Can an ODP Listing Trigger a Google Filter?

I am concerned that listing some sites in ODP may trigger a filter that prevents those sites from appearing in many popular Google search results. If my concerns prove to be borne out, then ODP may be on a collision course with Google. Specifically, if my concerns are borne out, many site owners may request that their sites be removed from ODP, and ODP editors may be obliged to ask the informed consent of site owners before listing their sites.

I sincerely hope that my concerns prove to be groundless. Would you please explore the issue so it can be ruled in or out as a real problem. I thought it best to raise my concerns here, rather than go to some webmaster / SEO forums, where premature panic might ensue. I have found out that sending emails about this sort of issue to Google is a complete waste of time; their canned replies just refer you to their own forum at http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&group=google.public.support.general . By the way, whatever the outcome of this enquiry, please don't blame me for raising this issue; the germ of the concern is already out there on the web, and sooner or later someone like me would have tried to connect the dots and started wondering whether ODP listings and the new Google algorithm are always harmonious or not.

Background: It is my understanding that the imbedded text in a hyperlink to a site listed in ODP usually (always?) matches the name of the site. That listing, including the hyperlink and the text describing the site is repeated in many other sites that are customers of ODP, including of course Google's directory.

There is an increasingly held belief that the embedded text in a hyperlink to a given site and / or the text near that link, if they appear in many sites that link to that given site, and the embedded text, and / or the text near those links are repeated verbatum, a Google filter will drop that site from Google's popular SERPs that relate to the embedded words and / or associated text. This filter is apparently part of the current Google "Florida" algorithm that came into effect in mid-November last.

Here is a relevant link to a recent Q&A at Google Answers:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=294076 .

Comments: I have tried for some hours to use the limited tools at my disposal to see whether or not a listing in ODP might trigger the Google filter, but my results were contradictory. Maybe the much greater resources, and perhaps the human contacts, of someone amongst the editors, Metas or ODP staff can see this matter quickly dealt with. Even if my concerns are borne out, Google may be able to remedy the situation by exempting all sites that are listed in its own version of the ODP directory when it is next updated. (Note: It has not been updated since well before Florida.)

Unfortunately we have no connection whatsoever with Google. They simply use our data. Unfortunately, if you have problems or questions about Google you are going to have to go to somewhere else to talk about them.

On a side note - many of the more popular search engine forums out there have dmoz.org editors and even meta editors as posters. I am not saying they will help you - that is up to them, rather that you will probably reach alot of the same audience in a different venue.

I am not even an editor, but will jump in here. I presume you are joking? There is no way that an ODP listing is going to come close to triggering a filter (if there really are any filters anyway). Let alone is an ODP editor going to give a damn about a listing helping or hurting a Google listing. I think to are reading too much in to the 80% of misinformation about SEO and Google in the different forums.

<Specifically, if my concerns are borne out, many site owners may request that their sites be removed from ODP,
not a problem. We didn't list the sites for the benefit of the site owners, and we won't remove them for their benefit.

>and ODP editors may be obliged to ask the informed consent of site owners before listing their sites.

Not a problem either. We won't remove websites for the benefit of their owners, and we won't list them for their benefit.

So relax. Your fears are groundless.

What Google does, or what webmasters want, isn't an issue here. Ever. We build the best directory we can build, and anyone who wants to, can use it however they want. We can't begin to second-guess the heights of insight (or the depths of depravity) of the internet world. We just focus on the quality of the directory.

But, in any case, the problem could only occur for sites that are trying to Google-bomb with spammy keywords via the ODP -- or sites that don't care. (I have a site in the latter class, with thousands of links to a site, nearly all with the same anchor text.)

Here we go again..... Two replies so far.

The first repeating the mantra that ODP has no connection with Google, and implying that even if my concerns were borne out that it doesn't matter anyway. As to saying that if I have a problem with Google that I should go away, I am apalled. That person really didn't get it; if my concerns prove to be valid and website owners suffer as a result of editors placing their sites in ODP without getting informed consent, just watch the proverbial hit the fan, and then it will be a big problem for ODP, not Google.

The second response with the bald statement that I must be joking, that ODP listings could not possibly trigger a Google filter, even if such a thing exists, deserves the contempt that any off the cuff dismissive un-thought-out sneer of that type warrants.

Please, please, look past the obvious. Once, most people believed the world was obviously flat ...... I am probably misguided in my concerns, but ..... The dismissing of my concerns, without giving any reason why they are not valid, just won't wash.

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Adminstrators of a forum can decide what is and is not appropriate for discussion for the forum. The goal of ODP is to list sites in ODP, and this forum is for discussions about ODP issues, not Google issues. There are many forums that might be interested in those issues, and you would get a better reception there, and you might even get answers from ODP editors there.

You might try looking in
http://editors.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Chats_and_Forums/ or
http://editors.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Promotion/Chats_and_Forums/

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Humour [not sarcasm]
From a certain point of view, this would be a great idea to spread around - if enough agressive submitters started fearing that the site would be listed in ODP, then the Spam submission might disappear

The dismissing of my concerns, without giving any reason why they are not valid, just won't wash.

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I think the substance of what we're saying is that you're asking the wrong people. We create a resource that people can download for free and use according to the terms of the license. Neither the volunteer editors (who are posting here) nor the ODP staff is in a position, legal or otherwise, to regulate what the downstream users do with the data within the terms of the license.

I'm sorry that you're not getting a better response from Google, and that you having trouble understanding why their proprietary (!) algorithm might be excluding certain sites, but unfortunately, we're not equipped to address your concerns.

While your question is interesting, it's just not on topic for this forum -- the ODP editors have nothing to do with what happens with the data we're working to maintain. One of the other search engine forums might be a better alternative. (And I'm sure there's plenty of Google speculation going on out there. )

Hutcheson,

My experience of you to date has left me with the firm impression that you are a reasonable person. When you state "But, in any case, the problem could only occur for sites that are trying to Google-bomb with spammy keywords via the ODP" how can that really relate to cases like, for example, the hotel site in Cardiff? The analysis of that site's triggering of the Google filter was in part based on " You have too many links that point to your site with the text
"Lincoln House Hotel - Cardiff". That is not what people would normally have described as a formula for spammy Google bombing pre-Florida. It would have merely been regarded as an accurate description of the hotel. The fact that it appears to not be so now should make everyone take a proverbial cold shower and reflect a little.

The ODP has lots of listings of sites about hotels, travel agents, real estate agents, and, yes, one money transfer consumer guide site that you may remember, to nominate just a few types of site, where the site titles and / or descriptions that people such as yourself put in ODP, that now may be triggering the Google filter. The appearance of any such listing in ODP itself won't of course trigger the filter. However, once such a listing is repeated time and again in other sites that use the ODP data, the consquence may be that that very repetition may trigger the filter.

It has been ODP's commendable decision to make its data widely available on the web, in order to make it a better place. Would it be equally commendable if that widely available data started to hurt innocent people who had never been warned of the possible repurcussions of an ODP listing?

Enough of the cant about not caring about site owners. Even in the "dispassionate" Valhalla of the ODP Metas, surely not all site owners shoud be treated as if they were unter-mench.

There are several issues here, and I don't mind trying to sort them out.

The first one is easy. "If Google starts penalizing sites for ODP listings, whose fault is that, and who needs to change?" It's Google's fault, and they need to fix it. Not our problem.

This may seem cold to you, but I am a programmer, and I have faced this issue hundreds of times in my work. My reaction is always both sharply conditioned and deliberately taken, adopted from the best logical analysis of which I was capable, and argued with the greatest passion that I can express. It is ALWAYS a mistake to try to code around the errors in a kernel algorithm -- futile, since they have in my experience ALWAYS needed to be either fixed or differently-broken, leaving all that human effort to be as painfully untangled; counterproductive, since in my experience attempts to code around the algorithm leave a situation even less amenable to a real fix; and impractical, since we simply don't have the volunteers to rewrite our millions of listings every time Google changes.

The only thing that we COULD do in such a case is the only thing that we OUGHT to do anyway: wait for Google to fix their problem. Reason doesn't demand of me that I do something futile when I see a problem, simply because I can see nothing productive to do about it! In this matter, human logic and human limitations leave no other options.

The second part of the question, about the analysis of the so-called "Google Penalty," doesn't disturb me. I happen to have a degree in math and computer science, and some professional experience explaining the rankings of very complex digraph algorithms to people who have neither. And ... I don't think much of some of the forum analyses. Too many of those wannabe-analysts would have flunked basic algebra and elementary logic courses if they had dared take them, and yet they propose to propound the "deep things of Google" -- as if pagerank were something other than a very complex logical and algebraic algorithm on digraphs. To make matters worse, hotel search results are especially problematic -- on a simple calculation, over 9999 of ten thousand web pages in any given "city hotel" search results are pure spam. If Google pruned 99% of the spam on those searches, nobody except the ejected spammers could even notice. And if an actual hotel site appeared in the first page of a "city hotel" search, it's probably the only one in the inner solar system to have done so. The spammers (not, note well, Google algorithms!) have made such searches absolutely, totally, and in every way worthless. (I say this as one of many ODP editors who have spent time poring over hundreds of Google search results for specific localities, looking for sites worth looking at, to list in our directory. And the ONLY way YOU can useful sites on those subjects, is to look in our directory!)

On this matter, "being reasonable" can go only so far as to forego justice in favor of expedience: that is, to tolerate a painless death for hotel reservation spammers, so long as it's quick.

Third, my potential contempt of website content developers is necessarily constrained by my own activity: I commit such actions myself. As in any profession, there are good and evil practitioners, working skillfully or clumsily, on productive or futile projects. But ... I belong to a number of different communities or commonalities of interest: working within each community, I regard it as basic honesty to do only what is compatible with goals of that community. The ODP is intended for web-surfers. It is not my sounding board for political, religious, or cultural views; it is not a tool for my personal profit. As much as these things mean to me, I cannot accept the privilege of editing the directory unless I can avoid using that privilege to harm the directory for my advantage.

This translates very simply into: When I'm editing, the surfer is number one. Any editing action we take must be justifiable on that ground and that ground alone. The still small voice of egoism whispers that I'd be number two if I let there be a number two. So there won't be, OK?

It's just like being a bank teller. A lot of money goes through your hands, and there may be a lot of wise, good, and productive things you could do with it. But, so long as you're behind that counter, you do with it only what is in the bank's interest. Anything else just flat isn't honest.

These my positions are a result of neither futile speculation nor unconsidered action. They are the result of two decades of programming work trying to smooth the boundary between human creativity and machine consistency (while trying to contribute something on both sides).

Aside: Why should being called "reasonable" seem to demand such a personal defense, when so many of the more pejorative things editors get called are so easy to ignore? Now _that's_ irony.

Besides, it flies in the face of basic logical observation to think that having a link with your company's name in it would make your site disappear from Google. There are hundreds of thousands of examples to the contrary out there. Microsoft comes up #1 for Microsoft, Amazon.com comes up #1 for Amazon, Krispy Kreme comes up #1 for Krispy Creme...

The moral here is don't believe everything you read. A theory with that many gaping holes in it isn't a good one to start panicking over, much less start harassing Google over, much less start harassing the webmasters and directory editors who've been kind enough to link to you over. I'd be looking with a fish eye at the theorists, myself; they have something of a vested interest in convincing everyone but themselves to chase phantom theories down the nearest bunny hole, and it looks like they're getting some people to bite.

So much good stuff has been said already ...

1. If an ODP listing were the cause of pages being filtered from Google results, then a lot more pages should have been filtered out. However, since there are plenty of results for sites listed in the ODP that come up under the expected keyword combinations, the theory that an ODP listing causes sites to hit a filter is wrong.

2. Google wants to provide relevant results. They know that human edited directories are a good source of sites, and they know that the ODP exists. Why would they ever implement something that didn't take advantage of those results?

3. Presuming that Google for some strange reason wanted to penalize sites listed in the ODP - that would be their choice. We don't care, and never will. We do our thing, and they do theirs.

if my concerns prove to be valid and website owners suffer as a result of editors placing their sites in ODP without getting informed consent, just watch the proverbial hit the fan, and then it will be a big problem for ODP, not Google.

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4. You are incorrect. Just as Google is allowed to create their own "opinion" of sites and provide that information to the public for free, the ODP is allowed to build a directory containing whatever links they desire.

I realize that to many people, especially webmasters and SEOs, the ODP and Google seem to be closely integrated. The reality is - we are not. Google is simply one of many downstream data users. As general internet users we may have general interest in this topic and as editors we may have specific interest due to Google being a good tool for us to use to find sites. However, as editors making decisions about what to list in the directory and how to list it, we don't have any interest at all.

This isn't to dismiss your concerns, but pnm said it best:

you're asking the wrong people

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ODP editors may be obliged to ask the informed consent of site owners before listing their sites.

Click to expand...

Bwahahahaaa, really? Some new, enforceable internet law would have to exist first.

http://dmoz.org/Society/Law/Legal_Information/Computer_and_Technology_Law/Internet/Linking_Law/ may be where you should head next.

Of interest is http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/25954.html where it appears that F**d tried to assert that no-one had the right to link to their URL/domain and appears to have lost that case.

Where the Open Directory can help you Remittanceman is with links to some interesting analyses of the Florida update: Google: News and Media.

Quote= "Besides, it flies in the face of basic logical observation to think that having a link with your company's name in it would make your site disappear from Google. There are hundreds of thousands of examples to the contrary out there. Microsoft comes up #1 for Microsoft, Amazon.com comes up #1 for Amazon, Krispy Kreme comes up #1 for Krispy Creme..."

Sure, it is obvious that if such a filter does exist that it is somehow configured to not catch the brand or company name to which a site relates providing that name does not have popular search words such as hotel, money, real estate, etc, etc, as part of the name, as in the case of the hotel in Cardiff that caught my attention in the first place. However, that observation does not exclude the possibility of a filter that is designed to catch Google bombing of popular search phrases, such as those that are on the list of phrases that are popular with advertisers that use Google Adwords.

As it has been made abundantly clear that this is not an issue that ODP wishes to address from its end, I have posted about the issue at the Google forum at http://groups.google.com.au/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&group=google.public.support.general

Good luck with the discussion, and thanks for the link for others who are interested to follow.