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 of 7)

1. Shopping: Music: Instruments (131 matches)
2. Arts: Music: Instruments: Percussion: Drums (67)
3. Business: Industrial Goods and Services: Packaging: Crating, Boxes and Drums (30)
4. Arts: Music: Instruments: Native American: Drums and Rattles (12)
5. Arts: Music: Instruments: Percussion (35)

[ more… ]

Open Directory Sites (1-20 of 1063)
… followed by many sites, descriptions, and the categories where they are located. Each category is followed by a number indicating how many sites are in the category.

This says that there are seven categories which relate to drums - the [ more… ] linking to addtional categories beyond the first five –

• Arts: Music: Instruments: Winds: Bagpipe (24)
• Regional: North America: Canada: Arts and Entertainment: Music: Instruments: Winds: Bagpipe: Bands (21)

First we have to ignore the categories that to not relate to drums as musical instruments.
Business: Industrial Goods and Services: Packaging: Crating, Boxes and Drums - is not a good match

Of the rest, it may be good to click on the link and go to the category and then look at the descriptions
Shopping: Music: Instruments
Submissions to this category should offer online shopping in some form for a range of musical instruments, accessories, and/or recording gear.

Arts: Music: Instruments: Percussion: Drums
Online stores selling drums and accessories should be submitted to Shopping: Music: Instruments: Percussion.
Websites about drums, including instrument and instructional information, drum building, drummers, and organizations.

This tells us some valuable information - there is a difference between Shopping and Art - Shopping being for sites emphasing sales - Art more for information.

Arts: Music: Instruments: Winds: Bagpipe and Regional: North America: Canada: Arts and Entertainment: Music: Instruments: Winds: Bagpipe: Bands are not great matches - they are coming up in the search for sites relating to both bagpipes and drums, and also matches on Drum Majors in the site descriptions.

So if we are looking to buy some drums we can start in Shopping: Music: Instruments - but that’s pretty broad - more specific searching can be done by going that category and repeating the search - but only in that category - that gets

1. Shopping: Music: Instruments (99 matches)
2. Shopping: Music: Instruments: Ethnic and Regional (32)

In Shopping: Music: Instruments it makes sense to find good subcategories such as Shopping: Music: Instruments: Percussion which gives a lot of sites and addtionally subcategories for Bells, Steelpan and Taiko

In Shopping: Music: Instruments: Ethnic and Regional although some sites that sell drums may be clocated there, we might have to know the ethnicty of the drunm we are looking for. So for example, a djembe will most likeley be found in Shopping: Music: Instruments: Ethnic and Regional: African along with other African drums such as djundjun (dununs) and ashikos.

One might ask - why are Steelpan located in Shopping: Music: Instruments: Percussion - are they not Ethnic? Yes, but that is the way it was set up. However, if you do go to Shopping: Music: Instruments: Ethnic and Regional - note there is an entry Steelpan@ which cleverly sends you to the right place.

———————————————————————————
If we are looking for information about drums that we can do a search in Arts: Music: Instruments which yields:

1. Arts: Music: Instruments: Percussion: Drums (67 matches)
2. Arts: Music: Instruments: Native American: Drums and Rattles (12)
3. Arts: Music: Instruments: Percussion (35)
4. Arts: Music: Instruments: Winds: Bagpipe (26)
5. Arts: Music: Instruments: Makers (3)

that give us another usefull category Arts: Music: Instruments: Makers - but that begs the question - is not a Maker selling his product and should that not be in shopping? The description clarifies that:

For companies and individual craft workers making musical instruments.
Instrument manufacturers should be sent to Arts: Music: Instruments: Manufacturers
Sites selling online, but not building instruments ahould be submitted to the correct category within Shopping: Music: Instruments

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 sites you may have listed in the directory. Sites with overlapping and repetitive content are not helpful to users of the directory. Multiple submissions of the same or related sites may result in the exclusion and/or deletion of those and all affiliated sites.

So technically a mirror site is one that contains identical content. Pure mirrors are ones that are exactly, dot for dot, letter for letter, the same as another site. In many cases, there are mirrors that are almost identical, the layout may be slightly different, but the wording is 99% the same.

