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The Open Directory is a human edited directory, meaning that all sites listed in the directory are reviewed by human editors. Interestingly enough, the editors have no control over individual category rankings -- they either let you in or keep you out. How you rank is based upon a secret formula that only the Colonel knows.

Getting your site listed in the Open Directory is crucial, since their results contribute if not power many of the major search engines on the web. Before submitting your site, you should find the categories where you want your site to be listed. Be aware that each page in your site can be submitted to only one category in the Open Directory.

Submission Times
Because this is volunteer based editing and inclusion it can take up to 8 weeks to get listed in the The Open Directory. You may be rejected by the category editor without explanation, but a common cause is that you may not offer unique content to the topic.

The thing to remember is that you must have suitable URL content and be engineered to beat your competition within The Open Directory before you register your pages. Just registering with The Open Directory does not assure a suitable ranking.