Unique Content?

I am slightly puzzled by what ODP editors often refer to as "unique content".

Although I have been waiting for some time for my site to be added, I am not complaining about the time taken ( I accept that there are many sites to review etc..) I can't quite understand, however, how unique content can be expected in categories which quite obviously imply that all the sites will have similiar content (In my case English Language Schools). In competitive categories such as these the ODP can really have an effect on business and choosing a site that they "like" or feel offers "unique content" seems to be bad for the directory user since an incomplete list is being given.

On a different note, I can't remeber whether I managed to suggest another of my sites some time ago. Is there a way to check and if not will resubmitting really have a detrimental effect on its inclusion. Thanks for any help.

In a business category, each independent businessperson (or incorporated group of businesspeople) will naturally offer their own unique services. The services may be similar. But in one case it is Jan teaching English with his own unique personal skills and knowledge in his hometown, in another company it is Jean using his own skills and knowledge in his hometown, in yet another it is Johannes using HIS skills in HIS hometown.

So the websites are similar in structure, but Jean's website is the sole authoritative source of information about what Jean will do for money -- what else he will teach, whom he will teach, where he will teach them. That's "significant unique information" And so Jean's website may be listable no matter how many other teachers there are. (I say "may be" because Jean may not have bothered to use his website to TELL people who he is and what he'll do for money.)

OK, so a site may be listable. It doesn't follow that editors will feel the same urgency you feel, about listing it rather than taking the available time to list other sites containing information of more general interest. After all, Jean's site is likely very much like Jan's site and Johannes' site. The main editing activity is looking for abusive spam -- that is, a sleazy Jan may set up a number of sites with different names, all promoting his own commercial activities, to try to gain an unfair advantage over honest website creators. (Or Jan may suborn other people--it comes to the same thing.) And so a conscientious editor has to take time to check if jans-english.com is really created for the same commercial entity (person or group of people) as jans-cooking.com and english-made-easy.com: in other words, a lot of work dealing with often unreliable websites with very little scope for a sense of personal accomplishment.

So it's likely that the category tends to get less editing time, and this translates into longer (but still random) delays between the time a site is first published and the time it's reviewed.

In general there's no way to check if a site has been suggested before. However, in the case where you have multiple websites and you want to make sure that exactly one of them is suggested (which saves us the trouble of checking the other) -- it would be a help for us to have the complete list of websites and your preferred "canonical" one, so that we can make sure the others are replaced by it.

However, we can't do that right now -- see the announcements.

I am slightly puzzled by what ODP editors often refer to as "unique content".

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I understand your confusion, Hamboid, . I had to struggle with that terminology myself, when I first became an editor, and as I currently only edit in one of the Topics categories, I still have to keep it straight in my mind.

I'll try to explain the way I understand it, and if I'm incorrect, I'm sure a more knowledgible editor will step in and correct me, and I'll be happy to accept the correction.

Webster defines unique as:
being only one of it's kind; unparalleled.

Our Guidelines state:

"The ODP's goal is two-fold: to create the most comprehensive and definitive directory of the Web, and to create a high quality, content rich resource that the general public considers useful and indispensable. In short, editors should select quality sites and lots of them.

Consider the relative value of a resource in comparison to other information resources available on your particular topic. Relative value refers not only to the quality of the site, but also to its ability to contribute important, unique information on a topic.

In general, ODP editors should enter sites that represent the following:

Original, unique and valuable informational content that contributes something unique to the category's subject.

Contrasting points of view on major issues. The ODP attempts to cover the full breadth and depth of human knowledge, representing all topics and points of view on those topics. "

http://dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html#include

I think this sentence describes it best:

Original, unique and valuable informational content that contributes something unique to the category's subject.

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What I believe is meant is that not every site on the subject should be listed, but, only the best and most unique sites that are available to make that category of most value to the user.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Added - I believe our only responsibility is to our end users and not to submitters.

Thanks....but

Thanks to the 2 posters for taking the time to reply to my post. I really appreciate that.

It makes sense that there can be unique content even within a particular category as in...Jan and Jean may offer different ways of teaching English and or in different locations.

