Dmoz Editorship for Sale Ebay ! A stunt ?

of course it's a stunt - that's why he's linked to his site in the opening paragraph. Anyone else notice the apparent contradiction between 'you COULD try and get in but you won't coz DMO$ is krupt' (or something along those lines ), and the subsequent admission he has not one, but THREE accounts!

This guy is a real marketing pro - this is a fantastic stunt to pull in disgruntled webmasters to his site. The anti-DMOZ crowd, whether its a minority or a majority, is an extremely vocal one, so this is bound to draw a huge number of 'this eBay auction, by this guy: seoblackhat.com, is proof of how corrupt you guys all are' posts and blogs all over the web.

SEO blackhat activities aside, I wish I had this guy's ability to spot marketing opportunities like these

 

This is definatly a great marketing stunt for seoblackhat. They knew idiots would post this around the world on forums. Never heard of seoblackhat? have now

 

Hmmm, I have to agree, a brilliant marketing stunt.

 

It's up to $46!!!

 

Brilliant? Hardly. He is posting a *public* auction that pisses off at least 2 auhorities in the field: DMOZ and Google (since they rely on the former to power their directory). While DMOZ can facilitate taking the auction down, Google can hurt more by banning the site.

While it is sort of briliiant in the short run, it's utterly stupid in the long run

 

But how would they know what the site was? The buyer could just lie low for a couple of months, then add a few sites and slip in his own among them.

And the bidding is upto $152.50 now

 

The bidding has now touched US $152.50 . I guess what would be the final bid somewhere between $2-3000.

 

I was talking about the seller's url listed within the auction description. This is a 10-day auction--plenty of time for DMOZ and Google to note it and act upon it

 

Current bid is $255.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5626578939

 

Now at $676

Interesting to look at the list of bidders, too....

How much would YOU pay?

Oh do I have a bridge I could sell you.....

 

I doubt he has seoblackhat.com listed in dmoz though! Or is there another URL I missed. Unless EBay divulges his IP address to DMOZ they won't be able to trace him

 

Hey, I can have a star named after you for $19.99 too There's good resale value in these too - there's billions left you know?

 

Yes, some we know very well.

 

This listing (5626578939) has been removed by eBay or is no longer available. Please make sure that you've entered the item number correctly.
If the item was removed by eBay, please consider this transaction canceled. If anybody contacts you to complete the sale, please ignore the request. Completing the sale outside of eBay may be unsafe and will not be covered by eBay purchase protection programs.

 

[SARCASM]Wow, what a surprise. I mean, it looked like such an honest, upfront transaction, too![/SARCASM]

 

Ah, what fun is that?

I wanted to see $5,500.

Doesn't anyone have a sense of humor any more?

 

Yeah you dodged a bullet I'd be happy (and sarcastic to try and hide it) too if I were you.

If news of this spread, no matter how much you tried to spin it off as being a promotion stunt it would still point to a corrupt DMOZ. I read where you said equating one corrupt individual to the whole of DMOZ being corrupt as "the most fallacious logic leap I have heard"

But in DMOZs case it's actually quite logical considering the entire system is based on the integrity and trustworthyness of it's editors no?

 

The trustworthyness of the ODP is based on the sum of the integrity and trustworthyness of the editors, yes.

All this proves is that there is at least one editor (if they are, indeed an editor, which has not been proven) who is corrupt, and this we knew before. So no, I don't see it as being quite logical, I'm afraid. The total number of active ODP editors is well over a thousand - every single one of those could be corrupt, or honest. This episode doesn't prove anything at all, in my opinion.

 

Fair enough.

As I scroll through this section: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=66 which is a fully dedicated section on DP for DMOZ and see a lot of very long threads I ask myself.

Is DMOZ really that mis-understood or is there an underlying problem here?

If one were even to venture to lean towards the (doubtful IMO) conclusion that DMOZ is just that misunderstood then why hasn't the truth come to light in all these years?

 

Yes, there is an underlying problem, here. Without doubt. (All of the following is my opinion only, is not shared by the ODP community and is not contained in any guideline.)

The people posting on DP are people whose business or hobby, at least their interest is to promote websites, be it their own or someone else's.

The ODP is probably the least SEO-friendly directory there is out there. It doesn't care about the needs of the SEO or webmaster, and makes no secret about that. It wasn't designed to be that, and editors sometimes go to great lengths to make sure that people know that - often to the point of rudeness.

Some people feel that the data that the ODP provides is useful, because (with a few exceptions of the aforementioned corrupt editors) sites are listed without commercial aspects taken into consideration. Google appears to be one of those.

And this is where the clash comes. Because to those who make it their interest to promote a website, ranking in Google is of significant importance, and they will work very very hard to try to improve their Google ranking.

And then they come upon the one thing they can't influence - the damned ODP. It seems to affect the Google rankings in some way, and yet they can not get the sites they want to promote in there.

This is where the paths diverge, because, in the same way that there are different types of ODP editor, some more trustworthy than others, there are some types of SEO who are more ethical than others. I agree that the unethical ones are in the minority.

The ethical ones accept the situation as it is, and maybe enter into constructive debates about the nature of the ODP and its shortcomings.

The less ethical ones will try to get an editor position (or several) in the ODP that they can use to their own purposes. If they get kicked out, or can't get in in the first place, or can't be bothered to try, the next thing they try to do is to manipulate ODP editors.

Bribery attempts follow.

When that doesn't work, the public pillary starts - first tentative questions are asked, then suggestions about how to "improve" the ODP. When those fall on deaf ears (not because editors aren't listening, but usually because the change would take the ODP away from where its vision is), they start getting angry, publicly picking on editors, making claims of mass corruption, etc. If evidence can't be found, they will generate it (and I think the stunt you have seen on EBay is one of those).

Now, I'm sure that this is a very small minority of web professionals out there. I don't think any of the regular posters to DP fall into that category. I don't even know if this hypothesis is true, even - I am merely proposing it as an alternative way to think about the "evidence" that you see. I think that if you look around this board you will find this pattern of behaviour getting shown in a few places.

The ODP is not perfect - nothing is in this world. I can understand a lot of the more mature criticisms on this board - it has to be highly frustrating to not have one's site listed and you need answers. Heck, I even understand that some people get very angry about it.

Sometimes I wonder if the guys at Google, in their constant battle to keep their search engine free from manipulation, love to see the indignation of webmasters directed at the ODP and that that very anger just strengthens their resolve to use the data as a trusted source.

Well, I'm positive I am going to get slammed for this one - why change recent behaviour patterns, right? But those are my thoughts and I need to get back to editing.