I exist and I don't in the same area?

First I have to say how excited I am to find this Forum. I had no idea it was here and I have already found a lot of answers to many questions I had. But I do have one for this topic area.

I am kind of listed in the category
Regional:North America:United
States:Texas:Localities:F:Fort Worth:Business and Economy: Real Estate.
When it is searched I do not show up. But when you search my name it shows me to be in that category. What am I missing? It almost appears that the category is listed twice. Once with everyone else and once with myself and Vice Investments. Can you explain what I doing wrong? I was just trying to update my information and it doesn't seem possible. I find my listing and update URL but it says I don't exist.

Is it a Zen problem? No really, just trying to understand what is going on and what I am doing wrong.

Clarke

The search functions uses a version of the data that is somewhat older than current. Apparently one of our hard-working Texas editors has recently moved you to the "residential" subcategory of the category in question.

Ah ha. You we hiding me from myself. I see now. It is a drill down one past where I was. So I am there but I am one past where it says I am? Makes perfect sense. lol. It's kind of the left hand catching up with the right? Really this is a function of the size of the data base isn't it? I really appreciate the clarification.

Clarke

Hmmm. Yes, I guess that's the best way to think of it. The directory is very large and very heavily and constantly used, so I guess the search function works on our export (RDF) copy of the data to minimize server load.

This is a related question. I can search Google for Fort Worth real estate and get 50 results and I am not in them. If they are using open directory data why would I not be there? The results are full of people in my same category and they are listed by page rank and I am ranked higher than 90% of them.
It still appears that I am visible but invisible in ODP data.
Is my time line and thinking to short term and immediate?

Clarke

Google is a user of ODP data. They get it from the RDF dump that the ODP produces weekly at rdf.dmoz.org/rdf/ .

Google doesn't take a new copy weekly. They used to do it about monthly - until about 6 months or more ago.

The copy they currently use for the Google directory is about 6 months old. The information about categories that appears in Google search results is only about 2 or 3 months old.

The ODP has no idea what Google is up to. The data is there for them to use. Ask them why they aren't using it.

Well, that would explain it. Thank you so much for your help. I wish other directories and search engines were this helpful. Since I found this forum almost all of my questions regarding how sites are indexed and ranked have been answered. And thats pretty good since you don't even rank.lol

Clarke

You know, I just re-searched under "fort worth real estate" and I still wasn't listed. If the search database is older than the one that is available for downloading by months how can anyone tell what is going on?
Is this right? Do I really exist in the database that is seen by others? I don't appear to be. A search of "fort worth real estate" will not find me in the DMOZ or in the Google directory.
This is so frustrating and wierd. I know there is just something I am missing or not understanding but I cannot figure out what it is.
Any help is appreciated.
Clarke

The usual caveat: if you don't like the way Google indexes stuff, take it up with Google. We don't have any control over that (they don't, for instance, add our descriptions to your page's keywords). But you do have control -- it is the words on your own home page that they index! There are lots of other forums on the web that can give you advice on Google-serping: we focus on what our editors know here.

Which is ODP search. In your case it works exactly like it's supposed to (but seldom does.) Any actual surfer searching for "Fort Worth Real Estate" would see, very first thing on the screen, the category purporting to include ALL the Ft. Worth RE sites -- which includes yours. That's batting 1.000, and nothing at all to get frustrated over.

Wait a minute. How did you search "fort worth real estate" and find me? I found 50 results but I wasn't in it(I re-read my last post. Gibberish. Sorry). If I do that search on DMOZ I find 50 people but not me. Now if I drill down to I can find myself. But not on that search.
I feel lucky to be listed. Don't get me wrong. I just don't understand how the data is organized, used, and how useable it is.

Clarke

The search feature is supposed to used this way:

Enter your selected words and hit submit. The results will list categories that match your selection criteria.

As Hutcheson said, the first entry is the Real Estate category for your area. Click the category link and there you are, loads of sites, and you are shown in that resulting list.

ODP search is for locating categories, not sites.



Think of it like a library. The floor plan gets you to the correct rack (branch) and shelf (category) for what you are looking for, you then run your eye along that to pick out the one book (site) you want.

See, I learn something anytime I ask a question. I never knew or realized it is for finding categories and not sites. I guess when you do the search and the categories and some sites come up I can't get past the sites.
I just hope Google starts using your data more regularly.
Thanks again to all you editors who answer dumb questions for all the newbies like me.

