I wish Google drop DMOZ

[tivnet]

I truly believe that DMOZ is a dead horse. Nobody needs it as a directory - but everyone submits and needs to "kiss butts" of editors - just to get initial PR4 from Google.

And Editors just like to show everyone that they rule. Look at this thread, for instance:

http://resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21896

Looks like someone (guess who) is promoting one commercial site in that category - and keeps other 10 junk sites just to show that "other sites are there, too"...

I would like Google to drop DMOZ and open it's own directory, with paid inclusion. Imagine your local Yellow pages managed by DMOZ guys? Won't find any plumber there... Except for one, who happened to be Editor's cousin...

[mopacfan]

How would it be different from Yahoo then? And how much manpower would it take to make it happen? What about non-profit or personal sites? Who determines commerial vs. non-commercial content? I'm sure they've thought about it and probably decided it's not worth the hassle.

[Smyrl]

I personally like the idea of human editors reviewing a web for inclusion.

Shannon

[l234244]

I used to be an editor and was treated exactly the same way, I edited a category that had submission back for 2 years. I spent 3 months cleaning it up and then they deactivated my login. No notice, no warning, nothing. I hope there is a meta that visits digitalpoint and reads this and pm's me because all I get at resource-zone is "where not allowed to discuss reasons". My answer is why the hell has nothing changed to my category since? I asked for my category to be checked whist I was an editor 2 weeks before i got kicked out and nobody replied to my thread, so I pm another more experienced editor to have a look and he told me everything looked fine. Then all of a sudden I cant log on? I believe google will drop DMOZ sooner rather than later, google will not want to associate itself with a directory which is poorly run by a bunch of meta editors on a ego trip.

[tivnet]

How would it be different from Yahoo then? It could be better, because Yahoo is far from being the best directory, too.

What's wrong with having Yellow pages - like directories?

a) local listings
b) every business or person included once
c) pay for bold listings, or pictures

[schlottke]

DMOZ, even though my pages get listed quickly, does truely have some dumbasses running portions of it. Thats what you get when $$ is involved, though.

[hurricane_sh]

I totally agree, dmoz is a joke to me, 6 months to add a site!! What do they do with the site, duplicate it?

[tivnet]

I totally agree, dmoz is a joke to me, 6 months to add a site!! What do they do with the site, duplicate it?

Look at the profile of an editor. You may find that the same person is editing food, horseback riding, Chinese horoscope and Romanian sign language... And - when you look at his resume - you suddenly discover that s/he is a freelance programmer and SEO...

BTW, I think About.com was a nice thing. Google has it now, right? Why still DMOZ then?

[ViciousSummer]

Yep, DMOZ is a total joke...I edit a lingerie category there and after I spent a lot of time cleaning up my category, I applied for another category. I was told that my category was not up to par, I went back to see why & it was because a couple of meta editors did "drive-by" editings in my category (which they obviously knew nothing about). I've seen so many posts where meta editors are just flat out rude to people. It's really sad because the concept of DMOZ is really good.

[schlottke]

I agree - I stopped working on my catagory after being harrassed about "self-promotion" of a site that wasn't even mine.. go figure.

[DarrenC]

DMOZ is a joke.

As soon as Google dumps it people will not bother with it. The only people who visit DMOZ are webmasters and SEO's trying to get listed on it, its a nonsence directory, with muppets running it.

[Geir]

I agree that DMOZ is useless from a regular users point of view.

They have never cared to include any of my sites, so I hope that Google will drop them and they eventually become useless from a SEO point of view as well.

:) Geir

[disgust]

google will never "drop them"

but they also don't get special treatment from google. a dmoz page is just like every other page. so why's it so important to get?

because the data is copied over to THOUSANDS of different sites. all dmoz data is available for free.

it isn't that google "weights" dmoz pages highly- they're under the same ranking algos everyone else is- it's just that because dmoz data can be copied for free, thousands of sites use it, and it's a way to essentially get thousands of links via one application.

if you can get thousands of links elsewhere, you don't need dmoz at all.

[Geir]

google will never "drop them"

but they also don't get special treatment from google. a dmoz page is just like every other page. so why's it so important to get?

I was thinking of Google dropping DMOZ as provider for their own directory. I was not really hoping for Google to remove all DMOZ related pages for their index.

My thinking is that the google directory probably see more traffic than the actual DMOZ. Also, once googfle realize DMOZ is crap and stop using this directory, they may very well devalue DMOZ and all its clones in the SERP as well and/or reduce the pagerank for these pages.

:) Geir

[tivnet]

... the data is copied over to THOUSANDS of different sites. all dmoz data is available for free. Will it really be copied?

Here is my version of DMOZ copy: Business Web Directory (http://www.business.dir.tiv.net/)
I did it two years ago. The dmoz site is very slow, so any time my script manages to pull their page - it writes a cache file, and next time it uses the cache. As a result, my DMOZ data is old, and I am not going to update it.

