In Google world, a good, functioning directory is nowhere to be found in its search results if Google has banned the site or has assigned a poor PR. So, the site may as well not be there if Google's traffic is/was essential.
Ah ok, so what I think you are saying is that no matter how good a site is, if people can't find it, then it's useless. And if it's not in Google, since G is the main search engine right now, then people won't find it. OK, that makes a load of sense - thanks for the insight. Does Google treat other search engines (other than its own, I mean) the same? I am wondering if Google are taking the attitude that sites that just point to other sites and offer nothing else are of less value than sites with the content itself.... hence my question about search engines.... It's possible, of course, that G sees other search engines and directories as competition, and don't want to give them any more publicity, I suppose.
I think you will find it is all about content and the quality of it. A directory is nothing without a well developed database. If you’re a directory operator and you don’t have a well developed unique database and have purchased advertising to build an artificial PR then you’re going to get axed eventually. If you have a small database but Good quality content you’re going to end up with a low PR.
Useless for you, the webmaster of this site, to slave away working on enhancing the site if the traffic is not likely to be there. Unfortunately, most of my sites get 80%+ traffic from Google alone. So, yes in my case, it's essential. I highly doubt Google is trying to kill the competition (search engines or directories) this way. Smaller general directories and search engines are hardly any competiton to them or the other big two any way. A directory is not endorsed by Google (I think) if: 1) Excessive (Google or other) ads. Ads appearing before the actual search results or instead of them within empty categories 2) High PR but no organic back links. Next-to-zero sites making references to them as useful resources.
My question is that if this recent occurance of site banning is because of possible duplicate content then what's up with all the DMOZ clones? Google needs to ban their own directory for duplicate content.
It will ban directories that it feels do not provide any value of its own and are purely there to make profit (from DMOZ's db). Google directory does provide some value. It shows sites' PR and can be sorted that way. The directory has much better internal search functions. They contribute to DMOZ database by having a Submit a site link to DMOZ on every page. In G's own words: "The content of the Google directory is based on the Open Directory and is enhanced using Google's own technology."
Google works on the clustering principle. Most DMOZ clones do no more than clone DMOZ. It is when you start cloning DMOZ for rofit by linking out on a sales basis that you are likely to raise a flag. That would be my take on it anyhow.
I think the last two points made are very good and make good sense to me. Even if I also believe that the original statement was made to be a little tongue-in-cheek.
Definetly agree with that, the more sophisticated and useful, the more likely to exist and dodge the axe.......
Stuart, sorry to hear your directory has dropped out of google.. I was away for a couple of weeks so maby this question is already asked; Did you send an email to google asking what happend with your domain/website? Did you alter your future plans with your web directory? / Or what are your future plans with the web directory? It's still a great web directory and I believe you'll still have great traffic to the directory, good luck and keep us updated what happens with G.
Its disappointing to see a directory like site-sift.com get hit by google. Cant help but think it has something to do with the O'Reilly advertising, even Matt Cutts left a comment so he may have something to do with it. Bluefind took a while to recover and get reindexed, (still has no pr) lets hope site-sift can aswell. Alexa stats (not really reliable) seem to indicate traffic levels are the same or higher since being banned so I presume most of the traffic was coming from the other engines or advertising. Still worth submitting.
Looks like Site-Sift is back. It does appear that most of it's pages are part of the supplemental results but at least the pages are showing up again. I see the PR on the toolbar as well.
Looks like site-sift cancelled ads on the o'reilly network, wonder how much that had to do with the re-inclusion.