Editors with Conflict of Interest??

[gimmster]

I can tell you with 100% certainty that being listed in DMOZ only has one effect on the search engines. They will list your site based on your DMOZ listing, so the title and description of your site as it is in DMOZ will display in the Search Engine Results Pages, as opposed to the one you have chose.

Sorry I feel thats innacurate in 2 respects.

 

It has 2 effects from a search engine perspective

1) It is the source of an inbound link which the search engines can follow to find the site to add to their index. Note this is unrelated to 'pagerank' - it applies to all search engines that spider the ODP.

2) It provides an alternate description that the search engine may choose to display. (see below)

 

This is a copy of something I wrote elswhere, but theres no point reinventing the wheel

Google chooses which of three possible pieces of information to display in the search results based on which of the three best matches the search query. The three possibilities are the META Description, the DMOZ description, and a "page snippet" which consists of one or two related (but not neccessarily connected) pieces of text from anywhere on the page.

 

The NOODP tag can be used to force Google to not display the DMOZ description, but you are still taking a crap shoot on which of the other two will be displayed.

 

Unless the DMOZ description is innaccurate (use the update listing on the category page in DMOZ to update it) or it is something that you believe will not make the searcher click on the search result, I don't think you should just blanket remove the DMOZ description from the possibilities presented to the searcher.

 

Microsoft has some research http://research.microsoft.com/~ryenw/papers/ClarkeSIGIR2007.pdf regarding the influence on search clickthroughs of presentational features in search results: the title, snippet and URL, with the conclusion: "The findings of our study suggest that relatively simple caption features such as the presence of all terms, query terms, the readability of the snippet, and the length of the URL shown in the caption, can significantly influence users’ web search behaviour." Make of it what you will.

[Guest Erick880]

Gimmster,

 

While you did catch me being overly simplistic, I still stand by the meaning of what I said, and that is that DMOZ is not the main factor in attaining 1st page results for your key phrases. Good Content IS! And surprise , if a site owner has good content DMOZ should seek out the site, instead of the site owner begging for inclusion!

 

I Agree I was overly simplistic, although if you have a DMOZ listing, it is often difficult to get it not to display (I did NOT know about the noodp tag, is that just <meta name="robots" content="noodp">)?

 

Also,

Jean Manco an ODP editor, has stated that Google can go for more than a year without updating its directory, so if you were to get in to DMOZ in December 2007, Google may not even update their directory until 2009! I could probably suggest a million more short term options that would have a greater effect.

 

I understand what you are saying; I was just trying to point out the use of DMOZ for SEO is probably the most inefficient SEO tactic ever (except maybe reciprocal links)!

[spectregunner]

I understand what you are saying; I was just trying to point out the use of DMOZ for SEO is probably the most inefficient SEO tactic ever (except maybe reciprocal links)!

 

 

You do realize, I hope, that if you were to post the above in any of the popular SEO/Webmaster forums, they would drag you out into an open field and stone you to death.

[Guest Erick880]

You do realize, I hope, that if you were to post the above in any of the popular SEO/Webmaster forums, they would drag you out into an open field and stone you to death.

 

Yes, but unlike them I actually do SEO that is not spammy! Also, I try not to violate Google's TOS (as far a s the reciprocal links go) As for the content being a better tactic than a DMOZ listing, I think most legit firms would back me up on this. :icon_idea

[gimmster]

Erick880

I posted because many people read these forums and leaving a half truth intact without qualifying it quickly becomes an internet 'fact' in the readers mind.

 

Your views on content are, I believe, correct (from a search engine, a directory, and most importantly from a user view). I don't believe I challenged that.

 

NOODP tag is, as you described

<meta name=”robots” content=”noodp”>

which works for all engines that support the 'NODP'tag (Google and Yahoo! are the main 2)

 

here are yahoos to block both ODP and Yahoo directory desc displays

<META NAME="Slurp" CONTENT="NOODP">

<META NAME="Slurp" CONTENT="NOYDIR">

 

More google info can be found at

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-supports-meta-noodp-tag/

[Guest Erick880]

Gimmster,

 

Understood. Also, thanks for the noodp info, I cannot believe that I am just finding this out now. Amazing what nuggets you ODP type people know!

