So This Is What Dmoz Is About

I found this on google.


Another day, another screwed DMOZ submission
It's another day and more submissions are lining my queues. I go to a cafe with free internet access and cute college age kids behind the counter, and log in to one of my dmoz accounts using firefox to spoof the OS and browser. Then I delete a handful of listings starting from the top without even looking at them. The next batch I include but I make sure to drain the listings of any useful keywords. The next bunch I keep on hold for the next time. I have a few listings that have been on hold for, I kid you not, eighteen months.

The Wisdom of Weeding Out the Competitors
It's imperative to join DMOZ and sabotage your competitors. No offense intended, but if you don't join DMOZ you are ignoring a fundamental strategy for promoting your website. Your website's viability depends on you getting into DMOZ and sabotaging every single one of your competitors. If your competitors beat you to the editorship your website will be toast faster than you can say, "Am I homeless yet?"

Another corrupt dmoz editor had this to say on the subject:


"My arch competitor had a dupe content subdomain that they set up for traffic overflow and I changed their dmoz listing to the subdomain with duplicate content and it slaughtered their rankings for a couple of months.

Speaking as someone with 4 years of sabotaging experience, switch their listing from www. to non-www from time-to-time. Switch them from www.example.com to www.example.com/index.html, stuff like that."

So This Is What Dmoz Is About

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Nope. It's what some guy claimed that he was about - and that was quite a few months ago BTW.

its just funny becouse i hear of this happening and my sites hardly get listed in dmoz and a lot of my partners also cant get any of there sites in the directory. They submit perfect sites with uniq content and its a useful site and they never hear anything,

Whats the deal and how come people dont update the info.

edupton said:

Your website's viability depends on you getting into DMOZ and sabotaging every single one of your competitors.

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Getting your site listed on DMOZ isn't going to be the one single thing that ensures you get a good ranking on google. There are many other factors involved, why don't you go to http://www.google.com/webmasters and have a read!

What you find on Google is of course definitively true - I found these on Google today :

Yes, it has been confirmed that the CIA and FBI knew that a major terrorist attack was going to happen. --> http://www.empireonline.co.uk/forum/tm.asp?m=114201

AIDS is a biological experiment to rid the world of homosexuals, Blacks and other "undesirables" http://www.sonic.net/~doretk/ArchiveARCHIVE/Aids/Aids.html

Google is a CIA sponsor site for tracking individuals at a world wide level.
http://www.speleorovers.org/conspiracy/2005/10/google-conspiracy.html

In the end you decide what you want to believe, but if you really think it's a conspiracy, why come here and complain to us, you know we will never ever list your site.

edupton said:

its just funny becouse i hear of this happening and my sites hardly get listed in dmoz and a lot of my partners also cant get any of there sites in the directory. They submit perfect sites with uniq content and its a useful site and they never hear anything,

Whats the deal and how come people dont update the info.

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If this were true edupton it would not explain why sites made by editors themselves get rejected.... and believe me they do!

edupton said:

its just funny becouse i hear of this happening and my sites hardly get listed in dmoz and a lot of my partners also cant get any of there sites in the directory. They submit perfect sites with uniq content and its a useful site and they never hear anything,

Whats the deal and how come people dont update the info.

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This answers both this question and the PM you sent me:

Questions about suggesting your site to the directory

In short the category you inquired about, right near the bottom of the public page:

Last update: 20:46 PT, Monday, November 28, 2005

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So as you can see someone has been active within the last couple of weeks even. As far as no named editor-again answered by the FAQ but to repeat:

What you are seeing at the bottom of the category is that there is no editor named. This does not mean that a category gets no editor attention. Any editor "higher-up" the category tree can edit in a category lower down. In addition to this, there are two categories of editor, called Editalls and Metas who can edit any category in the directory. So yes, someone will eventually review every submission.

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There are hundereds of editors who have permissions to edit there. Predicting when one might take interest in working there is impossible, and just because your sites are not listed doesn't mean nothing has been updated or being done. It has been said in numerous threads on this forum, and 'beating a dead horse ':
Site suggestions are just just one small (and often low quality) source that editors use when building a category.

I only edit in 1 small area of Shopping/ and I can tell you that it is full of spam and junk suggestions. When I do have an interest in working there, I normally spend 95% of the time deleting duplicate submissions, deeplinks, and moving miss-suggested sites. The other 5% is spent reviewing sites-some that are suggested yes, but often the reason I took interest on that particular day was that I found a particularly good site in a magazine, billboard or on another website and I wanted to list it. The majority of that time was spent doing work that for the most part will go completely unnoticed on the public side but in reallity accomplished quite a bit for the category itself.

Oh, yeah-What jimnoble said too! All that article shows is what that one individual thinks they are about, not what the directory or its volunteers are.

bobrat said:

What you find on Google is of course definitively true - I found these on Google today :
[

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I heard there was a bridge that connects manhattan and brooklyn for sale on froogle as well !