My point, however, is that the ODP itself lists what are manifestly commercial categories and by definition must choose which commercial sites to list within that category. In the case of Language Schools / Europe / United Kingdom / Scotland, for example, I know personally that most listings are commercial schools that offer courses accredited by the same accreditation agency in the UK and therefore must have very similiar teaching practices, facilities and working practices (all the schools must be inspected by that accreditation agency and meet strict requirements)

Sure, the content on the pages may look different, they may entice you with slightly different offerings but they are selling the same product in different packaging.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, this can greatly affect the success of a business that relies very heavily on internet generated business for its products. I myself have so far managed to keep my site quite well ranked in Google, for instance, without being listed in the ODP, but over the years I have seen newer businesses within our sector getting listed ahead of us including sites that use cloaked offset text etc.. to "cheat" spiders crawling the site and that use duplicate content and very commercial wording.

From my own experience, the ODP is a wonderful resource but I also think there must be a clear distinction within the directory between what is essentially a commercial category and what is a category of purely informative content. I think that in the long term this would also expedite the inclusion of sites as editors would not have to scrutinize the content of commercial sites as deeply as they do with what are sites of genuine interest to the researcher etc...

You're welcome, Hamboid, . I understand your point, and I'm sorry I can't be of further assistance to you, but, I'm just not qualified enough to answer.

A more experienced editor will have to answer, , but I'll be listening.

No, they aren't offering the same product. Each school has its own teachers; the product it offers is the services of those teachers. The services may be similar: they may conform to the same standard, just like Intel's C++ compiler and GNU C++ both conform to the same ANSI standard, or like two electricians do their work according to the same city's building code. But each school has a unique set of teachers whose skills are available through no other school, and whose services no other school can offer.

I also think there must be a clear distinction within the directory between what is essentially a commercial category and what is a category of purely informative content. I think that in the long term this would also expedite the inclusion of sites as editors would not have to scrutinize the content of commercial sites as deeply as they do with what are sites of genuine interest to the researcher etc...

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Actually, at the conceptual level, there is no difference between a commercial category and an informative category. Because there are no commercial categories, all are informational. There are simply categories which contain information about various specific kinds of social entities: churches, clubs, schools, orchestras, unions, ... and, yes, corporations.

And your idea has problems interfacing with reality. In reality, the problem for all surfers is that certain entities (particularly in "industries" where more money is spent capturing a customer than providing him products or services) see multiple sites as a tool for gaining an unfair advantage. So surfers will always have to scrutinize the content of some kinds of commercial sites much more deeply and carefully than they do sites that are in more service-oriented industries (where giving information out is the ultimate in service-orientation!)

Don't prejudge what will be of interest...the ODP's half-million categories are testimony to how diverse human interests can be. The perspective a purely commercial webmaster needs, is to understand that commerce is only one limited portion of that range. The ODP does a much better job than any other directory at the REST of the range, at the admitted expense of giving significantly lower priority to commercial interests than a commercial-only or primarily-commercial directories would.

Obviously, the ODP itself doesn't rank sites (well, there are two ranks, and one of them is very rare), and how sites are ranked elsewhere is not a proper concern for an honest editor.

The short version is: if a site represents the sole authoritative source of significant information about the goods and services provided by a particular businessperson (or group of people acting together), then it's likely listable.

But millions of other sites are likely listable also! Which ones get reviewed first is volunteer choice. And THAT is partly driven by what a volunteer happens to find, partly by what a volunteer is interested in (and nobody else could imagine what THAT might be), partly by what a volunteer thinks the directory most needs, and partly by pure chance.

The mixed probabilities involved in all that are why the ODP is freer from systematic bias than any other general web directory. Not completely free, of course: volunteers tend to pay more attention to the voluntary aspects of society.

Presumably you're talking about http://dmoz.org/Arts/Education/Lang...guage_Schools/Europe/United_Kingdom/Scotland/ .