 

<person name="Erick" content="Excited">

[chaos127]

Jean Manco an ODP editor, has stated that Google can go for more than a year without updating its directory, so if you were to get in to DMOZ in December 2007, Google may not even update their directory until 2009! I could probably suggest a million more short term options that would have a greater effect.

Just because the Google directory doesn't always update promptly doesn't mean that Google's knowledge of the directory data is that far behind. I beleive that the titles and descriptions from the ODP that Google uses in SERPs are refreshed much more frequently, and it presumably spiders the public ODP pages at http://www.dmoz.org/ just like any other website, and so picks up link data from them on a pretty much continuous basis.

[Guest Erick880]

Those are all good points, however, I still think bad ROI. I mean all I am really pointing to here is that it is a poor time investment when there are other areas of a site to be improved to help it rank better in Google. These people think corruption is rampant, and as a result their website will fail to succeed, when it is simply not true. These people should worry about the content on their site more then the content on ANY directory.

 

DMOZ is a very wicked thing, but I have a hard time believing that it is a mitigating factor in web success. Bottom line DMOZ is not an SEO tool, poor ROI, investment being time.

[gimmster]

It hould take less than 10 minutes to suggest a site to the directory, maybe 30 minutes if you have never looked at the directory and actually take some time to read the documentation and get a vague grasp of the taxonomy.

 

However you are correct that spending excessive time following up is something that could much more constructivly be used to improve the site both for users and search engines. (Although of course theres no use being found if your user can't use the site anyway )

 

wicked = evil or wicked = cool ?

[spectregunner]

Oh, no, don't tell me that the use of wicked is coming back.

 

That was an 'in' word in the late 1960.

 

I feel a flashback coming......

 

 

[Guest Erick880]

wicked = evil or wicked = cool ?

 

Cool, sorry originally from North East US, near a place where a car can be paaked on havad yaad

[nicetoseeyer]

low and behold the thread nosevides into an offtopic SEO discussion. Theres a real irony there.

[Guest Erick880]

low and behold the thread nosevides into an offtopic SEO discussion. Theres a real irony there.

 

Yeah slightly off topic, but the overall theme between all of my posts, is that

 

1) People editing probably really enjoy what they are doing, and are most likely not corrupt

 

and

 

B) Fretting over why your site is not in DMOZ takes time away from actually improving your sites themselves.

 

There is a difference between the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law. Try not to over analyze, I am just saying put the focus on improving your websites, and it wont matter if you have a DMOZ listing or not. It is very unlikely that DMOZ generates any substantial revenue for a website (Enough to actually think that it makes a substantial difference if a competitor is listed and you are not). I mean all you can do is:

 

A) Make your site better (better content etc) so editors will want to include it

 

and

 

2) If you suspect abuse fill out the form. Maybe contact the guy who is offering this link scheme, and get him to guarantee a DMOZ listing or some kind of actual PROOF that there is corruption (if a tree falls in the woods and no one is there ...).

 

Trust me becoming an editor is not easy, I am still trying. If they were corrupt they probably would not take the time to post responses to allegations. The fact that they do should show that they care about what people think, thus care about what they are doing.

 

That's all I have to say about that,

 

Erick

[nicetoseeyer]

B) Fretting over why your site is not in DMOZ takes time away from actually improving your sites themselves.

 

you talking to me?...i never even mentioned having a website let alone fretting over it!

 

Maybe contact the guy who is offering this link scheme,

 

wot link scheme? You lost me.

[Guest Erick880]

you talking to me?...i never even mentioned having a website let alone fretting over it!

 

No, I was talking in general with regards to multiple people's comments in the thread. But it is a main point to what I am saying (not SEO)

 

wot link scheme? You lost me.

 

From the very first post in this thread (See I DO know what the actual topic is)

 

our business was also approached many years ago to advertise on this website and we did not think at the time it was feasible and our business has grown to a point where we now have multiple websites for our various businesses.

 

I have contacted some area business owners that also have a web presence and they too were asked to advertise with this old DMOZ listed site and they too have refused and none of thier websites have been included within the directory.

 

It seems odd to me that a website that has been listed within the directory for years and has a number of advertisers on his site all appear in the DMOZ directory, And those that do not deal with this particular website are banished forever. Can it be that the Editor of this destination is also the same person that owns and operates the old DMOZ listed site I mentioned earlier?

 

at this point you may say, did you submit to the right area / category / ect

 

we can substantiate all our answers with a yes... We all live and work in the same tourist area and run the same businesses.

