We search for the sites we maintain on the major search engines weekly and re-register sites not found. We've had an ongoing problem with ODP searches (searches on www.dmoz.org). When we search for the ODP Title, we can find the site. However, when we add the City and State of the ODP Regional Category to the Title search, the searches fail. We are experiencing this for a number of ODP sites, where the site is in a regional category but the City and State are not coded into either the ODP Title or ODP Description. Why does inclusion of the City and State in a search for sites in ODP Regional Categories cause the www.dmoz.org search to fail?
The search engine found on the ODP Homepage is very crude and rudimentary. It's only used by editors, as AOL/TW would much rather regular people use their advertising-laden portals such as Netscape.com or AOL Search.
In short you shouldn't worry about the results from ODP Search.
In short you shouldn't worry about the results from ODP Search.
The problem isn't restricted to searches on www.dmoz.org, since I have City and State inclusion examples that fail on other sites that use the ODP database, e.g. search.netscape.com and 4topweb.com. I can tell when a result comes from ODP, because the ODP Title is usually different than the site <title> stored in crawler search engine databases. 4topweb.com actually specfies where the results come from.
This is, I'm afraid, a bit of a catch-22. If it is ODP search, as has been often said, nobody cares that it's not a full-featured consumer-friendly search. If it is NOT ODP search, then ... we have no control. The RDF contains category names (which of course include city and state for regional categories), and the SEs may use that information in any way that they wish.
TODAY, nobody seems to be doing much with it. TOMORROW, someone may see a competitive advantage in making still more effective use of the RDF, like Google did several years ago. IN THE MEANTIME, the truth is in there. Please don't ask us to replicate that information by hand on every one of over-three-quarters-of-a-million listings. And, of course, don't even think about asking us to treat your listing different from the other 785,000 listings...
TODAY, nobody seems to be doing much with it. TOMORROW, someone may see a competitive advantage in making still more effective use of the RDF, like Google did several years ago. IN THE MEANTIME, the truth is in there. Please don't ask us to replicate that information by hand on every one of over-three-quarters-of-a-million listings. And, of course, don't even think about asking us to treat your listing different from the other 785,000 listings...
Some sites have the City and State coded into the ODP Title or Description fields, and of course these sites are found via all the search engines (we've tested) that use the ODP database. For example, if you search for "insurance Chicago Illinois", a number of sites show up; if you search for "insurance Detroit Michigan", then no sites show up. Are ODP regional editors instructed NOT to place City and State information in the ODP Title or Description fields? If so, does the policy vary by region?
ODP editors should not, if possible, repeat the category path information in the title or description, but there are, of course, common-sense exclusions to this general rule. The title shouldn't be repeated in the description, either, if at all possible.
Sometimes if a site is listed in a topical section of ODP (Science, Business, etc.) the city, state or country will be included as part of the description, and this is acceptable. When the regional portion of the directory was set-up, a lot of stuff was transferred from the topical portion. Descriptions containing the city/state name are most likely left over from those moves - it just means an editor hasn't come along to correct it for where the site is listed now.
Also, there are still many descriptions in the directory that were written long before the description guidelines were formally established. If an area doesn't have a listed editor, generally the higher level editors worry only about listing unreviewed for that category or dealing with dead sites. When an editor is accepted to edit in a specific category, they are expected to go through all the existing listings and bring them into compliance with the guidelines, in addition to just adding new listings. You can pretty much tell whether a category has had focussed attention from an editor just by the state of all of the descriptions.
Also, there are still many descriptions in the directory that were written long before the description guidelines were formally established. If an area doesn't have a listed editor, generally the higher level editors worry only about listing unreviewed for that category or dealing with dead sites. When an editor is accepted to edit in a specific category, they are expected to go through all the existing listings and bring them into compliance with the guidelines, in addition to just adding new listings. You can pretty much tell whether a category has had focussed attention from an editor just by the state of all of the descriptions.