Keyword Stuffing - Allowed?

I have concerns about a site, that are clearly spamming, in my opinion. What does DMOZ consider spam, and is it subject to removal?

1. Massive keyword stuffing almost every page in the site - 500+ keywords in Meta Keywords.

2. Site has 4 domains, set up like this: (All registered to same company.)

1.(listed in DMOZ) www.otherplace.com/keyword1keyword2/
2.(not listed) www.word1word2keyword1keyword2.com
3.(not listed) www.word1-word2-keyword1-keyword2.com
4.(not listed) www.word1word2-keyword1keyword2.com

Domains 2, 3, and 4, all automatically redirect to domain 1. But, redirect url is hidden from address bar. ALL of their domains are FULL of pages with of heavy keyword stuffing and duplicate content.

This really makes me mad because they are getting ALL of these domains and individual pages indexed in every SE, and at least one of them in DMOZ. They have top positions in almost every one of our keywords.

Does DMOZ support this, or do they consider this spam?

There's one other site that uses the same KW Stuffing practices on every page too, and its rediculous. I'm not even IN a spam prone category. This is HOME/FAMILY/BABIES/ PHOTO_CONTESTS for !#&@&# sake.

I'm so frustrated, I hope I make sense. I hate to waste your time if this isn't even considered spam, but it must be. If a Meta is willing to look into this, will you please contact me?

-kstprod <img src="/images/icons/confused.gif" alt="" />

Re: Questions on spamming

&gt;&gt; 1. Massive keyword stuffing almost every page in the site - 500+ keywords in Meta Keywords. &lt;&lt;

We don't care about this (nor do we care about 'hidden text' on the page: such as black writing on a black background). It makes no difference to the ODP or to an editor review. Nothing gets into ODP without an editor approving it, and it'll be a very poor editor that let in a lot of keywords into a sites title or description.

The ODP doesn't have a 'keyword' field for sites anyway (title and description only). Keywords 'stuffed' into meta tags and such will just damage a sites ranking in search engines such as Google as they are more than wise to this method of spamming.

&gt;&gt; Domains 2, 3, and 4, all automatically redirect to domain 1. But, redirect url is hidden from address bar. &lt;&lt;

An editor would just list the first site. Editors are aware of URL cloaking and we do have measures in place to try and prevent this sort of thing even slipping by us.

&gt;&gt; This really makes me mad because they are getting ALL of these domains and individual pages indexed in every SE, and at least one of them in DMOZ. &lt;&lt;

The "general" rule is: One site, one listing. Of course, we then have exceptions ("you may also be entitled to a listing under Regional/", "very informative site-worth deeplinking" etc etc). Rest assured, if the site is as bad as you make it - one listing is what they've got and one listing is all they are going to get.

&gt;&gt; Does DMOZ support this, or do they consider this spam? &lt;&lt;

We might not (as human beings) like it, but we don't consider it spam. Unless, of course, they then attempted to try and list all the cloaked URLs and deeplinks - then we might get a little mad at them.

&gt;&gt; I hate to waste your time if this isn't even considered spam, but it must be &lt;&lt;

It's not spam to us, but it _may_ be spam to sites such as Google (their abuse report page is here ).

Re: Questions on spamming

Beebware,

I appreciate your quick reply, thank you. It's just so frustrating when you're trying to honestly promote a new site, and keep seeing these unethical (in my eyes) sites that use these techniques. I understand when you say it doesn't really matter to DMOZ, but then those sites get listed there, there, there, and there, and rank exceptionally well. It's one thing to get your butt kicked in ranking the honest way, I can deal with that. It's another to get it kicked by being sneaky. That, I can't deal with. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" />

I'll do as you suggested, and contact Google, and the rest of the SE's as well. Thanks for the link, hopefully I'll get somewhere.

Sincerely,

kstprod

Re: Questions on spamming

The best thing to do is to report the spam to google, although a dmoz listing is great, spammers only use the listing for PR, so ge the site banned at Google and the problem will go away!