My point, however, is that the ODP itself lists what are manifestly commercial categories and by definition must choose which commercial sites to list within that category. In the case of Language Schools / Europe / United Kingdom / Scotland, for example, I know personally that most listings are commercial schools that offer courses accredited by the same accreditation agency in the UK and therefore must have very similiar teaching practices, facilities and working practices (all the schools must be inspected by that accreditation agency and meet strict requirements)

Sure, the content on the pages may look different, they may entice you with slightly different offerings but they are selling the same product in different packaging.

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If schools accredited by the same agency couldn't be listed, then most universities and colleges wouldn't be listed. Unless the schools are owned by the same company, then they are each unique in the sense that hutcheson spoke of, in that each one is the only site offering information about that specific school and the courses offered by it.

From my own experience, the ODP is a wonderful resource but I also think there must be a clear distinction within the directory between what is essentially a commercial category and what is a category of purely informative content. I think that in the long term this would also expedite the inclusion of sites as editors would not have to scrutinize the content of commercial sites as deeply as they do with what are sites of genuine interest to the researcher etc...

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I'm not sure what clear distinction you would like to see. I suspect you're not really understanding how the ODP works with regards to commercial and informational sites.

[added: hutcheson's response is much more detailed...and quicker ]

But millions of other sites are likely listable also! Which ones get reviewed first is volunteer choice. And THAT is partly driven by what a volunteer happens to find, partly by what a volunteer is interested in (and nobody else could imagine what THAT might be), partly by what a volunteer thinks the directory most needs, and partly by pure chance.

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That is very true in my own editing. I'm much more interested in listing the mom & pop sites who don't have the knowledge and resources for site ranking in the search engines, than I am in listing commercial sites that do.

I'm aware that I have that slight bias, so, I try to be fair by reviewing sites I'd prefer not to, but, I'm not obligated to do that, and with so many site suggestions available in the categories I have permission to edit in, my editing is very random over a wide area of possibilities, .

Are you quite certain there is no difference?

"Actually, at the conceptual level, there is no difference between a commercial category and an informative category. Because there are no commercial categories, all are informational. There are simply categories which contain information about various specific kinds of social entities: churches, clubs, schools, orchestras, unions, ... and, yes, corporations."

What about the difference between public sector schools and private schools?


"And your idea has problems interfacing with reality. In reality, the problem for all surfers is that certain entities (particularly in "industries" where more money is spent capturing a customer than providing him products or services) see multiple sites as a tool for gaining an unfair advantage. So surfers will always have to scrutinize the content of some kinds of commercial sites much more deeply and carefully than they do sites that are in more service-oriented industries (where giving information out is the ultimate in service-orientation!)"

Service industries ARE commercial. Do you mean sites that offer a service for free? If you do then I think you illustrate my point for me that there are clearly 2 distinct types of site.

"Don't prejudge what will be of interest...the ODP's half-million categories are testimony to how diverse human interests can be. The perspective a purely commercial webmaster needs, is to understand that commerce is only one limited portion of that range."

.............and again


"volunteers tend to pay more attention to the voluntary aspects of society."

I assume you mean they favour sites that offer information freely / voluntary rather than sell a product so............and again!

I don't really see why you won't admit there are 2 types of website. Surely churches, libraries, government agencies, encyclopedic, directorial, public information sites etc... are informative but retail, wholesale, home delivery etc.. sites are commercial.

I really fail to see the difficulty in making this distinction. Years ago I had a website when I lived in Spain. My service provider had no problem in determining whether or not a site was commercial as they were the only sites that had to pay for hosting.

I don't really see why you won't admit there are 2 types of website. Surely churches, libraries, government agencies, encyclopedic, directorial, public information sites etc... are informative but retail, wholesale, home delivery etc.. sites are commercial.

I really fail to see the difficulty in making this distinction. Years ago I had a website when I lived in Spain. My service provider had no problem in determining whether or not a site was commercial as they were the only sites that had to pay for hosting.

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Of course, there are two types of sites, but, whether a site is commecial or non-commercial has no bearing on when or if it gets reviewed or listed, and the Directory doesn't split itself down the middle, with commercial on one side and non-commercial on the other side.

