gpmgroup - 4:59 pm on Jan 23, 2008 (gmt 0)

I don’t think people really appreciate the size of DMOZ, although it seems to have been shrinking for a while now, it is still a significant independent resource.

If your site meets the criteria and is better than some of the others listed in your preferred category then it can be very frustrating.

The thing to remember is DMOZ is not uniform. Some areas have editors which are interested in building the best resource for people who share their passion, other areas are short of editors and in some areas editors seem to have no interest in added new sites.

In an area we keep an eye on I see some shenanigans have started happening again (Like removing a Company with 50 or so offices that’s been listed for years in the same National category to a County category (i.e. several layers further from the root)

If your site can not get listed for 3 years or your site gets “moved” then as a matter of principle it can be a big issue to you.

What Google et al. have to assess with any resource “Is this skewing of the data insignificant enough not to affect their algorithms?” If it is significant then there are two things they can do - Place less weight on the value the source delivers or build your own better model.

Rebuilding DMOZ would not be a small undertaking. Not using DMOZ data would mean the lost of huge and on the whole clean resource. The answer I would guess lies probably somewhere in between, as a result DMOZ is devalued and as a result good editors leave and the cycle goes on.