EDITOR LINK INFLUENCE

IN what ways can editor influence a sites incominng links?
For example, can he apply limitations regarding the
PR of the incoming link, or delete internal links?
What powers does an editor have in this respect?

We aren't Google and have no control (and almost no understanding) of how PR is assigned.

I hear that if a site gets listed in ODP, it probably will look better in Google's eyes. I also hear that editors doing things to (try to) manipulate Google rankings are probably also abusing ODP and will likely get removed if discovered.

The ODP has nothing to do with google, they are just one of our data users. So we have no influence on anything related to Google.

[Edit: One minute late. That was the time to add the link ]

OK....Perhaps I should re-phrase the question:

I what ways can an editor influence Google Rankings?

Saxor, the above responses answer that question. But as long as an editor is following the guidelines, listing all sites (including his/her own) with appropriate titles and descriptions and not just tending to his/her own sites, who really cares? Besides competitors?

He can't. We have so totally no control over how Google determines PageRank. They don't tell us anything about how it works and they'd pay as much attention to email from one of us telling them to change it as they would to email from you (none, presumably).

I do know that keywords in an ODP description have zero effect on a Google pagerank for good or for ill; someone who worked for Google explained that once. So people should really stop worrying about that so much!

Flicker

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Disclaimer: This post constitutes an unofficial, personal opinion not necessarily shared by other ODP editors, the university, or my cats.

The official explicit staff directive is: when editing, DO NOT take into consideration how the ODP might be used by ANY search engine.

Editors get removed for violations of that. We're building a directory that can be used effectively as a directory. Whatever doesn't contribute to that is abuse (whatever it does to the search engines.) Whatever contributes to that is good (however the search engines use it.)

In other words: it is not our business, it will not be our business, and we WILL remove any editor who tries to make it into their business.

Any search engine, including Google, can use the ODP data any way they want. Anyone can spider the ODP public pages, for any reason (1 request per second or less).

Historically, several search engines have used the data several different ways; all of them changed the way they use that data over time. We expect this situation to continue.

Google representatives are publicly claiming that at the present time ODP listings are treated as links by Google, in the same way that links on other sites are treated. Most links contribute something to page rank.

Beyond that, there's nothing we know, and even that is irrelevant for editors who want to stay editors.

OK....Thanks a lot to all of you!

I am just trying to get a grip on the question of the incredible differences that appear in the number of incoming links that are listed by any given search engine.

I have sites for example where Yahoo shows over a thousand links incoming, and Google (for the same site) shows 20.

Go figure.

There are a lot of public forums that discuss the search engines, and questions like that last one (which, unlike the first one, IS a legitimate question) are better opened there. ODP editors don't get any kind of special insight into that sort of thing.

The quick answer is that Google doesn't list links from pages with PR<4 although they do count them. Other search engines like AllTheWeb list all incoming links they know about.

The quick answer is that Google doesn't list links from pages with PR<4 although they do count them. Other search engines like AllTheWeb list all incoming links they know about.

Click to expand...

OK....that explains a lot.....thanks,
Bob