Site is removed from ODP.

Deep link

Let us assume there is a cooking site, cooking.com. It has all the cooking information. Now let us assume two subdomains are added, nutrition.cooking.com, and partyplanning.cooking.com. Now all the webpages in the subdomains, actually discuss different different topics.

Now according to deep link concept, nutrition.cooking.com, and partyplanning.cooking.com will not be accepted though the information on these pages is unique and only thing common is that they have to do with food.

Did I understand the concept of deeplink right?

The relevant guideline, which is visible on the form used to suggest a URL for inclusion in the Directory, is:

Multiple submissions of the same or related sites may result in the exclusion and/or deletion of those and all affiliated sites.

But what does this really mean?

Multiple means more than once. Suggest an URL once to the best fit category you can find. An editor will move it to another category if you have got it wrong. If they think it is suitable for more than one listing they will also often send a copy of the URL to another category for consideration.

The "same sites" takes two meanings. Either the exact same URL or the same site using a different URL, a mirror. Same is also broader than identical in every respect - rehashing words, applying a different template design, or rearranging the menus does not make it different, and it will still be treated as a mirror site.

The meaning of "related sites" is the one that causes most difficulty. Webmasters tend to take a very narrow view and intepret it the same as a mirror. Editors take a broad view.

Related, from an editor's perspective, means a business that markets/sells related services and products, but elects to market them on separate websites. Web hosting, web design, content management, domain names, etc. etc. are all (for DMOZ purposes) related products and services. If there are 4 websites belonging to the same business selling each of these products separately, editors will only list one of those sites. Otherwise Business A would get 4 listings because they have put up separate sites for each services, when Business B gets 1 listing because all their services are on the same site. In fact, Business A is risking getting no listings at all because spreading their content too thin may actually leave each site with insufficient content for a listing. Business in this context is taken to be the entire business portfolio of a particular entity regardless of tax and legal corporate distinctions.

So we are talking related in terms of content AND beneficiary (owner/operator/etc.)

Sites that are related in terms of content only will almost certainly fall foul of other provisions such as lack of original content, affiliate, etc.

Sites that are related *only* in terms of beneficiary are not subject to rejection on those grounds alone, though many fall at other hurdles.

Examples:

Andy owns a web design site, Ben owns a web design site, they are direct competitors, both may be listed subject to having sufficient original content, even though they are both selling more or less identical services.

Carl owns a web design site and a web hosting site. They are selling related services (web services) for Carls benefit. David, his nearest competitor, owns a site selling web design and hosting services on the same site. Carl and David are entitled to one listing each, subject to having sufficient original content.

Ernie owns a web design site and another selling teapots. These are entirely different business areas and even though the sites may have reciprocal links each would probably be considered independently.

Frank owns a site selling retail teapots, and another selling wholesale coffee. Very careful consideration would be given as to whether to treat them as related or separately. Each site would be scrutinised very carefully and maybe several editors would get involved.

Gary cuts a deal with Frank and becomes a reseller of Frank's teapots. Frank rehashes the content of his site and gives it to Gary as part of the deal. DMOZ won't list Gary's site - it lacks original content.

The more clear cut the lack of a relationship between the content: teapots, web design, etc. the easier the decision to treat them independently. The same the other way around, the closer the relationship the easier to make a decision to treat them as related. From Internet, the circle of "related" may well extend into all things technological - telephony, hardware, networking, etc.

But you also hit a point where a business is so diverse: teapots, tennis balls, computers, furniture, that editors would look at them as general merchandisers.

[Don't worry I cut and pasted that from elsewhere, I'm not that quick a writer or that long-winded.]

What is YOUR website?

It is THE site that answers the question, "Who are you and what do you know, what happened to you, or what will you do for money?"

The "RELATIONSHIP" is not that both sites do or do not sell the same outhouse-shaped lavender-scented candles. The relationship is that both offer klitch from the same artiste (or crafts from the same warehouse); or they both offer alleged information from the same alligator; or both offer the services of the same contractually-related assemblage of hands and minds.

So your "cooking" and "party planning" and "nutrition" would simply represent the range of "what do you know" or "what do you do"? And we'd put it in the single most appropriate category: whether it's mostly about cooking, or mostly about parties, or mostly about what you like to do (in which case it tends to migrate to one of the "personal pages" categories -- you may be one of those unclassifiable people with lots of shallow interests.)

Only in "exceptional" cases does the EDITOR (not the submitter) have the prerogative to multiple-list the category. Richard Feynman might get listings under Musicians, Physics, and Politics; Schweitzer might get listings under Music, Medicine, and Religion; Churchill might get Politics and Literature, but most of us simply aren't exceptional in that many ways.

Also, referring to a post a page ago: You can just make the root page a "Select a language" page, you don't need to list the language directories

hutcheson said:

What is YOUR website?
Only in "exceptional" cases does the EDITOR (not the submitter) have the prerogative to multiple-list the category. Richard Feynman might get listings under Musicians, Physics, and Politics; Schweitzer might get listings under Music, Medicine, and Religion; Churchill might get Politics and Literature, but most of us simply aren't exceptional in that many ways.