Clarke

I am sorry about harping on the same subject but I was just looking for one of my competetors and did a search from the DMOZ home page for fort worth real estate and it gave 5 Categories but it also gave 50 site matches. I thought DMOZ only searched for Categories and not sites.

Also what are the numbers after the sites and the categories. I clicked on the number 6 after a category and it brought up 6 site. I clicked the number 5 after a site and it brought up 2 sites under a category.

I can't make sense of what it is doing. It's like it is bringing up...well, I don't know. It doesn't make any sense. lol I WILL understand.

Thanks for any help,

Clarke

The ODP search brings up relevant categories first. After them it does list some relevant sites as well. But the whole point of a directory is to have the sites listed in categories. The user is expected to browse down to the category of interest to him/her. If he/she doesn't know where to start looking for the category, then searching on keywords will help them find it. But the ODP is not a search engine. Search is not the big feature.

The numbers just show how many listings in the category include the keywords you searched for in the URL, title or description. If you click on the number you will see those sites appear in the search results.

We could talk about the directory search funcion for a long time and still not answer your core question. What I think you are really concerned with (and rightly so) is your Google position.

I can search Google for Fort Worth real estate and get 50 results and I am not in them. If they are using open directory data why would I not be there?

Click to expand...

This is a good question and you should ask it at one of these webmaster forums. I find that there are knowlegeable people who can help to answer questions like this one. One that I personally like is http://ihelpyouservices.com/forums. There are people there who make a living answering questions like this one. (But they'll answer yours for free.)

Search engines in general is really a subject that we're discouraged from talking about here, and the advice you'd get there is better than anything I could give you anyway.

Actually, I am more interested in understanding DMOZ first, it's relation to search engines second, and search engines third, ranking fourth. I still feel like DMOZ is the basic building block. Rank is the Holy Grail but it is built upon the basics. So I am starting there.
I think my whole issue is that I expect immediacy in all things internet. When I see, at least what I see, discrepancies in what is going on I get confused. I am just too black and white. The hazards of my training as a scientist. I am a pure empiricist.
What I mean is that I am on DMOZ. Listed appropriately. But the data is not used evenly or in a timely manner by the search engines so it makes me unsure if I know what is going on. Since the search engines don't let anyone know the rules I make them up and it results in a constant state of cognitive dissonance.
Interesting though. This is such a fun puzzle.
Thanks for your input.
Clarke

OK, the engineer will answer your question, since I understand where you're coming from. However, I'm not really a computer person, so this won't be terribly technical.

First, editors edit. Editing happens constantly - thousands of edits occur each day. Site listings are added, deleted, modified, moved in the main database, in addition to a lot of unreviewed management.

Editors work on their own server. The public side servers may be slightly behind in showing work that has been done, but it shouldn't be more than 3 or 4 days out of date at most. (This new process reduces load on the editor server.)

Weekly a process is run to create the RDF which is a big file of the entire database made available to the public at rdf.dmoz.org. This is the free file anyone can use, provided they meet the terms of use.

The ODP search database is created from the RDF files, so it can be up to a week out-of-date with what is actually in ODP. (This is why you might not see something in the search results, but it is in the category if you check.) The ODP search is not a search engine that spiders content on websites. It is simply a searchable catalog of all the site urls, titles and descriptions, created from the last RDF snapshot in time.

That's it from the ODP standpoint.

Data users can get their data in two ways - via the RDF or via spidering the public pages. ODP has no control over or knowledge of what the process different engines and directories use. All we can do is observe, just like everyone else. For example, Google used to get a new RDF each month and process it, but now it seems the Google directory is months out of date. However it appears that Google is spidering the public pages, because information from there appears in their search results.

Hope that helps!

Well, that covered all the relevant information in an easily understandable way.

Good post!

To an engineer, it'll be obvious that (1) any part of that automatic process can be temporarily broken by server or software changes on either end of the pipe, and (2) fixes on those breakdowns can't be scheduled.

Right now, for instance, there are problems with Unicode (funny foreign characters) in the RDF...we really don't know which downstream users will be affected, and how. Some people even think Google hasn't picked up our RDF recently for this reason: As a scientist I put this in the "yes, it's black or it's white, but I don't know which yet" category.

Yeah, we have a lot of 'funny foreign characters' around the ODP .