You have no way of knowing whether they lied to you or to us (or both, which is logical and consistent with everything you can know about their character.) But it's absolutely certain that, one way or another they're thorough-going liars.

Without access to any more information, you can't do any better than that. But that's good enough to know you don't want to deal with them ... ever.

Until my submission it listed, I believe an editor's personal dislike of me caused it to be deleted. That "it's not suitable or unique" or power-trip or self-justfying reply can follow and prove me right. An editor has the last word, indeed.

I believe an editor's personal dislike of me caused it to be deleted.

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And what was it that you did that caused this to happen.

Richard, in your own mind you have the ultimate power -- to believe whatever you wish. On your own website you have the ultimate power -- to develop and publish whatever content you like.

But it is inevitable that, looking so insistently for nothing but malice in all around you, you will find nothing but malice. The ODP is not worth it. If that is how you see the ODP, then don't deal with it at all.

There may come a time when malice towards your competition doesn't seem so much like the ultimate goal, and when power becomes important to you than reputation. If that happens, the ODP will seem much more interesting.

But in the meantime, we absolutely CAN accommodate you in the matter of not giving reasons which you have pre-announced that you will not believe. Come to think of it, it's total nonsense to talk about REASONS for something that NEVER HAPPENED! It's only things that actually happened that can possibly be said to have reasons.

A somewhat misleading way to look at the process which has the advantage of getting things in perspective is to do a simple calculation.

Approx 8,000 active editors for approx 600,000 categories => on average 1 editor per 75 categories.

As has been pointed out elsewhere, editors can make as little as 1 edit in 4 months whilst others can do over a hundred a week. A reasonable compromise for this example is to offer an average of 1 added listing a week (excludes any other work - spam-deletion, maintenance etc).

So by rule of thumb if our hypothetical editor cycled through each of 'their' 75 categories in turn adding 1 listing a week, it is quite reasonable to suggest a wait of 75 weeks for a review. Of course, if each category has 2 listable sites suggested by the public, logically the wait would be doubled and so on.

However, we don't work that way - the analogy of a lottery has been used to identify the expectations suggestors should have and that, having suggested a site, the listing of that site should be regarded as a bonus.

Each editor has their own way of deciding where and when to edit and the net overall result could be described as eccentric, that is, unpredictable, apparantly random and confusing to the spectator BUT things get done and the directory grows.

hutcheson said:

Richard, in your own mind you have the ultimate power -- to believe whatever you wish. On your own website you have the ultimate power -- to develop and publish whatever content you like.

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I'm just (in the justice sense; so don't get too philosophical with me), not delusional. You didn't list my site for over 3 years and official refusal to reply is an efficient but uncredible policy.

hutcheson said:

But it is inevitable that, looking so insistently for nothing but malice in all around you, you will find nothing but malice. The ODP is not worth it. If that is how you see the ODP, then don't deal with it at all.

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ODP's slowness and self-justifications are marginalizing its relevancy. Lengthy replies like this one show your intense defense of your power and position over what those not in power want.

hutcheson said:

There may come a time when malice towards your competition doesn't seem so much like the ultimate goal, and when power becomes important to you than reputation. If that happens, the ODP will seem much more interesting.

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You prove your own power-trip by saying power exceeds reputation.

hutcheson said:

But in the meantime, we absolutely CAN accommodate you in the matter of not giving reasons which you have pre-announced that you will not believe. Come to think of it, it's total nonsense to talk about REASONS for something that NEVER HAPPENED! It's only things that actually happened that can possibly be said to have reasons.

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Remember, ODP refuses to give any reasons on any decisions.

In the end, my site which has no reason not to be listed is not. Better, yet, I see from sites which use unupdated ODP data it was listed at Computers/Internet/On_the_Web/Weblogs/Personal/R for about 2 months then deleted despite my site's having had the same format and maintenance for 3 years. This discovery is in line with the tons and tons of claims about ODP's unaccountable policies and actions. None have to be justified. They just are done and that's that.

Kudos to deleting my post yesterday out of "Site Submittal Status" then closing it. Policy justifies it (of course) thus further proving ODP's unaccountability.

The ODP isn't accountable to you, just as you aren't accountable to it. (I'm not sure who might have suggested anything else to you, but they shouldn't have!) That's "freedom", not "power". And that's OK. Going both directions.

A "temporary listing", eh? (That is not what I'D describe as "refused a listing, and not being listed for three years", but I'll assume you weren't being deliberately misleading. In fact, even though I see the two versions as mutually exclusive, and even though I know from experience that many webmasters are inimical to the truth, I still really tend to think you weren't deliberately lying.)

