September 20, 2005:

• Robozilla exposed

  Despite the claims that ODP is a human edited directory, that’s not quite true. Today we expose a secret employee.
  Robozilla is a webcrawler that periodically visits all the websites pointed to by the Open Directory Project. When a page has either moved or is not found, Robozilla notes this fact in the internal logs. […]

September 14, 2005:

• DMOZ guarantees Page Rank of 3

  (MYTH and totally incorrect)
  From Virtual Promote (Jim’s World) forums
  In fact, sites which are listed in DMOZ automatically obtain a PageRank of 3/10 once listed in DMOZ
  The poster then says … Of course, I can’t prove that now … and of course he never will since he’s posting random drivel and if had I wanted […]

September 12, 2005:

• Site Submission Services

  The proper way to get a site into the ODP heap, with the hopes to get it reviewed and listed is to manually choose the correct category and suggest the site using the suggest URL link. It is only by manual submission that a category can be correctly selected, it is only by manually writing […]

September 11, 2005:

• Why does anyone become an editor?

  People sometimes wonder why anyone becomes an editor - why would anyone waste their life reviewing and listing websites and not get paid for it. The general assumption is that most people become editors to get their sites listed but that seems to be incorrect. I don’t know of any reliable measure of the […]

September 5, 2005:

• Hurricane Katrina

  It started a week ago, when I took a look at State Forecast for Louisiana - At that time the site said :-

  EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE
  MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA
  DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED
  MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER. AT
  LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF […]

August 28, 2005:

• Drumming up Business (or maybe it’s Art or Shopping)

  Today we examine where sites on drumming might be found in ODP (or for suggested sites, how to find where isthe best place)
  If a search for drums is done then we get something like this (Note that seach will not bring up every appropriate category - it’s just a starting point)
  Open Directory Categories (1-5 […]

August 27, 2005:

• Mirror, mirror on the wall, my site is the greatest of them all

  Mirror sites are one of the biggest pains for editors, close to being spam. The question is: What is a mirror?
  The suggestion guidelines say

  Do not submit mirror sites. Mirror sites are sites that contain identical content, but have altogether different URLs.
  Do not submit URLs that contain only the same or similar content as other […]

August 25, 2005:

• Under Construction Rant

  It’s late at night and I just wanted to review one site before bed. So what do I get - a freshly submitted site with a title:
  “This is my website I plan to expand on to promote my business as a ….
  Well that’s really nice, but why on earth would you want anyone to see […]

August 23, 2005:

• Making the Editor Like the Site

  Here’s a great post from a user on an SEO forum on improving the chances of getting listed. I’ve never seen it put this way, but he has a great point.
  John Douglas said:
  If the purpose of the site is clear, the navigation and content obvious, then the amount of work a reviewer has to […]

July 26, 2005:

• Words Fail Me

  Although the Resource Zone is a tamer place now that status checks have been eliminated - it sometimes is a source of literary gems. Here is a thread which certainly starts off with a somewhat vitriolic question (which appears to have been since edited and toned down) from a site owner somewhat aggrieved by the […]

July 20, 2005:

• The Google Directory

  There is a lot of confusion about DMOZ, Google and the Google directory.
  First, many assume you have to be in DMOZ, before you can get in Google. That is totally wrong, it’s very easy to get in Google, and it’s not required to be in DMOZ/ODP for that to happen. However, you cannot be in […]