Are you suggesting we should give preferential treatment to commercial sites? or, do you mean that all commercial sites should be listed.

Every schematization focuses on specific aspects of reality, and ignores others. Since the ODP is about information (its original mission statement was to "index the sum of human knowledge") it is obvious that our focus will have to be the informational content of sites. Other aspects (including commercial ones) are simply irrelevant to our classification, and in fact, to the directory.

It's not that we don't recognize the existance of a commercial aspect to some sites -- we are just indifferent to it. If a site is all "commercial" and has no significant unique "information" -- then it simply won't get listed. But if it has unique information, then we'll list it (regardless of whether it does or doesn't also have commercial significance.

Thus, all categories are about informational sites. There are no categories about informationless commercial sites, because we don't list them at all.

That's a pretty strong recognition of the distinction, wouldn't you say?

What about the difference between public sector schools and private schools?

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What about them? From an ODP point of view, there really is little difference. You seem to be suggesting the private schools shouldn't be listed, or shouldn't be listed according to our rules regarding unique content. You don't have to agree with our idea of unique content but it is what it is.

I assume you mean they favour sites that offer information freely / voluntary rather than sell a product so............and again!

I don't really see why you won't admit there are 2 types of website. Surely churches, libraries, government agencies, encyclopedic, directorial, public information sites etc... are informative but retail, wholesale, home delivery etc.. sites are commercial.

I really fail to see the difficulty in making this distinction.

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Some of the best informational sites I've seen come from commercial entities -- are they commercial sites or are they non-commercial? Is it based on the content and purpose of the site or the purpose of the agency behind the site. The problem we're having, I think, is that you seem to think that commercial sites should be treated radically different from informational sites and that's not how the ODP works. Sometimes commercial vs non-commercial may come into play in terms of where or how a site is listed but for the most part, a site is a site and we're not thinking of them in terms of commercial or non-commercial.

Are you suggesting we should give preferential treatment to commercial sites?

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Actually, I think he just doesn't like the private schools that are listed in the Scottish ESL category or the fact that his site hasn't been listed there yet. And he doesn't appear to agree with our concept of "unique content".

I agree entirely with what Hamboid is saying. By not listing all the genuine sites within a sector some businesses are being adversely affected for no apparent reason. Just because there are a lot of websites selling the same services shouldn't give editors an excuse to ignore new offerings.

I'm in a very competetive market and I first submitted to dmoz in 2003 but never appeared. This year I moved and totally revamped the site and created new products to sell on it and in an entirely different way. So I decided that I should probably resubmit given the lack of response previously and the fact that I had no way of knowing if my original submission 3 years ago was even received.

I still await my entry into the directory but am losing hope of ever getting there, yet all my competitors are on it and benefit hugely from advanced rankings in Google etc. It feels entirely unfair to new businesses and if I'm not listed soon I'll.....I'll.....I'll take my bat and ball home!

Incidentally, the company that's top for my sector in virtually every search engine has a website written almost entirely in Spam-glish - much of it doesn't even make sense. But guess what...they're listed on dmoz and we're not. There are even sites that are still under construction that have been listed - they don't even have any content!?!

Hi there (another 2 cents )

My point, however, is that the ODP itself lists what are manifestly commercial categories and by definition must choose which commercial sites to list within that category.

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The answer is that our choice is limited to any and all sites that meet the guidelines for that category.

Suppose we had a set of non-commercial websites describing the life cycle of the common toad. The editor would sift through them and list the best. There would logically be some that would not offer anything new and listing them would be counter productive.

Commercial sites have one 'advantage' - they can have websites that basically offer the same services but because they are genuinely offered by different people, they are 'different'. Hence if there were 100 genuine driving instructors listed for a town, a new genuine driving instructor starting up with a website would be perfectly eligible to be listed.

The guidelines identify the things that make sites unlistable. The criteria for listing ignores aspects such as hype, search engine tricks, design, value-for-money, etc etc leaving it up to the consumer to sort that out. We are not the internet police or a consumer watchdog.