But there are several possible reasons for what you describe. (Off the cuff, I can think of half-a-dozen that I've seen in action.) Of course, there's no way of knowing which ones were actually involved. But I think you're right: when it gets down to it, the reason really doesn't matter to you: and would be impossible to prove anyway.

In fact, when it gets to that, I don't know the reason: I only know what the editor claimed was the reason, which is usually but not always accurate -- and which often is succinct to the point of obscurity. Oh, and I could check the site to see if I agreed with the decision (which wouldn't matter unless I was going to work on that category, and, like any editor, I disagree with some decisions -- on most of them, however, I can disagree without attributing malice to anyone involved.)

But, unless you've done something really vile to an editor (or to so many people that surely one of them must have been an editor), I wouldn't think editor malice is all that likely. (And the other common allegation, "suppressing the competition", obviously doesn't apply to a personal blog.)

Like I said, I tend to go with one of the innocent explanations until there's a pattern.

But you are free to believe what you wish. (I can't grant you that freedom: I believe that you have it as an inalienable right.) And you're free to associate with whom you wish. But you don't have the power to compel an association that the other party doesn't want. And that's OK also.

Rather than focussing on power that you don't have, I'd suggest using the power you do have. You have a blog, you have the time to maintain it. You shouldn't be chasing other people to promote sites -- bloggers (and other webmasters) can promote whatever sites they want promoted! That's your power.

Not maintaining my own website, I don't have that power. I am accountable to the webmasters who publish my content: if I don't do it their way, they don't put up with it.

But power-struggle analysis is for Marxist idealogues. I don't need it. The way I look at it, if I work within the website restrictions, they empower me to make content available; and by cooperating we are both more effective than we otherwise would have been. But power over others? even influence? Who's measuring?

I seriously don't think people should get hung up about DMOZ. It's not the be all and end all. I've had my site on the internet for less than 2 months and all my traffic comes from free searches and 60% of that is google, and NO, I do not have my site listed in DMOZ. I have submitted it yes, and from time to time I come here and have a look but it does not create a feeling of dismay, not to see it listed, simply because I am making it to google's 1-10, 11-20 pages for more and more of my significant keywords, as time goes on. So what's all the fuss. To me it seems too much power for some, power that is unwarranted.!!

I expect to be berated.

It's a most sensible way of dealing with things.

• Submit/suggest and forget
• DMOZ is only one of many ways of promoting a site
• If you rely on getting a DMOZ listing for you business, it's time to get another career

tridean I think you have an extremely sensible attitude

As an editor, I don't have the 'power' most people talk about. The long wait for review/listings is just down to numbers, nothing more, nothing less. Disappointed site suggestors ascribe other motives (malice, corruption etc) which upset us as individuals as we are doing the best we can.

Like many editors, I joined the ODP to create/maintain a resource for my hobby and as a result sites dealing with my hobby do get listed faster than had I not done so.

Everyone has exactly the same 'power' to apply to be an editor to create/maintain a resource in the area of their interest.

In order to list outside of my hobby, I would have to apply to that category, prove that I am capable of editing there by going through the same application procedure as a new editor. I can't see why I should if it doesn't interest me.

regards

John

Question From A Newbie

Hi this is my first post as I just found this forum. Nothing that I am posting is derogative, I have just been given many different opinions I really don't know what to think anymore. I've been reading allot of posts and there really seems to be allot of differences from one editor to another. I have been advised by the gurus not to bother submitting to dmoz as I would have better luck with a linking strategy than having a chance at getting my sight fairly reviewed because of running ads on my sites.
My questions. Is publishing Google Ads, Adbrite, Bidvertizer etc. considered affiliate links or duplicate content or is there an exception or limit?
Is a "publisher" seen the same as an "affiliate" in the eyes of the editor?
I apologize if this has been covered before (I'm sure it must have been), but I couldn't find anything in recent posts.
Thanks for all the posts. I am really learning allot.
Dan

The problem isn't running ads on a site. It's (1) having a site for which the main purpose is running ads; (2) not running anything else BUT ads.

Forget the ads. We'll do our best to forget them also. (There are limits, of course, which are exceeded by popunders and popup-chains and multiple-popups, and can be exceeded by sheer volume of almost anything...) And forget how you get paid for the ads. We don't always know, and don't ever care. (What, never? No, Never! What, NEVER? Yes, never EVER!)

Have you forgotten the ads already? all the advertising, promotional, consumer-incentivization, marketing-viral, marketing-bacteriological, marketing-parasitic, marketing-toxic, and even marketing-non-pathogenic material -- whether original, republished, recycled, or just rehashed? If you can't (and indeed they may BE a site's primary purpose), then forget the ODP instead--we won't be offended.

Otherwise ... can we find what's on your site? (While ignoring the A, P, C-I, M-V, M-B, ... etc.) And what significant thing does that add to the sum of human knowledge (or experience or creativity)?