Missing the point of OSD

I have been registering clients sites to OSD for several years, haven't had to many problems getting listed with the exception of one where the editor seemed to have totally abandoned the small category.

But, getting listed is not my problem with OSD. It is the uselessness of most the listing on OSD. I realize all the editors are volunteers, but it seems as the guidelines themselves are destroying this resource.

I find trying to search OSD, not only am I denied most of the site that are relevant to what I am looking for, but the ones that actually come up rarely have much relevance at all. So, basically I don't use OSD. It is useless to me when I need to find information about site relevant to my searches.

Now that most major search engines have dropped OSD as a resource, it is apparent to me that this resource is on it's last leg.

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Here's the problem as I see it. A person submitting a URL suggests a 25-word description of their site to include as much relevance to the potential searcher as possible in 25 words. They aren't superfluous, sales pitches, or anything like that. They are simply including the information to make it possible for the searcher to find the site in the search. The following example...

"Offers handmade aquarium stands, cat, dog, and other pet furniture for retail and wholesale including cat condos. They also offer pet medications, kennels, cages, and pet toys." (27 words)

This is a readable and logical description that includes the relevant terms, so the when a user searches for "cat furniture" or "wholesale pet furniture" it should come up.
Now the editor takes this information and turns it into this…

Offers pet furniture, toys, and cat condos.

Now this listing has relevance to mainly cat condos and pet furniture. The listing now denies the searcher the information needs to actually find the site in most searches. I don't know if it's the all the editor or that and a combination of an antiquated search engine model. Type in "wholesale pet furniture" nothing comes up at all, the engine doesn't even try to find relevance. It simply goes off the exact phrases entered in the description. Because of this, it makes it nearly impossible to find reliable results.

Now some might think cat condos should have been left out. Why should the phrase cat condos be included? It's because it is relevant and a common search term. Also it seems the editors seem to want to make the descriptions as short as possible without regard to the negative effect to the quantity of search results.

If I were rewriting this description, I would want to include as much relevant information as possible in 25 words. Not to help the person the submitted the listing. But rather to make my search engine provide good reliable results. So I would rewrite it like this…

"Handmade aquarium stands, cat, dog, and other pet furniture including cat condos, wholesale available. They also offer pet medications, kennels, cages, and pet toys." (25 words)

Now why not just list it like this? (Which is wrong)

"Offers aquarium stands, cat, dog, and other pet furniture including cat condos, medications, kennels and toys. Wholesale available."

While it is shorter it is wrong - you presumed they sell kennels, medications and toys wholesale. And kennels and cages aren't the same thing. So it's not conveying the information correctly to the searcher. Also why write "Offers", we know they are offering something - what a waste of a word. It does nothing to help a searcher find what they are looking for.

Isn't the point of this search engine to provide good reliable results to a searcher?
It really is no wonder that the major search engines/directories moved on to better and more reliable results in other engines.

What is OSD? Are you talking about the Open Directory Project?
If so, it's a directory, not a search engine and we just aren't interested in search terms. Our rudimentary search facility is primarily intended to find an appropriate category.

As to the Offers wasting a word, we don't nitpick over word count and this particular one is a verb forming part of a sentence structure. We think that's a good thing.

Whilst editorial styles vary, we try to work to our editorial guidelines. Raw strings of keywords aren't us.

Well that's really my point, people don't use categories, they use search terms. Hence the overall success of Google and the death of Yahoos "directory".

The Open Source Directory Project, OSD as I referred to it, does not serve much purpose in serving what I would call "customers", in other words the people looking for the information. Categories are nice for storing information, but not a great way to serve information. Without that goal of providing a valuable resource to "customers", there just is no point.

"Keep the description of your site brief - no longer than 25-30 words."
Nit picking over sentence structure when you only have 25-30 words to convey accurate and relevant information about a site does not help your "customers". Even if you managed to get someone to click through all the categories (rather than just entering a search term) trying to find what they are looking for, reading most of the descriptions I have seen would offer them little help.

The Open Source Directory Project, OSD as I referred to it, does not serve much purpose in serving what I would call "customers"...

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There is no such thing as this "Open Source Directory Project" or "OSD" that you keep talking about. On the other hand, if you'd like to comment about the Open Directory Project or ODP (you can even call it DMOZ, if you like), then you're in the right place.

Keep the description of your site brief - no longer than 25-30 words."
Nit picking over sentence structure when you only have 25-30 words to convey accurate and relevant information about a site does not help your "customers".

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Now, *if* we were actually talking about the ODP here and not this fictional OSD you mention, I'd respond by saying that very few titles and descriptions submitted by site owners come anywhere close to being acceptable so most editors have to rewrite them completely.

Even if you managed to get someone to click through all the categories (rather than just entering a search term) trying to find what they are looking for, reading most of the descriptions I have seen would offer them little help

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A directory is intended primarily to be browsed. It's not meant to replace a search engine.

Of course you are right about the name, I have been calling it the wrong name for years, I'll blame my dislexia.

I will grant you, directory nicely list categories, however the only reason though anyone would browse the directory is because searching it is very ineffective. Look at Yahoo, they had their nicely formated directory. Yet even though they had slight better descriptions, the supplimented the search with web results, at one point they used "ODP" however briefly. They know people use search terms, and that they don't want to browse through countless layers of categories. Categories are fine for relatively small levels of listings like in online stores. But to rely mainly on categories on the scale of the ODP is short sighted.

Any information database should be searchable and not require the user to have dig through countless layers of categories to find information. When I search a directory for cat furniture I should get results that include cat furniture or pet furniture.

Here I search for cat furniture I get "Ochre Furniture Designs - Interior furniture, lighting and accessories from London makers." and it continues to give me bad results for at least 10 pages. I never found even one cat furniture listing. Instead of grouping the search whole term first it immediately separates them, picks the word it wants to search for, and delivers those results. I can get results quote the terms, but by default thats what it should search for, only then should it search for the terms seperately. If I put in wholesale cat furniture (no quotes) I get no results at all. Why didn't it seperate the terms there?

The lack of ability to effectively search it, in my opinion, is what will eventually end the ODP.

If you prefer to use a search engine over a directory, go use a search engine. There are several quite good ones out there.

Your argument is similar to saying that a clothes washing machine is rubbish at doing the dishes .

Jim, that was the best laugh I've had all week. Thank you!