I am pretty sure that many of DMOZ copies have old data, too.

Take, for instance this site: Original Abstract Paintings (http://www.lena.karpinsky.com/). It's listed in DMOZ - but look who has copied the data? Almost nobody:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=linkdomain%3Awww.lena.karpinsky.com&dups=1

[Weirfire]

DMOZ is very frustrating

I asked on resource zone about a week ago the status of my site and 1 editor said something about his connection and that he'd check it later. Still no reply about the status of my application and no-one is viewing my thread now because he's already replied.

[mopacfan]

Will it really be copied?

Here is my version of DMOZ copy: Business Web Directory (http://www.business.dir.tiv.net/)
I did it two years ago. The dmoz site is very slow, so any time my script manages to pull their page - it writes a cache file, and next time it uses the cache. As a result, my DMOZ data is old, and I am not going to update it.
It's not that old. I just checked and an edit I made a few months ago shows up in your site's search.

[tivnet]

It's not that old. I just checked and an edit I made a few months ago shows up in your site's search.I cannot cache all possible search strings a visitor can type in - in advance. However, if you browse the categories - the links are old.

Your search, BTW, should be cached now - so next visitor repeating the same search will see your site. You are in cache, forever :)

[kuhleen]

the principle of dmoz is good, and i think it will stand over time. The proof that it is not so bad as some of you say is that it is still there after so much time. If there were some super-tekki way of creating a dmoz-like structure automatically, the project would have vanished since long time now.
dmoz is slow at google, so i guess google failed to give it the appropriate value. with its latest redesign it also removed directory listings from the result pages, so the dmoz importance for google goes down. However this does not mean that dmoz would be as bad as you say, it just means that google found no way of making money out of it.
I guess, as dmoz is human driven, the opinions about it have to be subjective as well

[msaad]

the principle of dmoz is good, and i think it will stand over time.

Kuhleen, welcome to the forums..
I bet you have never tried to submit a website to DMOZ! They have become unbearable really.. You submit a perfectly relevant and good site, and they will still reject it without any kind of notification, leaving you puzzled for months

The editors simply think... "Does this bastard think he is gonna get a free link to his site or what? Let's give him some hard time!" :) or something like that..

Ok.. I'm just kidding.. I have to add that not all editors are like that... But at least most of them are!

[macdesign]

To l234244

I'm not a Meta, but I recognize your name from another forum, reasons for removal are not available to other editors so I can't tell for sure why you were removed. But I remember looking at your editor logs, and there seemed to be good reasons just on your editing. Don't ask me about what I saw, since I can't tell you.

I do wish there was a policy to inform editor why they were removed, since some editors are just not in touch with what they were doing as editors.

Since then I saw a post of yours in another SEO forum, where you advised someone to use cloaking to sneak their site into ODP. If that in fact was you, that in itself was probably enough to get you terminated.

[DarrenC]

The editors are rude and arrogant - I'd never want to become an editor simply because I could not reply to people like these people do. I used to use DMOZ alot for research on projects, after the experience I have had with them as a webmaster I will never used DMOZ again to search.

Why list a website in a category which is not going to be found for the services that it provides. Yes it's human controlled, but so are many many other directories, but do you have to wait for 2 yrs to get listed.. No.

[kuhleen]

I also subscribed many times one website to htem, they ignored the request for months, and after about a year, they included it without even asking me about that. Now (2 years from then) this website is listed twice in dmoz, in the appropriate category

i never talked personally to editors, hope i don't _have_ to do it soon;)

@msaad, thanks for welcoming

[minstrel]

the principle of dmoz is good, and i think it will stand over time. The proof that it is not so bad as some of you say is that it is still there after so much time.
So are smallpox and leprosy... persistence or longevity in itself does not make something good. As for the "principle of DMOZ", what exactly is that? That's not a rhetorical question, by the way -- I find it hard to determine exactly what the DMOZ editors think it's supposed to be by now. The only way it makes any sense to me any more is to view it as a set of bookmarks by other human beings whose opinions are no more "expert" than yours or mine.

If there were some super-tekki way of creating a dmoz-like structure automatically, the project would have vanished since long time now.
But there are numerous other directories who are much better at adding sites, much faster at doing so, and much more responsive to the internet community -- what's baffling is why DMOZ still enjoys such apparent prestige.

I guess, as dmoz is human driven, the opinions about it have to be subjective as well
the fact that it's subjective isn't the problem -- the problem is that it's arrogant and secretive and still perceived to be more influential than it should be -- in the end, it's just a link.