Click to expand...

I guess the beauty is in the eyes of the beholder or in this case the EDITOR. My example of cooking can be applied to Bawarchi.com, I don't really remember how many listings they have and how different each listing is from one another...

In my opion, its a catch 22. One has to be listed to gain popularirty, more popular a site is, easier it is to get listed.

Thanks! for commenting on my ramblings.

Yogi Gupta said:

In my opion, its a catch 22. One has to be listed to gain popularirty, more popular a site is, easier it is to get listed.

Click to expand...

Not true at all.

Just this week I listed several discussion forums that were very popular and had lots of good, on-topic posts, a wealth of participants, and had apparently been that way for several years. None of them had ever been listed in the ODP until I listed them.

Popularity really has nothing to do with whether an editor lists a site or not, though. When I (and I assume I am typical) open up a suggestion for review, I will look at the site, the history with the ODP and (usually) nothing else. I don't care where it ranks on search engines, how many other directories list it, whether some professional organisation endorses it (the exception there being for "REALTORS").

And, in fact, usually, having multiple entries in the ODP already makes me less included to list it, not more. Again, there are some exceptions - sites which have been identified by editor concensus (i.e. by many editors) as useful information for potential deeplinking (i.e. listing individual parts of the site) There are a few of these, and in general, these are the ones that everyone likes to quote to back up their claims of "editor abuse".

The idea is that we try to give the site an "independant review", a level playing field. We don't care whether you have paid for SEO or not - if you have good unique information there, and it has been brought to our attention (by someone suggesting the URL), then we will list it.

There are some special rules in Cooking -- editors will deeplink Recipes deeper than would be acceptable in most categories.

>One has to be listed to gain popularirty,
There are a lot of people in SEO forums who will tell you otherwise, and who will claim to be very successful in their activity. Not being an SEO or an auditor of an SEO, I can't confirm or deny from my own experience.

Here's the ODP form: One has to be GOOD to get listed, and we don't care how popular it becomes." (This reduces to your form only for "bare aggregate-contributed-data sites" like classified ads or forums, where the webmaster expects the visitors to provide the content. Such a site is indeed a "prepackaged failure.") If you're providing the content, then you can make it the most authoritative site on the web before its first visitor arrives.

It seems, I have offended a few editors. That was not my intention. I have never used the term 'editorail abuse'.

My intention is just to learn what goes on in approving a submitted site. I was curious if there is a specific quantifiable criteria for deep-links, or it is just a subjective decision by the Editor(s).

One must admit, listing on ODP is very important to gain visibility, ergo understanding of the process is equally important.

I apologize to all the editors whom I offended.

>One must admit, listing on ODP is very important to gain visibility.

I feel no such compulsion; in fact, I don't believe it for a moment. You see, I actually LOOK for websites. And I KNOW that in every search I make, the first page of Google search results (not to mention all the other pages) is REPLETE with sites NOT listed on the ODP. (And mostly, well deserved non-listings too...although I do find exceptions worth listing.)

And, of course, one listing provides "visibility", so the proverb wouldn't apply here, even if there was a grain of truth in it -- which anyone with much surfing experience will categorically deny.

>I was curious if there is a specific quantifiable criteria for deep-links, or it is just a subjective decision by the Editor(s).

The answer is no, and no. It is neither objective nor arbitrary. It is a judgment reserved to editors, because only they have the surfing experience necessary to develop a consensus accounting for the limitations of human editing, the content available online, and the goals of the project. We have to balance the amount of work required to maintain deeplinks (greater than for root domains) with the benefit to surfers (greater in some categories than others) and the dangers of catering to webmasters; our approach has to be flexible to dodge the onsloughts of spammers, and to adjust to the growing wealth of good content as yesterday's "exceptional" websites become today's "norm".

There are some principles that I frequently use:

(1) The ODP is no substitute for site navigation. If a site could be set up so that it's as easy to go to its main listing and browse down to the content, as it is to drill down to the specific topics and go to a deeplink, obviously the ODP is providing no benefit to surfers by deeplinking. (And even if the webmaster DOESN'T provide that navigation -- should we reward abysmal site navigation?)

(2) Deeplinks should be among the best links in a category: that's what "exceptional" means. That entails amount, quality, authority.

(3) As a very rough guide, a "feature article in a non-profit magazine" is usually eligible for a deeplink. That means say 5000-10000 words on a VERY specific subject, with accompanying media, by an ACKNOWLEDGED (as opposed to self-proclaimed) expert. Anything falling very far short of that, is usually not eligible.

Clearly, some sites have WAY too few deeplinks: Project Gutenberg represents thousands of authors, most of whom are far more significant than most webmasters alive today -- important works covering all of human experience: history, spirituality, classic literature, seminal science, art criticism, etc., etc., etc. But other sites are certainly over-linked, and we're slowly cleaning up our categories.