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ODP and "cooling"

What does it mean

         

seindal

1:46 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hi,

What is meant when ODP editors are accused of "cooling a site"?

Sorry if this is obvious, but English is a second language for me, and I have no idea whatsoever.

René.

Mike_Mackin

1:50 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



dmoz utilizes the cool site award as opposed to creating categories entitled "Editor's Picks."

"Editors may not cool their own sites or any sites with which they are affiliated, including business or personal affiliations. Doing so is contrary to ODP's policy and mission to provide a fair and objective resource for end-users. It is also contrary to this policy to request another editor to cool a site with which you are affiliated. Misuse of the cool site feature may result in removal of your editing privileges."

rogerd

1:53 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member



Editors can flag a site as "cool", which moves it above all other listings into a special position at the top of the page. This is to allow the editor to identify one or two exceptionally good sites in that category - not a bad concept, and helpful to visitors trying to sort through lots of listings. Unfortunately, sometimes unethical editors have "cooled" their own sites regardless of merit.

Mark_A

2:04 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Does cooling mean the first listing with the star next to it?

Liane

2:19 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I heard about this about a year ago when an editor wrote me (yes he/she actually did write to me!) to say that he/she was nominating my site for "cooling". It never came through though as it is a commercial site and commercial sites (apparently) rarely if ever get cooled.

This information was also included in the same brief note. I have never seen a "cool" listing on my journeys through the ODP listings.

Could one of the editors point me in the direction of a category which actually shows a "cool site" listing. I'd really like to see what the listing itself looks like and what makes the site "cool".

The same editor (who has since been canned ... likely because he/she gave out to much inside info), also told me that there was some sort of a bad notation attached to my ODP file from a previous editor and that the "cooling" had been rejected.

Oh well, it was nice to know that (if nothing else) he/she liked the site enough to nominate it!

Do the editors ever go back a year or two after a site has been entered into the index to see if enough content has been added to warrant the "cool site" award? Or is this just too time consuming? Do bad notations from editors ever get removed or are you stuck with the stigma forever?

seindal

2:31 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Thanks Mike and rogerd, that explained quite a bit.

I have seen some categories with asterisks, so some editors do it.

René.

bird

2:45 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



The cool award is meant for sites that represent the most ultimative source of information on a topic, which may also be the "official homepage" about it. There shouldn't be more than two of them in any category, and most often there will be none. It is not normally used in commercial categories, as there is rarely one company that is more authoritative about a product than its competitors. Exceptions about this last rule are sometimes made when a product actually has only one manufacturer, which is quite common eg. with software as in Computers/Software/Graphics/Image_Editing/Photoshop [dmoz.org]. Ok, the description may be slightly subjective in this specific case, but the cooling is clearly legitimate... ;).

rfgdxm1

3:07 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I'm an ODP editor. This is a generally little used today way for an editor to designate what sites in the cat s/he feels are the best. The rules explicitly forbid cooling any site you are affiliated with. Basically all cooling a site does is make it appear more prominently if someone is looking at the directory at dmoz.org. An editor at the ODP has to be truly stupid as well as corrupt to cool his own site. Cooling ones site gains little advantage, and doing so would be painting a bullseye on yourself to get squished.

Liane

3:08 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Thanks Bird! I get it now and I also understnd why the editor decided to nominate my site. Until my site was completely redesigned a couple of years ago and all you guys encouraged me to write content, content and more content ... there were no sites in the industry which had as much purely informative content about the subject dealt with on my commercial site.

So, if one just keeps producing more and more informative content ... which will benefit not only my customers but anyone interested in the subject, do the editors ever re-review a site which is already in the database?

Mark_A

3:14 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Hi rfgdxm1 thats amusing, its exactly what the editor in one cat I want a site listed in has done, cooled their site on which they write the content.. plus they stated on their own site that they write the content and on the site in question they also stated that they write the content..

Then the site for which they write the content appears twice more (apart from the cool listing) in categories they edit .. well ..

Talk about asking to be complained about..

Dont want negative notes against all my later submissions so I will give them another week to respond to my enquiry email, more than 2 months has gone by since the initial submission attempt. (edited wrote 1 month - meant 2)

Dynamoo

3:36 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Cooling is pretty rare and, done properly, actually quite presitgious.

However, it has a pretty minimal effect on traffic as most of the downstream users (e.g. Google) ignore the "cool" status altogether and present the information differently.

Mark_A

3:40 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Dynamoo are you saying that 2 links rather than 1 from an ODP page with a Google PR of lets say 6/10 has no more downstream effect than one link from that page?

Correct me if I am wrong but I would have expected it to have increased the PR transferred to the site in question (in google) especially if the links and text were "not" precisely the same.

Mike_Mackin

3:40 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>and doing so would be painting a bullseye on yourself to get squished.

I remember threads where the editor would "jump UP & DOWN" when caught saying " well it IS the BEST site"

GONE :)

rfgdxm1

3:46 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>Then the site for which they write the content appears twice more (apart from the cool listing) in categories they edit .. well ..

Then report this to a meta. Or any editor at all, even me. Unless abuse is reported, it can't be properly dealt with. As at the moment I am an editor of a very high level cat, I would forward all abuse complaints I recieved the the appropriate people. Remember, the ODP is just a bunch of volunteers.

petertdavis

3:49 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Just curious...

What percentage of cooled sites are ones owned by editors or are ones that editors are affiliated with in some manner?

choster

4:05 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



What percentage of cooled sites are ones owned by editors or are ones that editors are affiliated with in some manner?

In principle, close to zero.

In practice, probably too many. Report abuse if you think you see it.

martinibuster

4:43 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



rfgdxm1
Or any editor at all, even me.

Mighty nice of you. I'll bite.

I came across a web site that on the surface looked well optimized. But on closer inspection, layers started coming off, revealing redirects, hidden links, pages full of nothing but hundreds of links.

Their seo efforts kept looking darker and dirtier the deeper I looked into it. I half expected to come across the corpses of webmasters who had gotten in their way, but instead was shocked to discover that this spammy commercial web site had not only been cooled, but was listed in Five different categories!

So I stickied you with the info.

Dynamoo

5:35 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Dynamoo are you saying that 2 links rather than 1 from an ODP page with a Google PR of lets say 6/10 has no more downstream effect than one link from that page?

Cooling a site doesn't add a second link, it just moves the link "up" visually and puts a star by it. It only appears once.

Sometimes duplicate listings can occur by accident if the link has a slightly different URL. No site should have more than one listing in a category in any case except in very exception circumstances (typically deeplinks to hard-to-find content on a site).

EliteWeb

5:40 pm on Dec 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Never 'cooled' one of my own sites and I'm proud of it. People know its cool without me puting stars next to it :P

Etceteral

5:34 pm on Dec 5, 2002 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I have never seen a "cool" listing on my journeys through the ODP listings.

Could one of the editors point me in the direction of a category which actually shows a "cool site" listing. I'd really like to see what the listing itself looks like and what makes the site "cool".

Cooling occurs a lot in the non-commercial categories, just browse around outside Shopping into the same of the more heavily populated categories and you'll find one.