dmoz search results

apologies in advance but I have looked through FAQs, forum threads etc so seek an explanation - minor point really - hope someone can help. I have found a couple of situations where I have used dmoz to seach for relevant sites, a couple of choices appear, great, but when i click on the dmoz category the sites im looking for dont actually appear within the category - sorry if i am at fault would like to understand.

I am not 100% sure I am following you but will take a stab at it. The search on dmoz is rather spotty. I find it works great in searching for actual categories but specific URL's take a little practice. You aren't going to find a http:// or a www. search but you will find a yourdomain.com search in most cases assuming its listed. If you know a site was listed and you look at the category and its not showing, there are a range of possibilities that could explain it. Some common ones are:

• The site was found to not be working and was temporarily unreviewed pending a recheck of the URL.
• The site was only recently added and the URL hasn't refreshed over to the public servers.
• The site is no longer listable according to the guidelines and an editor removed it. (older sites may not be listable by the current guidelines and will be removed when discovered)
• A better home was found or created for the site and therefore its been moved and hasn't been either listed in the new category, refreshed to the public servers, or requires a different editor with permissions in the new home to review and list.
• Or a number of other reasons I am probably forgetting.

if there is a delay / gap between successful addition of domains and public server refreshes my guess is that is as good an explaination i'll find

The search database lags behind the actual category servers so sites that have been removed may still turn up in searches unti the search db catches up.

that also makes sense - thanks for some insight