please change description and title, thanks

Again, forgive me for sounding naive, but I thought he was referring to the META keywords tag. It sounds to me like you both and Hutch are referring to keyword stuffing as part of the content of the site? That's what I was inquiring about. If using the META name="Keywords" tag is a problem, I'd like to know about it. As far as I know, it's not against ODP policy.
Please clarify if possible.
Thanks!

It's your website. Put what you like in your keywords or description metatags. We rarely look at them.

>Forgive me for sounding naive but what did you mean by this and how did you look for it.

What was on the website wasn't under consideration at all. "Keyword stuffing" is the attempt to manipulate editors to provide poor site descriptions, in an indirect attempt to manipulate search engine results. The "usual" form includes repeated keywords, contrived use of multiple inflected forms of keywords, keyword combinations, etc.

I was assuming charitably that misspelling was just illiteracy. Now it seems we need to count it as one of the more unusual forms of keyword stuffing.

What is on your site as self-description has the single largest effect on your search engine placement. In the past, ODP descriptions have not ever been shown to affect Google placement, although many logically impaired people have been firmly and loudly convinced that they did. I still haven't seen any evidence of it, and I've looked.

There is no reason that Google shouldn't use descriptions in that way: and this summer Google is certainly using descriptions in snippet generation (which Is-Not-The-Same-Thing-At-All, note well!).

I personally suspect (from what has been said) that your SERP perp engaged in artificial link generation to attempt to promote the site; that Google (which is better than Yahoo at detecting such things) spotted it and banned the site, and that now he's using the ODP as a convenient scapegoat.

I do know how a clueful SERP perp could tell whether this was the case; I know the process by which a clueful SERP perp could repair the damage (although it might cost the illegitimately gained Yahoo position); and I can name a couple of ways that a clueful SERP per could easily work around any conceivable damage the ODP listing caused (without trying to affect the ODP or harm the ODP users in the process.)

If yours can't do this, look for a SERP perp with a clue.

Ok... now I feel stupid. I don't know what a SERP perp is!

Regarding the keywords tag, I have a number of meaningful keywords listed there but I'm not convinced at how affective they are or how much of a factor they play in ranking or search relevance.

I guess I still don't see how an ODP editor can be manipulated by any words or wording on the actual pages of a site. You don't have to describe it in any more detail to me here since I don't want to "educate" people on how to manipulate the system but if there was any chance that a person could be mistakenly accused of this, then that would be good to know!

SERP -- "search engine results placement." Perp -- any cop can tell you what that means. Some people call it SEO, with "o" for optimizing, but of course the search engine isn't being optimized at all, it's being raped and plundered. (come to think of it, that fits the other acronym, also...)

We try hard to keep editors from being manipulated.

As far as the keywords tag, I don't have an opinion on its effectiveness. It is a good idea, and any academic journal will have a carefully chosen list of keywords, so a good reference librarian can find it easily (at the right moments!).

But that was the internet before the doorway spammer parasites came along. And the search engines that trusted keywords were spammed into oblivion. Today, who knows what use Google and Yahoo can make of them? Leave them in your files, and don't expect them to be much of a benefit.

proof

hutcheson said:

>
What is on your site as self-description has the single largest effect on your search engine placement. In the past, ODP descriptions have not ever been shown to affect Google placement, although many logically impaired people have been firmly and loudly convinced that they did. I still haven't seen any evidence of it, and I've looked.

Click to expand...

You want proof hutch?
Type
Ireland Photography into google
goto page 40/41/42

you will see that google picked up site with the DMOZ description

now if you type
Ireland Photography by john pierce
you will find the site on the 2nd page with the META description

On top of this I have checked http://www.123promotion.co.uk/tools/googlebanned.php
to see if the site is banned....its not banned!

Thats not close to proof.

How do you know that just because Google uses the DMOZ description, that it has anything what-so-ever to do with Google ranking. The site may rank there whichever description Google chooses to show. All its proof of is that Google sometimes uses the DMOZ description!!!

This off-topic for this forum

More on the relationship between the ODP and Google can be found in this article: Google and Dmoz: Are They in Love

Google has been experimenting over the last few months with using meta tag descriptions or ODP descriptions instead of snippets from the site. There is no evidence at all that this affects ranking. But since there have also been algorithm changes recently, you may see changes in ranking due to that.

tod, any time you make a more restrictive search in Google, you can expect to see the order of results shuffle -- even for sites that are not in the ODP at all. There are two things that can account for this: each word has its own effect on the weighting, so the new words introduced in the more complex search affect the total weighting; also, many people believe that on certain "common" searches of the form "subject region" Google brings some kind of special filters (possibly something like "Hilltop") into play. I cannot prove whether this latter is so or not -- it is obviously a more complex conjecture than the one you mentioned -- but it does certainly correspond to certain Google patents; it targets certain high-spam searches; and there does seem to be a "behavior shift" in terms of search results.

The second search result is specific enough that basically it finds almost nothing but your site and links thereunto.