 

I was basically saying, show some proof, and submit it to abuse. But the one common thing I can see from every post I have read in many threads, it that everyone (that I have read) who shouts editor abuse, and conflict of interest, claims a lot, but substantiates nothing. Its like our crocodiles here:

 

They have a very big mouth, but very little legs!

[nicetoseeyer]

shame you didnt see the posted examples..which were removed!!!! they were pretty specific....

[spectregunner]

The examples were removed because they violated the terms of this forum, which are articulated here.

 

We do not discuss specific sites.

 

We did provide you with generic answers to your initial quesitons, which apparently did not satisfy you as evidenced by your comment:

cant be bothered any more

and by your comment following additional explainations which also provided you with a path you could puruse if you had evidence of wrongdoing:

Lol!

 

We also explained that the information you requested in your second question was not something that we share, and directed you to our FAQ.

 

Is there anything else we can assist you with that falls within the guidelines of this forum?

[nicetoseeyer]

ROFLMAO!

 

your definition of general responses is a wide one. To totally ignore the point of the examples but still offer specific reasons for the examples being listed is no different than saying a murder trial cannot have any witnesses for the defence but the prosecution can have a free hand. It kinda skews the likely outcome!

 

It was interesting to note talk of editors and their own sites and of editors that particpate in seo forums through this thread.

 

Im really not knocking you guys. The title of the thread that caught my eye was

 

"Editors with Conflict of Interest??"

 

and since most neutral observers with some understanding of its working would find much to support the statement i could see that all posters to the thread had been met with the same collective response.

 

a: accuse of the poster of being sore his own site didnt get added whether or not he even mentioned having his own website.

b: pick small points from posts that suited their defence and place their own misinterpretation upon those choice points and reply to that instead of the entirety of the posts.

c: always propose the improbable if the probable did not suit their defence

 

also worth noting the editors who spoke of their own websites being added (i liked the one where his description was cut down so thats ok) and then told us how they prefer editors to go out and find sites in the wild rather than through suggestions. It was also interesting to see that editors also participate in seo forums.

 

Just to clarify. I do not have a grievance from a personal standpoint. I just thought this thread was not balanced and wanted to contribute (and i do enjoy a good discussion ). I do not say every editor is biased with a conflict of interest. However i do say that in many of the commercial cats conflict of interest is there. To listen to the replies in this thread replies you would be lead to believe that it doesnt exist or is a tiny problem, i would say that is underplaying it. And even where i know to my own mind it exists it not a huge deal to me. People doing best by themselves is pretty natural, good luck to those guys who are in that position. I just say lets keep the thread real.

[crowbar]

also worth noting the editors who spoke of their own websites being added (i liked the one where his description was cut down so thats ok) and then told us how they prefer editors to go out and find sites in the wild rather than through suggestions. It was also interesting to see that editors also participate in seo forums.

 

I'm not sure which post you're refering to, but, I think I did post once a long time ago, that when I first joined 6 years ago, instead of adding my own site to the category myself (which I had every right to do), I asked a meta editor to review my site for me, so there would be absolutely no question of fairness on my part.

 

After that, I edited my listing and cut the description down even further to demonstrate that I was putting other sites ahead of my own, so I think you misread my intent.

 

The truth of the matter is that I was being unintentionally abusive to my own site by showing a reversed discrimination, and I was wrong to do that because I wasn't being unbiased in my editing (though my intentions were good). I was being a little overly careful to be fair.

 

I have a furniture refinishing business, and I have no competition, so it wouldn't have been an issue anyway, but I take unbiased editing very seriously and when I hear accusations of conflict of interest, I get a little po'd because I haven't seen any in the 6 years I've been here.

 

As far as seo forums go, even though I have no sites of my own anymore (and don't intend on having any), I do participate at DP to give the facts about the Directory as I know them, and dispell some of the misinformation that's being handed out, and I don't hide who I am.

[nicetoseeyer]

but how it be said on the one hand site suggestions can wait for months or longer without review and its no big deal because its preferred that editors go out and find sites on their own, and then its ok for editors to add their own sites? Is that not a conflict of interests or at least a conflict of intent?

[crowbar]

but how it be said on the one hand site suggestions can wait for months or longer without review and its no big deal because its preferred that editors go out and find sites on their own, and then its ok for editors to add their own sites? Is that not a conflict of interests or at least a conflict of intent?