The editing guidelines on identical mirrors say Sometimes identical mirrors are created to ease the load on the main site. Try to determine which of the mirrors appears to be the original site, and list that one, if it is not already listed. Then remove the remaining mirrors.

In many cases, there are mirrors that are similar, the layout will be different, the wording is different, but it’s substantially the same site. In some case, one site may emphasize a single product shown on the other site. ODP calls these fraternal mirrors. The editing guidelines {see Affiliate Reseller Sites (aka Fraternal Mirrors} say

Fraternal Mirrors have the same basic content, but usually different designs. Fraternal mirrors are harder to spot because the sites are designed and written to appear different, but a careful examination will reveal they offer the exact same product or service as another affiliated company. They are usually set up by merchants as affiliate, reseller, or lead generator sites. For example, sites which sell products or services provided by another company and make a small margin on the sale are affiliate mirrors. In general we do not list affiliate sites unless the affiliate has strong, high quality content of its own that end-users will find really useful.

The bottom line is that suggestions of mirror sites are a very bad idea, they make an editor question your motives, and can substantially delay the review of a site.

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 a web site that consists of only three pages:

• Page 1 - Welcome to … website — yes that is it, nothing else on the page
• Page 2 - goes to the hosting sites and displays a page full of assorted junk and ads and a big title RESTRICTED - ILLEGAL PAGE - wow that’s cool
• Page 3 - starts my email client without warning since it’s not a page at all, but an email link - what a pain this guy is

I can’t type fast enough to delete this time wasting nonsense.

I doubt if this website will ever be finished but if it is ever re-submitted, the editor will see a note about this premature subbmission.

Lesson #1 - do not submit sites under construction - it will come back to haunt you

(He should thank me; if any potential clients ever saw this, they would run away as fast as I deleted it)

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 do is minimised. They are more likely to review your site as soon as they come across it.

For the full post see Make the site a ‘no-brainer’

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 non-listing of his site. As is usual with this type of thread, a gross misunderstanding of the ODP is shown. An editor sums it up nicely:

You’re like expecting the U.S.Postal Service to solve your rodent problem because the mail truck ran over a possum in front of your neighbor’s house. And the mail comes every day, but your rats are still there.

Although I fear his words are lost in the ethernet. In the end it would seem that the site[s][s][s] in question have a history behind them that is not so innocent.

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 the Google Directory without being in DMOZ.

So what is the Google Directory? It’s a subset of Google and can be found from the Google main page by selecting more, and then going to Directory - Browse the web by topic

The Google directory is created by copying data from the Open Directory RDF Dump under the rules of the Open Directory License. There many other sites besides Google that do this. Note that Google does not use the same format for displaying the data as does ODP, and the order of the sites is subject to Google’s own rules.

Be aware that Google and ODP are separate entities, and that ODP is not copying anything from Google. Note also the when anyone suggests a site to the Google directory, that causes a link back to ODP for the submission processing, and it is ODP that accepts the suggested sites - not Google.

Google copies sites from ODP in bulk by using the RDF file, and they are the ones that decide when to do it and they define the schedule - ODP has no control of it. Typically updates may be processed around every four weeks, but at times have been substantially slower.

Here it the typical sequence to indicate a typical time frame.

July 12 - an editor adds a new site
July 15 - the sites appears on the ODP public site - it typically takes three days to appear.
July 19 - an RDF dump is created that contains the site. Rdf dumps are created around once a week. If the timing is good, a site could get copied to the RDF dump the same day it was added by the editor.
August 15 - Google copies the RDF data into their directory.

So in a good scenario it take about a month to appear in Google.

If the timing was bad, and at each stage you just missed the cycle, it could take three months to get listed. On the other hand if all went well, you get get into Google in a week or so.

Sometimes the creation of a new ODP category is not a happy event, but required by the realities of the day.

Society: Issues: Terrorism: Incidents: London, July 7, 2005

Want to make a statement - then link to this website : We’re not afraid

— also send them a picture.

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.