[tivnet]

Check this out:http://www.v7n.com/dmoz-questions.php

[minstrel]

Yes, I've seen that article before, tivnet -- I find these excerpts particularly salient:

ODP History
The Open Directory Project was started June of 1998. It was started because the Yahoo! directory was slow to process submissions and was full of dead links. Ironically, today the ODP is slow to process submissions and is full of dead links
Slow Site Review
It seems odd that the Open Directory considers slow site review to be a non-issue. It is especially odd when you consider that the ODP was started because the founders were "sick and tired of Yahoo's old and dead links", and slow site review.
An Oligarchy
The Open Directory Charter states that they provide an open invitation to join the ODP, a self-regulating community governed by community-driven standards, and a Republic of The Web. If the Open Directory is a Republic of the Web, North Korea is a free democracy. Truth be told, the ODP is an oligarchy ruled behind closed doors by a few active meta editors and a less that active staff (root editors). A Republic is defined as A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them. Yet, in the ODP there is no provision for the general population of editors to vote. Meta editors are not elected - they are chosen by other meta editors and staff. This in no way resembles a republic. Insofar as meta editors are likely to promote other editors of a like mind, the meta community is predetermined to become more and more of a closed community, and less accountable to the users and other editors.

[GoldDust]

(edit)


I gave up trying to get in along time ago.

[l234244]

Macdesign, do you know which forum that was mentioned in, must be this one or seoguys, as i dont use any other? I have never used cloaking and do not fully understand what it is. I would find it hard to believe I was suggesting to someone to use it as I normally ask the questions. It is quite possible that someone has the same username as me, but unlikely I think the simple answer is that the category was way behind on editing and nobody could be bothered to do it so they accepted my submission. After I cleaned it up over 100 edits, they decided lets make up an excuse to get rid of him. I had requested a category check, and nobody replied to me, so I pm a fellow editor - he says my category was looking more organised and that I was doing a good job. The fact that my category has not been changed since I left appears to indicate that my editing was up to scratch.

I have never heard of any voluntary organisation treating someone like this, never mind an extra 3-4 hours a week updating my site comes in handy.

PS My advice to anyone thinking about applying is dont, your help is not appeciated.

[quadcity]

I agree that DMOZ is useless from a regular users point of view.

They have never cared to include any of my sites, so I hope that Google will drop them and they eventually become useless from a SEO point of view as well.
If you don't like DMOZ, which (large) directories do you think are better?

[minstrel]

If you don't like DMOZ, which (large) directories do you think are better?
You can find rather large lists of directories, some free, some paid, some human-edited, some not, (and I'm nit talking about FFA "directories" or link farms but legitimate directories) at several forums like this one -- and maybe at this one too (I've only recently started posting here so I don't know). Suffice it to say that there are many of them -- take your pick.

If you can't such a list here at DigitalPoint, PM me and I'll point you to a few places where they are listed.

[tivnet]

If you don't like DMOZ, which (large) directories do you think are better?
As I said earlier, about.com is a good Directory.
DMOZ is a LOL - List Of Links. Not a Directory.
Did you see anything written by DMOZ "editors"? Any comments? Discussion? NOTHING. They are not Editors.
About.com does have good editors. They DO know the subject they edit.

Compare:

Education Directory (http://www.about.com/education/) by About.com

and

DMOZ list: click here (http://dmoz.org/Reference/Education/)

and tell me which one was built for people to read, and which one - for robots to crawl and for SEO Pros to WASTE TIME ON?

[hurricane_sh]

I think http://www.wowdirectory.com/ is the best free directory, they processed submissions within one or two days.

[minstrel]

I think http://www.wowdirectory.com/ is the best free directory, they processed submissions within one or two days.
I don't think it's a question of "better" or "best" (anything but DMOZ? :D) -- there are several quite good ones, and no good reason not to submit to all of them.

[tivnet]

I don't think it's a question of "better" or "best" (anything but DMOZ? :D) -- there are several quite good ones, and no good reason not to submit to all of them.

Let's not switch to the "where to submit your site" theme.
There is a separate topic for that.

My original statement was: DMOZ is not good for PEOPLE. It is not up-to-date, and in many cases maintained by "editors" who do not know the subject. DMOZ exists only because of Google and partially due to multiple copies of it. Otherwise I doubt anyone would want to go there. I would not.

BTW, Wikipedia is another thing I like, besides About.com.

[minstrel]

Let's not switch to the "where to submit your site" theme.
There is a separate topic for that.
Uh... yes... that was my point.

[dirtdog1960theone]

I was told that my category was not up to par...

Hey me too. I could never figure out why. I edited some obscure regional podunk where I lived at the time.

...I went back to see why & it was because a couple of meta editors did "drive-by" editings in my category (which they obviously knew nothing about).

And now I know. Closure. Thanks for the post. That still sticks in my mind like an old mosquitio bite. yeah DMOZ, the old mosquito bite scar of the internet.

Just kidding DMOZ lurkers, I actually use DMOZ. Good quality index for research. :cool: