Category Removed?

It looks like http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Holidays/Christmas/Decorations/Christmas_Lights/ has been removed in the last few days. If you do a search for christmas lights it brings up the category but when you click on it, it gives an error.

Anyone know what the story is?

The category has been renamed as the Christmas.../Christmas_Lights category path was a bit redudent. You'll be able to find the new category at: http://dmoz.org/Shopping/Holidays/Christmas/Decorations/Lights/ just as soon as it's been "built" (the "public page regeneration" system which "builds" the pages is currently a couple of days backlogged - therefore some categories aren't showing up correctly, redirects aren't working as they should etc etc: normal service should be resumed in the next couple of weeks).

I've seen a few post about the problems with the system and the backlog that dmoz is working through...

Just curious--Will this affect Google's crawl this month or do they get the rdf and work with that? Another words, is it possible that the Google will get sites through the rdf that are currently available online due to the backlog?

Thanks!

Google uses the RDF dump to produce http://directory.google.com/ . However, there have been problems with the RDF dump being produced - but ODP staff are working on fixing that ASAP (it's currently the highest priority: they have informed editors that work on things like "public page regeneration" and the ODP own search system will be delayed until the RDF is fixed).

Google does also crawl the ODP, but it'll be up to Google exactly what it does with the crawl. ODP has no "direct" link with Google - it is just one of the many sites using ODP data.

>> is it possible that the Google will get sites through the rdf that are (not) currently available online due to the backlog? << (my addition to try and make the sentence make sense)

It's possible, but only if the RDF dump is correctly working. According to the RDF verification checks, the RDF was meant to be produced in the last few days - but failed due to consistency checks.

ODP staff are aware of these issue(s) are are working to fix them just as quickly as they can.