Sometimes I get asked - why is my site not listed in such and such directory - one that is based on ODP data. Unfortunately there are thousands of directories around - and they vary greatly in both quality and how often the data is updated. Some of these directories are years out of date, and have probably been abandoned.

Many are listed in Sites Using ODP Data

there are also many others that are not listed in ODP, since they are in violation of the ODP license.

There is nothing that DMOZ can do to force these sites to do a better job of using the ODP data. If you are concerned about some issue regarding your site, you will have to contact them directly.

See also Sites Using ODP Data

It is often assumed that only sites that get submitted/suggested to the “queue” -(though that really should be considered a disorganized heap) will get reviewed.

However, sites that were never submitted can get added and reviewed by editors. How can this happen? Some examples -

• Site was linked from another site that was reviewed
• An editor walked into a store and brought home a business card
• The website was listed on the side of a van
• A company provided good service and the editor wanted to share it
• A site was mentioned in a magazine article

Sometimes the editor can both add and review a site, but often he/she just adds it to a category for another editor to review.

I mention this, since I just accidently found a site while searching for something else. I enjoyed viewing it, so I returned the experience by sending the site to be reviewed. Too bad I can’t review and add it myself.

Dot’s Loft Ltd - Costume Sculpture - in London, United Kingdom.

Unique and different costumes and costume props, giant teddy bears and animals, masks and outfits.

A question often asked is - when is the ODP more relevant than a search engine?

A reasonable question - considering that ODP claims to have less than five million sites listed, whereas Google has many times more than that number. However, in many cases, the results returned from ODP are biased, and those sites that should appear at the top for a search result end up getting pushed out by succesfull SEO work. Now when that SEO work turns black hat, then it can actually twist the results to be very incorrect and that’s not nice.

In a recent posting in an SEO forum, where the ongoing question of the relevancy of ODP was being discussed, another thread caught my eye.

Companies subvert search results to squelch criticism

This page alleges, that by massive use of weblogs, a company was able to influence the search results. It’s in cases like this that ODP shines. Maybe not all relevant sites are listed, but the validity of the listed sites is much higher than typical search results.

A search on ODP for Quixtar finds the following categories

Business: Opportunities: Opposing Views: Amway and Quixtar
Business: Opportunities: Networking-MLM: Amway and Quixtar

and one of the sites mentioned in the article AmQuix.info is right there to be seen. Now that is nice.

There is a strong misunderstanding of when sites are allowed a listing in more than one category.

First, a site that has a physical location is in many cases allowed a second listing in the most specific Regional category that matches the location. For multiple offices, in two cities they might get two listings in two cities, or for mopre than teo, they might get one listing at a higher level, such as state or county. The regional listings are in addition to a Topical (non-Regional) category listing. An address that is only a mailing address generally will not qualify.

This is not always true - for example, real estate sites only get a Regional listing.

Second, sites that are in multiple languages (not machine translated) can be submitted for each language - in fact twice - one for Topical and once for Regional - but this must be done to the section of World for the language. Do not confuse Language and countries - World and Regional, World is non-English, Regional is English by geography. Within each World- Language are Regional subcategories for that language.

See also Multiple Languages

Regional: Europe: Portugal Portugal specific sites in English
Regional: South America: Brazil Brazil specific sites in English
World: Português Sites in Portuguese
World: Português: Regional: Europa: Portugal Portugal specific sites in Portuguese
World: Português: Regional: América do Sul: Brasil Brazil specific sites in Portuguese

DMOZ does not allow multiple submissions and a site owner who does so, might be considered to be spamming. Submitting to one Topical category and one Regional category, and submissions for multiple languages are permissable.

However, editors may decide that certain websites justify additional listings, or for some sites such as IMDB or Wikipedia, a consensus may be reached that very large numbers of pages may be used and in those case, editors are encouraged to list as many pages as they wish. It does not mean that IMDB is allowed to submit thousands of sites.

In the earlier days of ODP, it was often encouraged for editors to extensively use some sites and list thousands of pages for them. As the directory matures, some of the sites will get re-evaluated, and may no longer be considered as good sources of information or the listings may now be considered redundant as other better sites are found. So some of these multiple listings may in fact disappear.

In addition some multiple listings are in fact not. Sites like Angelfire are free hosting services, and each individual listing is a separate entity. They just share a common root URL.

Here is a recent posting in an SEO forum complaining about ODP multiple listings and showing this as an example of abuse at ODP. A not very well thought out post and I feel sorry for anyone who uses SEO info like this.

