DMOZ editors

conflicts of interest

[Oliver]

If someone knows that an editor is friend of a man (A) that has a website related with its category. If this editor gives the 1st position for the principal keyword to this friend (A); and if this editor cancel the site that there was 1st because the owner is not a friend of A, he was a friend, but now is an enemy.

What you do?

(pls, excuse me for my no good English!)
:)

[Nick_W]

False glasses and a funny moustache? ;)

[Oliver]

uhu?!

[victor]

The advice at RZ is to report it in an email to: [e-mail] or to any meta editor if you know one.

Disguise is optional :)

[edited by: Laisha at 7:00 pm (utc) on Mar. 3, 2003]
[edit reason] Please read the forum charter [/edit]

[rfgdxm1]

I don't understand what that "1st position for the principal keyword" means, but if this editor deleted a listed site because the owner was an enemy, that sounds like abuse. I'd suggest that before you send this to [e-mail] you make sure to document everything you can, and put forward the most convincing case.

[skibum]

Last time I checked, ODP editors do not have the ability to make a site come up for a particular keyword or not, they just puts sites in categories.

[coconutz]

You can try inquiring in the World/Italiano category at the resource zone.

>>(pls, excuse me for my no good English!)
I'm sure your English is better than my Italian. Welcome to WebmasterWorld.

[rfgdxm1]

>Last time I checked, ODP editors do not have the ability to make a site come up for a particular keyword or not, they just puts sites in categories

Yes they can, by adding it to the description. The problem is that the nature of the ODP is that someone searching should be wanting to find the specific *category*, not specific sites. If someone wants to do searches on keywords, that is what search engines are for, not directories.

[skibum]

Do ODP editors know the algorithm so well that they can make a site come up in the top spot for a particular keyword as post #1 suggested?

[rfgdxm1]

I certainly don't know how to make a site come up as #1 for a keyword search. I doubt many metas know exactly how it is done. And, if some common editor did know the trick, if he used it everyone would likely assume it happened by accident and luck rather than design.

[ettore]

>> You can try inquiring in the World/Italiano category at the resource zone

Or, since I see you haven't posted there yet, you can stickymail me (yeah, in Italian) with any and all possible details of the alleged abuse. I'll be pleased to look into this issue.

[Oliver]

I am sure that the editor is a friend of this site that now is first for a particular kword research.

The question is:
Is it possible that an editor can cancel a site for a particular kword research and put up till the 1st place another site.

There is a way.

Cause what I know is

1. I was 1st till last month for this kword research
2. The editor is a friend of this site that is now 1st
3. I am an enemy of the owner of this site
4. My site is vanished after this change

Is it strange? Or not?!

[kctipton]

How is this a topic that webmasters in general would want to read? Sounds like a personal gripe, and it should have been sent to [e-mail] and not posted here at all imho.

[hutcheson]

There is a fair question in all this:

Can editors manipulate the order of ODP search results?

The simple answer is NO.

Sites are listed in an order that is "deterministic but indeterminable." The order probably has something to do with what order the search engine spiders the editing logs, but beyond that, nothing really useful is known. (You can read the search engine's source code, if you want, but it doesn't attempt to sort the results -- just presents them in the order they appeared.

The second question: if a site that was ordered "first" is removed, does the site that was ordered "second" now become "first"?

One answer is, possibly YES.

But the real answer is: IT DOESN'T MATTER, because the only people who do searches at ODP are editors looking for spam, and Webmasters, who irrationally want editors looking for spam to see their sites first and ignorantly think they have some control over that. (To be complete, some webmasters may look to see if their site is listed before resubmitting -- but seem to be a tiny fraction of the total. And very few surfers go there -- because Google and AOL both do a much better job of presenting searches based on ODP data.