 

Not at all.

 

Sites can be found any place, at any time. Why would we not list a site we owned, as long as it qualified to be in the category we edit in?

 

That's not always the case either. If our site belonged in a category we didn't edit in, we are allowed to submit it to that category, but, it would wait right along with every other site suggestion there, and contacting any editor about it could be considered editor abuse and cause to be removed.

 

In my case, my site belonged in the category I edited in, and I could have legitimately added it myself, but I chose not to, I asked a meta editor to review it and make that decision. But I wasn't required to do that, I did it to go one step beyond fairness.

 

The important thing about adding your own site to a category you edit in, is to also list all of your competitors sites, and treat them all as equally as you treat your own site. (If they all qualify to be listed)

 

And, no editor owns a category, they just have permission to edit there. Many other editors can also edit there, and do, so no one editor ever has complete control of a category.

 

The Directory allows the public to suggest sites as a help to us in building categories. We're not listing sites, we're really building categories, so whether we use the sites that are suggested to us by the public, or whether we find sites by following links on existing sites, local ads, forums, or using search engines doesn't really matter, they are all part of the same pool of sites that are available on the Internet.

 

Suggested sites are just one part of that whole, so it's just one slice of the pie, not the whole pie.

[nicetoseeyer]

so your saying its legitimate to add your own site to your own category. Im sorry but that is a conflict of interest by any interpretation. You may argue its legitimate and you would not be wrong. But conflict of interest does not require illegitimacy, it simply means your own interests conflict with the nature of your actions. An editor is not the best person to judge his own sites merits.

[spectregunner]

You seem to suggest that an editor should not ever list their own sites. That is, IMO, an unsupportable position. Editors should not abuse their positions as editors to list their sites to the exclusion of others.

 

If we wanted to prohibit editors fom listing their own sites, then we would not allow them to include one of their own sites in the editor applications.

 

Editing is, to a great degree, about balance.

 

Editors need to keep their eyes on the good of the overall directory and not take individual editing actions that harm the directory. That's why editors spend so much time moving inappropriately or even maliciously suggested sites into the correct categories.

 

We write category guidelines that are regularly ignored.

 

We spend time surfing for new sites because, in many categories, the quality of suggestions are simply so poor as to make spending much time workaing the pool highly unproductive. Yet, other categories have pools of suggestions that are highly relvant and valuable. Editors need to balance these things.

 

For example, within Regional, there is not that much pure spam, and the further into the directory tree you go, the better the quality of the suggestions. Yet, at the top levels of Regional, the quality of suggestions is often poor as lazy/malicious suggesters decide to dump sites at the highest possible level.

 

Most specialized topical categories have pretty good suggestions. Few spammers are going to bother trying to mess with a category about the B-1 Lancer bomber.

 

Huge portions of shopping are a great wasteland in terms of suggestions.

 

Editors need to look at the suggestion pool with a practiced eye and do what is best for the directory and the people who use it.

[crowbar]

Becoming an editor is also a position of trust, and we don't tolerate any monkey business, as some ex editors have found out. We don't judge a sites worth, per se, but the unique content it either has or doesn't have. Judgement is a subjective thing, and requires personal opinion which will vary from editor to editor.

 

Unique content, on the other hand, is very objective, and it can be seen in black and white, allowing any editor to make an objective decision about any sites qualification to be listed.

 

Editors do have some discretion, and not all editors agree, but as every category is open to multiple editors, and as editors are required to list any afilliations they have right on their dashboards, it would be difficult and very unwise for an editor to be biased towards a site he owned, or against a competitors site. Especially, when we encourage the reporting of any suspicians by the public via the prominently displayed abuse form.

 

Accusations are not taken lightly, and get a thorough investigation.

[nicetoseeyer]

you didnt address the fundamental issue and that is allowing editors to add their own sites is in itself a position of conflicting interests. Its a very basic point. It doesnt matter if you can make the case that the sites are added by merit or not. If anyone adds their own site they automatically enter a position of conflicting interests.

 

To pickup on the offtopic point about unique content being objective, that's really not the case at all. Unique to you means to your knowledge, to your understanding, in your interpretation, it is very much subjective. Unique text is not the same as unique content so even the term unique becomes subjective.