IMHO, that's not true - there are a lot of DMOZ "clones" that work perfectly from Google's point of view.
Never heard of this directory. Reading from this thread it seems the directory needs to be reindexed with new links structure.
Same here for www.linkforever.net about 4 months ago. Did total change for about 2000 detail pages + 2000 report pages + even more. Seems after 3 months detail pages are coming back to SERPS with double power I know few other dirs did the same. And it was rather for good - out of Google filter for some. eg. www.maxlinks.org (no.3 on 'web directory' keyword). Also in this case - 90% of URLs were changed.
Strange things, I remember oct 2005 when utn (pr8 at that time) was busted by G for buying links, they get reindex into the index. Don't think they have much paid link subscriptions now, so that's cool now. (check with linkvendor.com) Now what happend is really strange, it sill holds 7730 backlinks in google. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1B2GGGL_enNL177&q=link:uncoverthenet.com&btnG=Search No pages are cached anymore (check with webuildpages.com) Imo they have problems with the new url rewrite and dup content, with lyrics database, quotes database, and news. More strange things, with unix it makes a difference in capitals, check the top the the directory with a link to "Directory" when using the directory navigation all urls are rewritten with "directory". I believe all should be the same. When browsing to this http://www.uncoverthenet.com/dir page it seems to produce a unfinished page. And with this page http://toolbar.uncoverthenet.com/ some pages could not be loaded. Hopefully Shawn will sort this out quickly, I really like UTN. Good luck!!
Even if he changed all URLs there is no reason for Google to remove directory home page from its index. Although, I still see PR6 for the home page, which is strange if the page is not indexed.
I am at a loss as well. Can't really say it was in Google's spotlight either, haven't heard much talk about the directory in a long time.
Has anybody check the Alexa rank? http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=www.uncoverthenet.com&url=www.uncoverthenet.com/
Shawn has just explained what happened - apparently the site has been hijacked: http://www.v7n.com/forums/670644-post27.html Scary stuff! Anyone know how this works or how to prevent it?
Thx for clarifing this issue i never knew that that was possible but will research exactly how it was done and report my findings... thx malcolm
Update: Just checking regular things and read what Shawn said at V7N. I found something different than hijacking. It seems uncoverthenet has let themselfs into pill stuff. When performing this search in google: uncoverthenet.com+viagra it results in about 55,600 pages with links to uncoverthenet/popular/pilldeals.com webpage at uncoverthenet. Seems like comment spam links to uncoverthenet. Hmm. not good if you'd ask me. Then noticed a lot of other different things. I believe they advertise at lower-tier PPC websites. Most of those websites are generating traffic with pop-up/under. I believe this also doesn't throw must trust into uncoverthenet. When reviewing this I understand why they are delisted from the google index. Don't think they will be comming back. I believe the talk about mywebnews.net is crap, a web directory like uncoverthenet with so much backlinks and quality information would not be affected by this copycat. If I would copy CNN tomorrow I would never rank in a search engine for it's content. Maby Shawn will explain more about this.
I don't see it, just doesn't make sense, that is pure blackhat spam, why would Shawn risk his quality authority directory to make a few quick bucks on viagra clicks? Looks like he has been targeted by big time blackhats. They have probably thrown a load of spam at it and then hijacked it. As for the mfa sites, I can't see that effecting the Google rankings at all, PPC is done via javascript or redirects. Running pay per click on any website is not a violation of Google's T's&C's. I am going to investigate.
Look at the submission page, https://uncoverthenet.com/advertiser/index.php?page=listing_type&category_id=22 Why has it got Google references and links there? Could it be something to do with that?
Too much SEO is bad and thinking that you can outsmart Google is bad. And for a minute think about that if your smart in this world the guys who have millions of dollars can hire a 100x more people way smarter than you. Its just a matter of time.
Wow, I am getting some conflicting stories about this, so I am not sure what to believe. Either way, it is a sad thing to see from such a quality site!