As of this evening, one site of mine which was accepted into DMOZ about six months ago now has the DMOZ description of my site on all major search engines. Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask are all using the DMOZ description for my main domain listing. While DMOZ may not be as important as they once were when it comex to the actual linkage to your site from theirs, apparently all major search engines still think enough of them to use their editors descriptions on main site listings. Ask and Yahoo added their editors description of my site within the past week. Google and MSN have had it for several months.
Because the ODP descriptions are generally stereotypical, you might want to signal to the search engines that you do not want it displayed in the search with the NOODP Meta Tag. meta content=â€NOODP†name=â€ROBOTSâ€
Hmm, very interesting. I just checked doing some searches on Google. If I search for the home page title I have listed in DMOZ, the description is indeed the one from DMOZ. If I search Google for various other keywords that bring up SERPs pointing to that same home page, I get various results — some of them give the DMOZ description, others give the current meta tag description for the home page.
I have no problem with the description from the DMOZ editor. I just wanted to point out that all major search engines are now using their service for main URL descriptions.
I do. Fortunately, as helleborine pointed out, we now have: <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP"> Code (markup): Insert anywhere between <head> and </head>.
All four engines will use the Dmoz description under certain circumstances, which vary for each engine. In the case of Google, the query by the user is a factor. For example if you search for "pink spotted widgets" and that exact phrase appears in your description meta tag, then Google is liable to use that in the search result. If the phrase appears in the Dmoz description, then that could be used. In short they aim to provide the most useful description for that particular searcher. Matt Cutt explains all in one of his videos, but I can't recall which one. [Added] I found the transcript of that video .
That part is true. the part where they EVER use a DMOZ description is the part that makes no sense whatsoever.
Naturally you would think so Minstrel. If we take an unbiased look at what searchers want (rather than what webmasters want), it becomes clear why directory descriptions are used by all the big SEs. For example look at Wikipedia. Wikipedia pages come up frequently now in SERPs. None of them has a meta tag description. So the presentational choice for the SE is a snippet from the page or the ODP description. Generally speaking, the directory description is better, as it concisely sums up the content. I'm ignoring Yahoo! here, because I haven't a clue if Wikipedia pages are listed in the Yahoo! Directory. I assume not, but I could be wrong. Needless to say, when a site is listed in the Yahoo! Directory, then Yahoo! Search has the option to use its own description in SERPs.
Spare us your uninformed condescension, Genie. What searchers want is a list of pages that best conform to their search queries, along with snippets that describe what that page is about. You are well aware of the criteria for DMOZ listing titles and descriptions and many of them are NOT very rich or accurate descriptions of what the page or site contains, especially taken out of the context of the DMOZ category.
I agree with you on that last point. The ODP guidelines in fact do not insist that that descriptions should never, ever repeat elements of the category path, but they have been too often taken that way. The end result is too many descriptions that don't fully describe. However I have personally written thousands of descriptions which do. (I hope.) And I don't think I'm entirely alone in that. Here's one example (not written by me): Wikipedia - Wikiportal: Cricket - Starting point for a comprehensive collection of categories and articles about the sport, including rules, teams, cricketers, records, competitions and history.
Nah. Au contraire, mon frère! DMOZ descriptions are an on-and-off phenomema. My personal observation is that they are becoming increasingly rare. Thank god for small mercies.
That's an exception. I stuck to the principle of "not repeating" when editing. I think I was the most boring writer of descriptions ever. Just the most important facts, expressed succintly. Good thing I got to fix the retarded description that kctipton has wanted for my listing. One half was misleading, the other patently untrue. I pity the webmasters whose site descriptions are on the same model.
Now that you have said it here you'll get a visit from some senior editor who will start checking your edits and editing them when he thinks that there is smallest sign of hype or anything that would qualify as breach of editing guidelines.
I guess I got lucky with the description the DMOZ editor gave to my site. I thought it was well thought out and was right on target. However, after reading some other folks here, I guess they were not so lucky with their site listings.
Senior editors are welcome to check my edits Ivan, but I doubt very much whether anyone will make changes along the lines you suggest. I edit well within guidelines and always have done. Check those guidelines for yourself. The problem here is that "Do not include excessive and unnecessary keyword repetition" has been interpreted a shade too zealously by some editors in the past. That has handicapped good description-writing. The fact remains that there are many, many good site descriptions in the ODP. The one I picked out was not specially chosen. I simply searched ODP for Wikipedia and picked out one of the first pages I saw. Mark Hutch - your experience is far from unique. What is unusual is that you have bothered to post about it! Dissatisfied webmasters tend to make the most noise on forums, whether it is about ODP descriptions or Google or anything else. So a handful of genuine problems with descriptions can make a huge stir and get endlessly repeated on foum after forum and blog after blog as "proof" that all 4 million+ descriptions in the ODP are flawed. That is nonsense. There is certainly room for improvement. But I wouldn't pay too much attention to massive generalisations based on anecdotal evidence.
I can quote them in my sleep considering how many times I read them in order to make sure everything I was doing was ok and rechecking them after visit from some senior editors to figure out what was it that I did was wrong - never found anything. Being trekkie I would say editing guidelines are philosophy like Prime Directive but some persons are (ab)using it as it was Ten Commandments. In my case it seems good description-writing = conflict of interest, never mind the fact that I bend over backwards to give alleged "competition" good descriptions since they had darn good websites with unique content and I was spending way too much time on those websites anyway.