volunteers is foolish, the site presumably is already tailored for its target audience/customers and that is what is important. One directory listing isn’t nearly as important as serving customer needs.
- Site is listed. – Umm, that can be determined already by simply looking at the category. Its a waste of time for editors and/or resources to report back something that anyone can see for themselves.
- Your site hasn’t been reviewed yet (or has been moved to a more appropriate category for review). – Means nothing really. This is of course going to be the most common answer available and given the volunteer nature of the directory there is no way to predict who or when someone will choose to review the suggestion.
The bottom line is, what do you do if the result comes back as 1, 2, or 3? The answer in all three cases should be exactly the same. Nothing should change. Site owners should/must continue to maintain, expand, and promote their sites for the benefit of their customers and visitors. The site should be for its intended target, not a group of volunteers for the purpose of gaining 1 link.
The long standing advice has always been “suggest and forget”, and while its been said ad nauseum it really is good advice. Suggest the site and forget about it. It’s a much better plan to focus ones resources on what is within one’s own control, and the time and opinions of a third party group of volunteer’s certainly falls outside of ones own control. DMOZ welcomes site suggestions and most editors are very thankful to have the help of site suggestions in building the directory. DMOZ does NOT however provide a listing service for websites, and thinking otherwise will only result in frustration.
Shameless plug time :
Oh and by the way, if you are interested in purchasing directory listings (other than in DMOZ) the Best of the Web (BOTW.org) offers some services that might be of interest to you. 
—Disclaimer–
As always, the opinions expressed in this blog and in my articles are my own. I do not speak for DMOZ, BOTW, or any other organization. entity or editors. My opinons come from my own personal experiences, but certainly do not (nor are they intended too) reflect the opinons of anyone else or any other editors.
