The internet movie database is a matter of record, so if a celebrity gets an official website, IMDb will varify and list it (link to it with the anchor text 'official site')... and only it as the true and only official website. It should, you would think, in a world where logic prevails over inadequate algos be the kind of problem solver google is looking for in determining the search results for the celebrity's name. No. Searches for celebity sites are a massive huge enormous volume of workload for google. And there it is - staring them in the face, a big fat clue as to how to get the search results right... and put the official site at number one. Dang, thats right, Amazon owns IMDb... it must be evil.
Google could use IMDB's info, but it flies against Google's philosophy of making scalable code, and it places the responsibility (and power) in the hands of a third party. If IMDB messes up, Google then also messes up, and Google takes the blame.
Yeah but if they properly rated as IMDB as an extreme authority on the matter and weighted links accordingly, it could all work in their current sytem without a problem. I wouldn't be sure that is not how it works now, results to the contrary...
Google (being a corperation) would probably have to get a contract or some sort of agreement to directly feed this data and have it place heavier weight on their algorithms which they don't like to be tampered with.
IMDb's weight factor on other links would be a huge boost, but why should they penalized and bumped down in results only because Celebrity X launches a new 'official' site? ODP, at the discretion of the category editors, generally will 'star' an official site, but a directory has a lot more control.
ODP is 'just some guy / gal' IMDb is a reflection of official record, they also have a prompt response rate at updating their records. IMDb is already a PR9 site, so get plenty of google love, their own listings rank high, often above or just behind official celeb sites... it would be simple for google to factor a link from imdb to an official site as gospel. Until they do, their search results are lower quality.
With official celebrity sites, it's not about monetizing them, as their earning power is based elsewhere, it's about having an online presence in support of their other endeavors. The objective in webmastering official celebrity sites is to get them ranked correctly, and profile their interests through content on their site. I've found that monetizing is more frowned upon, they don't want to make money out of their fans via their website (it's kinda cheesy), more-so they want control (or their reps do) over the message on their official site and have it easily available to fans who search them out online.