1 231,774 CNN.COM - currently used a a source of news pages
2 99,391 GEOCITIES.COM - shared hosting
3 34,923 TRIPOD.COM - shared hosting
4 30,450 ANGELFIRE.COM- shared hosting
5 20,530 AOL.COM - shared hosting
6 20,508 TOPIX.NET - massive source for RSS feeds
7 15,605 YAHOO.COM - shared hosting
8 14,202 FREE.FR - shared hosting
9 13,508 NEWADVENT.ORG - Catholic Encyclopedia used like Wikapedia,
10 9,411 IMDB.COM - used as a master source for movie information

I sometimes wonder why people waste their money. I get to review today a site for a performance artist. Big fancy with lots of music and all Flash. So what is wrong?

1. The flash is flashy - but tells me nothing much - just a lot of hype - no content - no info.
2. It has an option to skip the intro - but it does not work.
3. At the end of the flash intro it says “Coming January 2006″ - and nothing else

What a waste of time - I deleted it - and I guess if they ever get the site working they can submit it again. What a waste of money - someone actually paid a web designer for this.

The question about ODP using the Nofollow tag has been raised recently in various places.
For example in this SEO forum thread: Should DMOZ switch to nofollow

What is nofollow? In normal circumstances a link from one site to another is used by search engines, such as Google, MSN and Yahoo as a “vote” for the validity of the other site. Most people agree that in the case of Google, it contributes to page rank, and helps to make the second site more visible in searches. It has been suggested that search engines will now pay attention to the nofollow tag, when present, and ignore that as a meaningfull link. Thus a webmaster can downgrade the importance of a link by adding that tag.

Those who are upset at the fact that DMOZ does not list their sites in a timely fashion (whatever that may mean), and do not like that Google pays attention to DMOZ, want the ODP to add the nofollow tag to all it’s listings, so that those sites that are listed do not gain advantage over sites that are not listed, and to cause the DMOZ listing to be less important to Google.

What’s wrong with this concept?

• If Google is doing the wrong thing, then you should complain to Google, not get DMOZ to try and manipulate Google
• Adding nofollow only affects the DMOZ directory and very few referrals come directly from it
• Many more referrals come from third party users of ODP data, and those users get the data from the RDF dump, which is a formatted XML file. This file does not contain any HTML code, so the nofollow tag would never be in there.
• Why should the ODP add the tag at all. Since sites are put in the ODP because editors think they have relevance, putting nofollow is a contradiction - saying in effect - the site has no validity.

Other links related on nofollow

googleblog - Preventing comment spam

Six Apart - Support for nofollow

SEObook

SearchEngineWatch

Wikimedia - a discussion of whether they should use nofollow

padawan.info

Just ran through a small category relating to job placement that had been a bit neglected and had a few sites in unreviewed. Here is what happens when I go through the sites in date submission order (note the original submission dates):

1. 2000 - Site is not in English. It’s been submitted numerous times to numerous categories, and who knows how many it’s waiting in. Several editors have moved and/or rejected it over the last few years. Does not look like it has too many jobs. Moved to the right language for review again - but it will probably get deleted.
2. 17/Jun/2000 - Wrong category, which would have been obvious if the submitter has read the description. Moved to a more general category.
3. 18/May/2004 - Not in English and also the wrong category. Moved to my best guess about where it should go so someone who speaks German can review it.
4. 2004/2005 - Three sites that belong is a more specific sub-category, moved to the correct place, and I will review them there later. I could review and move them at the same time, but it’s less error prone to do it this way.
5. 08/May/2005 - Reviewed and published. Also since the site is in two other languages, sent two copies for other editors to review in those categories. It probably should get three listings.

So seven sites get reviewed ranging from several years ago to a couple of weeks ago. But the most recent one gets accepted, and the others get postponed. Hopefully this helps to explains the constant complaint - why don’t sites get reviewed in order.

From a post in a forum I’m reminded of this wonderful category

Recreation: Outdoors: Wildlife: Bats

Here is the forum post

Sometimes editing has special rewards. A few days ago, a site was submitted on a rare medical problem, only two or three children have survived.

Sirenomelia - a very rare congenital disorder in which the legs are fused together, giving the appearance of a mermaid.

ODP did not have any good information or other sites on this condition, and the site by itself would have been placed in Health: Conditions and Diseases: Genetic Disorders

However by searching around, a number of other sites were found - enough to create a new subcategory - Health: Conditions and Diseases: Genetic Disorders: Sirenomelia

The other point of interest was that a child in Peru was scheduled to have an operation to correct the problem, and I was delighted to read a few days later that the operation was successful.

BBC News: Doctors hail ‘mermaid’ operation