If you were wondering why other sites have been listed and yours not yet, the chance is that it is because no one has reviewed your site yet. When that will be we cannot predict but, from what you say, it may be a spammy category which could result in a longer and more unpredictable wait. It is certainly not because we are only selecting commercial sites based on 'snazziness'.

regards

That's why you guys are metas, and I'm not, , hope I didn't confuse matters trying to help, .

There are even sites that are still under construction that have been listed - they don't even have any content!?!

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Then please use the update listing link to report them (when the site is back up again ) - and an editor will check them and remove them if they don't meet our listing criteria.

regards

cwillsher, it seems you are really very unclear on what we do and what we want to do, and so much of what you say is meaningless.

We don't talk about "legitimate" sites, so we don't really need to know what you mean by "legitimacy"--it's irrelevant.

We talk, instead, about "sites with significant unique information". And there may be another hidden perspective clash -- "new way to sell" sounds hopelessly marketroidish. We aren't interested in ways to sell, whether old or new. We're interested in "significant unique information."

I must say, though, that I'm pleased to hear your firsthand testimony that in a very competitive area, all your competitors are listed. That kind of comprehensiveness takes an incredible amount of effort. The downside, for new businesses trying to break into such a market, is that ODP users are already well-served by such a comprehensive list -- so it's extremely likely that ODP EDITORS will focus on other, not-so-well-populated categories, where surfers need our help so much more. As a result, new suggestions in that area will tend to wait much longer than in other areas.

And that's OK, because the surfers are all that matter here -- webmasters receive their services at some OTHER site (well, some zillions of other sites, actually.)

I agree entirely with what Hamboid is saying. By not listing all the genuine sites within a sector some businesses are being adversely affected for no apparent reason. Just because there are a lot of websites selling the same services shouldn't give editors an excuse to ignore new offerings.

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As a small business owner, myself, cwillsher, I understand your frustration, but, if one editor has 5,000+ suggested sites available to review, and only has the time or inclination (after all, we are working for free as a community service) to review a fraction of them, it doesn't mean you're being ignored, it means more honest editors are needed to do the work.

Also, we have absolutely nothing to do with search engine rankings, (despite popular belief), and our responsibility, in my view, is to our end users, not to submitters.

That vector (category) obviously sounds like it needs an honest, impartial editor who can clean it up, find and add new sites. Got any idea where we can find one?

Still unclear

My original post in this thread was to enquire about what constituted unique content. I am now satisfied by the editors comments that merely being a legitimate different business in the same town as another constitutes that.

Thank you cwillsher for some support of my underlying query which was why does it seem, at least, that what are competitors to us business people and pieces of "information" to the ODP seem to get listed even though their business started years after yours started and was submitted to the ODP, has virtually identical "informative" content about their "informations" (products to everyone else) and in many cases are blatantly flouting what all other directories and search engines consider to be spam.

Whenever a question is asked of the ODP in the forum you are baraged with a stream of editor and moderator comments about how sound the principles and methods of building the directory are but no-one can tell you why a site has to wait for years to get listed when sites of very similiar content are listed even when you know for certainty that it was submitted years after yours because the site didn't even exist until such and such a time.

The typical response is about unique content etc.. etc..

Yes, as one moderator cleverly noticed, I have a site that should be in the ESL Schools Scotland category. Let me ask you this...how many schools websites do you know that constitute "spam"?

how many schools websites do you know that constitute "spam"?

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I know of one for-profit university that has about 100 domains that have the same content. So in the ODP sense of the word (and every sense of the word that I can imagine), 99 of those would be spam.

but no-one can tell you why a site has to wait for years to get listed when sites of very similiar content are listed even when you know for certainty that it was submitted years after yours because the site didn't even exist until such and such a time.

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There are many reasons why this could happen. An editor could have seen an advertisement for the other site on television, or they could have been told by a friend, or they looked in the pile of suggestions and added the ones with good (ODP guidelines compliant) titles and descriptions, or an editor could have sorted the suggestions by something other than submission date and didn't process the whole pile, or it was found with other sites for that category in another directory that doesn't feature your site, or .... I'm sure other editors can think of other reasons.