Google's use of DMOZ titles is hurting traffic

My problem with the use of dmoz titles is this: one editor at dmoz thinks their choice of title is best... versus the very significant number of citations other websites have given us so we can earn our place at #4 (out of 78 million).

Wouldn't it be better to make the title the most common anchor text used if it is to be taken out of the hands of the website author?!?!

Our site on homelessness has fared well recently, now number four on Google for [homeless] and number one or two on yahoo and well who really cares what msn does... but damn Google for using our dmoz title 'Homeless - Australia' as that really puts off a lot of international traffic. The site is very international, but due to the dmoz crap we are missing out.

I am happy we have several listings in dmoz but it's certainly got it's downside.

 

Initially, the brief description of my site listed in Google results was from DMOZ - it was months after it got changed to the site's content than DMOZ's description.

 

Think about how stupid it looks for a site that holds an annual event.

I see titles that say "2004 Blah Blah Blah" and "2005 Blah Blah Blah"

Lame... get a clue.

 

and then having something like this http://www.homeless.org.au/development.htm] doesn't really help either...looks more like spam to me than anything else heh

 

What the? Are you pissed because I'm beating you in the carcasherdotcom seocontest or something? You also wacked a nofollow on the link to that page. I don't get it. If you want a go at me let me have it, don't go underhanded and take the piss. You want to weigh my work on the streets by taking the piss... bring it. Who are you anyway? Look around asshole, realize where you are.

 

Ok .. Who's talking to who, and what's up in this thread ?

 

thats who I'm talking to with my wtf post.

Otherwise... lets get on with the general topic for discussion.

 

umm wth are you talking about? heh...thanks for the red rep too, great of you. I don't even take part in those SEO contests...I have better things to be doing.

 

Chill out dudes ..

Can't we all just .... GET ALONG ?

 

And why take the title out of the hands of the site author to begin with? Why does google think it knows best which title should apply? Maybe google should just leave the title alone. That seems like a pretty simple solution to me.

 

At least MSN gave us a choice...

 

I'm not unhappy with my Dmoz description, but it can get out of date very quickly for some types of site. Certainly once you do some development and add more content, they become more and more inaccurate.

I'm not going to contact Dmoz for every little thing, but I will certainly update my titles. Dmoz can take years to add sites, so there's no reason to believe their descriptions are better than the ones supplied by site owners. Google should definitely drop the ODP-supplied text.

 

If you feel the content of your site has changed and the description is out of date, please use the update link in the category where the listing is. Editors see updates first and usually attend to those very quickly. Remember not to put any hype or keyword stuffing in your new description.

 

http://dmoz.org/guidelines/describing.html#titles lists the guidelines we follow for writing the titles of the listings. We will not include superfluous keywords, if this is what your compaint is about.

In /Business we use the company's official name as the title. For example, a company that suggests their title as "We Make Lots of Screws, Nuts and Bolts Galore!" (yes, we actually get titles like these) will find themselves listed as their company name - not these keywords. (maybe ABC Fastening Company, LLC).

As it has been stated numerous times, in here and in other forums - it is not the purpose of the ODP to gain SEOs page rank by allowing keyword stuffing, spam, and other manipulations of the titles and descriptions.

Obelia - if the contents of your site change, please feel free to send in an update request. We would prefer our titles and/or descriptions to best reflect the actual site contents. As for who writes the best descriptions - the site owners or the editors, just spend one day with an editor and see what we get submitted.

To illustrate this, I grabbbed a waiting suggestion and this is what the site owner wants as the description: "Logo mat, Logo door mat, Logo floor mat, Logo Rug, Imprinted mat, Imprinted floor mat, Imprinted door mat, Custom mat, Custom rug, Custom floor mat, Floor mat, Door mat, Entrance mat, printed mat, carpet mat, custom carpet mat, custom rug, promomats, promo mats, promotional mat, printed mat, printed door mat, printed floor mat, floor graphics, Vinyl mat, flock mat, flocking, anti-fatigue mat, antifatigue mat, indoor mat, outdoor mat, POP mat, and designer mat" - Nice, eh? By looking at his site, I notice he has no meta tags for title, description, etc. His links are all included in javascripts, so a bot would not be able to index his pages as they stand. Just imagine,,, when/if we list this site, we will get blamed because we did not add all of his possible keyword combinations in the description and he failed to gain PR from his ODP listing.

Come on - do something other then worrying about an ODP listing. Before I joined ODP, I was able to gain great PR by just working hard and studying the information provided on the internet. In opposition to popular belief (if you read these forums and the believe half of the inane postings) - the editors at the directory do not hate site owners and we do not have an agenda to hurt them - this is just crazy.

 

Memo to all DMOZ editors: This thread isn't about the titles/descriptions DMOZ assigns to their listings (we already have a few of those threads and we've already heard all about your guidelines).

This thread is about why Google overrules the site owner's title and/or description in favor of the rather lame and nondescriptive titles and descriptions approved by DMOZ.

It's a Google issue, not a DMOZ issue.

 

You had to write ..

 

Top: Adult: Business: Consumer Goods and Services: Phone Sex: Services

Telephone Sexy - Features several women. Niches include ethnic ladies, transvestites, mature women and amateurs. Provides picture galleries, erotic stories and a members only section. Offers an affiliate program.

Can it be more keyword stuffed than this?

Official name of business: RCVL

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others-George Orwell

 

Then why is it in the DMOZ forum? If this is truely a Google issue, the mods should move this thread to the Google forum.

 

I think you're absolutely correct, ishfish.

On the other hand, here or there, the question was pretty clear:

 

Taking a closer look, I think I had a site in there with a description that must have been a couple of years old. So I've taken your advice, and I suggested a category change as well.

I know the kind of things you get submitted, I've got a directory. But what more accurately reflects to the user the sort of site they're going to visit, an impartial and objective ODP listing, or a long string of keywords and promotional guff? If that's what the site owner thought would be the best kind of title, shouldn't visitors be warned in advance?

I don't want to land on the page of a barely literate spammer just because the ODP listing was used. Not that the ODP usually links to those sorts of sites, but links do go rotten and search engines are usually faster to detect changes.