DMOZ search questions

Please can someone give me some answers to some basic DMOZ questions?
OK - DMOZ is a directory - not a search engine. DMOZ exists primarily to list good websites for web surfers.
Question 1: How are surfers meant to find their good websites? – buy using the DMOZ search, by using a search engine that uses DMOZ like Google or by browsing DMOZ categories?
Question 2: If the latter does DMOZ know how many ordinary people actually use DMOZ in this way? (I am not aware of anyone other than webmasters and SEO people doing this).
I would think that the vast majority searching for information would use the “search” box like a conventional search engine.

Now my own case – I waited over a year for my small B&B site to be listed. I submitted it in the category relating to our nearest town. However when I search for “Town bed and breakfast” there are no entries returned. When I search for “County bed and breakfast” there are some returns but not my site. Since I am familiar with DMOZ categories I can navigate and find it. However, I am sure anyone looking for B&B in my area would never find it. The site comes fairly high in various SE searches but in DMOZ it is invisible to people searching for B&B.

Most people actually using a directory will browse the categories to find the information they want.

motsa said:

Most people actually using a directory will browse the categories to find the information they want.

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Arhhh.. but my question really was how many surfers are using the directory to find a product or information?
I suppose I was wondering if anyone did. I would think this would be difficult for DMOZ to answer but what about someone that knows someone who actually uses the directory categories for finding products.

dmoz.org usage logs are not available to editors, much less the public at large.

It would be of little use anyway, since most of the people who encounter the directory do so at one of our data users, not at dmoz.org.

We really have no way of knowing.

wrathchild said:

We really have no way of knowing.

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Interesting - so there are no published figures - so in theory I may be correct in saying that only robots, SEO people and webmasters browse through DMOZ categories.

No one has yet commented to say that they use it themselves to find products or services.

Baldlygo2 said:

Interesting - so there are no published figures - so in theory I may be correct in saying that only robots, SEO people and webmasters browse through DMOZ categories.

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"In theory, theory is the same as practice, but not in practice ."
- Fnord Bjørnberger

Baldlygo2 said:

No one has yet commented to say that they use it themselves to find products or services.

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I use it all the time. I used it all the time before I was an editor, too. That's how I ended up becoming an editor.

wrathchild said:

"In theory, theory is the same as practice, but not in practice ."
- Fnord Bjørnberger


I use it all the time. I used it all the time before I was an editor, too. That's how I ended up becoming an editor.

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Thanks wrathchild - that's one - any others?

To be a bit more serious though - can anyone answer why my B&B site is not being picked up in bed and breakfast DMOZ searches? (see first post)
Surely it should be found with "Oswestry bed and breakfast" - no one is going to drill down that far in the directory. I would have thought the county search "Shropshire accommodation" should also pick it up

The ODP doesn't give an effective tool for finding "websites related to accommodation somewhere in Shropshire"; you have to browse to each locality within Shropshire. Google Local Search is the definite winner.

There are other things the ODP isn't good for. I buy books on the internet occasionally. The ODP lists a lot of used bookstores, but I don't use it for that. I just hit abebooks for the online aggregate catalog, and search for the book I'm after.

Many of my searches are intended to find sites NOT in the ODP. The ODP is less than optimal at that.

On the other hand, there have been several occasions when my children needed information, and looked in Google (way too many results, cluttered by recreational and commercial false positives) and Yahoo directory (nothing). But the ODP search gave just enough porridge -- and high quality informational pages. Considering all the things ODP search DOESN'T do, it's pretty incredible how well it responds if you know how to use it.

Going back to the first question, I'm a firm believer in using the right tool for the job: search, surf, spider, specialized databases like yellow pages. The ODP is just one tool, and no tool is good for everything.

The tool YOU'RE looking for is "Google directory search." Check it out.

I use the directory quite a lot to find information. My friends are now used to getting a dmoz.org link back from me when they ask if I know anything about this or that (restaurants in Stockholm, online dictionaries, or pictures of New York, to take three authentic examples from this last week.)

Interesting - so there are no published figures - so in theory I may be correct in saying that only robots, SEO people and webmasters browse through DMOZ categories.

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In theory but not in fact. I'm another actual real person who frequently browses through the ODP to find stuff. Like nea, I frequently point my friends to an appropriate ODP category when they ask how to find something in particular.

I used it this afternoon to find a better value UK car breakdown & recovery service for the missus. It came in at 65% of her current supplier's price

Thanks for all your considered comments. I think they confirm my understanding of searching on DMOZ. It seems that one needs to be a bit of an expert to get the most out of it.

The front page search box is not suitable for finding products and services, however it is probably the best method of finding the most likely categories. Having done the first front page search drill down on the categories returned – this will be the only way to see some of the DMOZ indexed sites.

I was very pleased to see my site ranking high in Google directory so perhaps that’s all that matters. I am glad of my entry in DMOZ and I’m sure it helps a lot.

Baldlygo2 said:

The front page search box is not suitable for finding products and services, however it is probably the best method of finding the most likely categories.

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Indeed. We have been telling people that for years.

>It seems that one needs to be a bit of an expert to get the most out of it.

This is absolutely true. The ODP taxonomy is comparable in size, power, and complexity to the Dewey Decimal System, or the Library of Congress taxonomy. And colleges offer courses on how to use them.

But ... is Google any different? Oh, it has a shallower learning curve: any idiot can manage to use it to buy viagra, or reserve a hotel room. But the more particular you are about what you want (or what kind of scum you'll do business with), the more you have to understand search engines (and spammers.)

So the ODP will never be the most common way of accessing the net, and that's OK. Sophisticated internet users will never use it exclusively; they'll just use it whenever it's the best tool.