giz

This RDF has been a few days extra compared to 'normal'. Maybe it reflects that there are a lot more sites now in the directory? Maybe the RDF generation has been slowed down a little by the many other processes going on at the same time? Maybe the way it works has been changed to make it more robust? Whatever the reason, here's hoping that it works OK this time.

Re: http://www.vintagedesignerclothing.com/ Although I don't edit anywhere close to this area of discussion, I'd just like to say thanks for taking the time to study the situation and give your thoughts about the category structure. With an ever growing directory there are bound to be areas where categories duplicate effort, overlap, or have separate (but non-obvious) intent. A great deal of internal discussion and work goes into category structuring, and reorganisation; far more than may appear on the outside.

Don't forget that http://dmoz.org/rdf/tags.html shows you the latest status of the RDF.

The page at http://dmoz.org/rdf/tags.html will show you the status of the RDF dump as well as some of the reasons for the failure. Others are more complex and not detailed in the report. Remember that the RDF dump is produced while people are still editing the database, so this is a non-trivial programing exercise. There are several reasons for the failure, but it is being looked at. As the dump takes a week, it means that it takes a week to find out if the latest correction did actually fix it or not.

The search hasn't been updated for a while, because there has not been a working RDF dump produced. This has been the topic of discussion in numerous threads including the one at: http://www.resource-zone.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=data&Number=13239 . The problem is known, is being looked into, and will take time to fix as it takes a week for each run to confirm whether the fix has worked or whether there are further problems. Google use to take a copy of the RDF once per month or so, other places are still running on copies that they downloaded absolutely years ago. Many tens of thousands of sites have been added to the ODP during the time that the RDF has not been working. It will all flow eventually. You'll just have to be patient. By the way, the update for 2002-Dec-03 did fail again: [ http://dmoz.org/rdf/tags.html ].

This thread may also be useful: http://www.resource-zone.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=data&Number=13179

Senox, I think rainbowsales meant to write: Not sure if I am supposed to reply to this by email or post in the forum. Anyway I will post in both to make sure. Easy misunderstanding. Darn English language!

... but first, please also make sure that there is a note on the old site that states the new site URL, so that you make it very easy for an editor to see that you do actually own both sites.

Published a month ago in: http://dmoz.org/Regional/Oceania/Australia/South_Australia/Localities/P/Prospect/Business_and_Economy/ Awaiting Review in: http://dmoz.org/Business/Publishing_and_Printing/Services/Writing

There is no-one else with a directory of over 3 million web sites to go to. The problems will be fixed, but are complex and it takes nearly a week to see if each fix has cured all the problems. Staff have said that the RDF is the highest priority, so rest assured that it is being worked on. Information about the RDF can be found at: http://dmoz.org/rdf.html and http://dmoz.org/rdf/Changes.html and http://dmoz.org/rdf/tags.html and http://dmoz.org/help/getdata.html and http://dmoz.org/rdf/ .

>> what happens to the listings that have been paid for in those categories? << Who knows? They may be moved, deleted, or what ever tops... wants to do with them. That would be between the person who paid, and the entity they paid. Caveat emptor surely applies here. In any case, for all those people who don't pay, are they really going to delete every listing? When the next ODP RDF arrives, are they then going to go back and delete everything that they deleted off their own site, but which is still included in the new RDF? I don't think so. Maybe they won't bother to ever take another RDF. In that case, their site will eventually be full of dead or hijacked links. If they start deleting all of those, their directory will eventually be almost empty. Whatever happens, this looks like it is between the web site owner and tops... ; there has been wide discussion of this on webmasterworld and other external fora. I guess that is the correct place to ask such questions.

Additionally, please note that the Search function at dmoz.org is a "Find the correct category" search, not "Find a list of Sites" search. That is, if the search finds the category, or a parent category of the one you are listed in, then it has done its job.

Thanks for taking the time out to mention it. I have no idea what the site is, or who dealt with it; I guess you hit it lucky with an active editor, or a category that just happened to be visited today. The directory has around 3000 to 4000 sites added every single day. No category is completely editorless though. If there is no named editor, then anyone in categories directly above that one can edit there, as can anyone with the Editall, or Meta Editor title. So every category has at least 100 people that could edit there. However, most like to stick to their area of expertise, rather then edit anywhere and anything: just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Continued in: http://www.resource-zone.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=status&Number=7427 .

Just a sidenote: If you want to supply a downloadable catalogue, then a non-.exe ZIP file should be fine. Inside the ZIP file should be either an HTML version of the catalogue, Rich Text Format, or you could supply it as a PDF file. For a global audience it is best to avoid stuff that is machine specific. The choice is yours. This in no way affects your listing at the ODP.

>> People will always be able to submit their sites << At present, many cannot due to this "problem". >> If you read the message that you get it tells you that your submission has been received and that no further action is necessary << That is true for the occasions when the message says that the submission has been put in the Misplaced Submissions folder. What has been reported here and in other places is another error, where the browser hangs for several minutes, then gave a "Page not Found" error. >> It used to say "go back and re-submit", but this was a mistake and I'm told that it doesn't say that any more << It was supposedly fixed a week ago, to say "Please go back IF you need to resubmit" but as of yesterday was still showing the "please resubmit" message.

The links point to categories within http://directory.google.com/ not back to http://dmoz.org/ so (in the short term) this is entirely an issue for Google to fix. However, Google does get the ODP data from a copy of the RDF dump, made available by the ODP. This dump used to be updated weekly, and Google used to take a copy approximately monthly. There has been recent technical problems so a new RDF has not been produced since the end of September. It may be that Google also spiders http://dmoz.org/ directly as well, hence the differences in link destination noted like this in several places. When Google gets a new and updated RDF from the ODP this may well correct the problem, but it won't do any harm to drop Google a note to point out the error. There is little that anyone at the ODP can do to correct an error at Google, but this may be self correcting at the next RDF update.

See also: http://www.resource-zone.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=status&Number=12847

Re: http://www.combustion-web-hosting.com/ > Can you also, please tell us how many sites are ahead of us? < >> There are currently around 250 sites awaiting review in that category << There isn't really an ahead or a behind, as the unreviewed sites can be listed in either the date-submitted order or in alphabetical order. An editor may choose to work through the list in one of those orders, or may decide to delete the obvious spam submissions first, move mis-submissions to the correct categories, or list the "easy to work on" sites first, or whatever he feels like doing. Reviewing 250 sites is going to take someone a long time to do. Please don't resubmit, as this resets the last submitted date, and for an editor who does list submissions in date-submitted order a site resubmission is now at the back of the queue.

I have also seen the problem where it all hangs for several minutes then reports page not found. I have also seen the usual problem that occurs in IE, at least a few times. Last week I saw someone using Netscape 4.6 have exactly the same problem.

>> This still poses a problem for the ODP editors however, since proving that someone has a real storefront as opposed to a simple shipping address is difficult to do remotely. << If the site has the details of opening hours, telephone number, physical address, and a few images of the inside and outside of the shop, then it is fairly easy to verify that it does or does not exist, from business directories, municipal records, the phone book, or just by asking an editor to drive by and take a look. ODP editors are everywhere. I recently discovered that there are at least 4 other editors living within 20km of me.

Re: URL Rejected? This question is asked quite a lot on this, and other, fora. See, for example: http://www.searchengineforums.com/Forum31/HTML/000891.html .

Re: home-based-business-opportunities-guide.com/ [ Parallel Conversation about this site: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum17/1193.htm ]

Re: status http://www.heavenlytreasures.com/ Search is usually updated at least weekly, but due to technical troubles with the RDF dump (which is used by downstream users such as Google, and as the basis for the Search function at http://dmoz.org/) it has not been updated for well over a month. Fixing it is a high priority, but since the RDF takes nearly a week to generate, a failure after several days means some frantic fixing and the regeneration process restarted from the beginning. This is frustrating for staff, editors, and users alike, but rest assured that it is being looked at.

Re: home-based-business-opportunities-guide.com Site seems to have been up and down for some months. The site has also been removed from the Yahoo Directory: http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum35/943.htm .