Forum Moderators: open
Craig
347,000 backlinks..
Google.com has 230,000..
The dot-com bust started 3 years ago today. Lots of domains have failed since then. It is possible that ODP has been shrinking a little bit over the last 6 months or so ;)
VERY odd as I'd expect that page would have few inbound links.
I requested inclusion about a year ago. Did not get it. Went to look at the profile of the editor, and it was clear that he had a vested interest in one of the competitors already listed in the category. Eventually the editor did get removed from the category and the DMOZ powers that be added my site in. I am extremely grateful for their actions, but it was 8 months of the benefits of DMOZ inclusion lost.
DMOZ is great, but until they sort out these issues, they should be devalued for a while as a source of record.
Should be an 11, imho.
This one goes to eleven.
IMHO, Dmoz got demoted in this iteration's algorithm. In fooling with a few things, that's what I'm coming up with.
I guess that google lists directory.google.com and google.com as the root of the web - giving them a hard coded 10 PR - then lets PR flow down through the rest of the web ... including DMOZ. (Would there be any other sites that would receive this special honor? - especially outside of googles control?)
I guess the fluctuations on DMOZ PR are just part of the recalculations of page rank across the net that has to happen every now and then. Also consider that google ignores pages with duplicate content for various calculations... and that most links to DMOZ are effectively mirrors and it starts to make sense.
Ok, I conceed that the PR of the DMOZ page listing your site matters - but only as much as any on topic page of links from any other directory or website. The fact that the same data is used on so many sites is what makes it matter.
I don't think that DMOZ is in anyway a "special" site to google - other than that it takes the data for it's directory from there - it could have been any directory... yikes imagine if it had been yahoo. But for PR to work there has to be a start page.
[added]Health/Sense is showing as 7 for me on both
"Searched for pages linking to [dmoz.org...] Results 1 - 10 of about 80."
"Searched for pages linking to [directory.google.com...] Results 1 - 10 of about 52."
[/added]
OK, if we're playing PR games with the ODP, here's another one. Find an editor of a top-level category with a profile page with a PR7 or PR8 and who *also* edits something deep down in the directory. Click on the deep-down-category and note the PageRank. Now compare it with another category at the SAME level, and you *should* see a PageRank boost for the first category. This is Google "passing" PageRank through the editor's profile page.
[edited by: Dynamoo at 2:18 pm (utc) on Mar. 13, 2003]
The DB always jumps from PR9 to PR10 on a consitent basis, no big shock.
Happily users of this forum are free to offer criticism (hopefully constructive criticism)of ODP without their thoughts being moderated out (wonder what forums that might happen in!)
Surely not even its most vociferous champions could claim that ODP was perfect, so why briddle at a little from the other point of view.
The advantage of having such an independent forum is that both "sides" (regrettably in always seems to be expressed in a polarised way) can put forward their views
You never know, every so often posters here may just come up with the seed of an idea to improve to ODP.
We do appreciate constructive criticism, and I believe that most ODP senior editors participating to this board did -- and will continue to -- offer in return helpful answers to questions posed.
I believe that the very meaning of a Forum (any Forum) is to exchange ideas and knowledge. Unfortunately, sometimes the criticism of ODP is far from constructive, and repeats mantras which have already had answers (or have no possible answer whatsoever). That's when I personally wonder when I will decide to stop offering help and answers to ODP-related questions, and stick to other SEO topics/threads where the discussion gets less heated (or annoying) and where I can feel at ease as a simple SEO having great exchanges of ideas with other colleagues.
>> (wonder what forums that might happen in!)
Same goes there, the only difference being that there we have only one focus: ODP. Ahd while even there constructive criticism is accepted, anything that isn't constructive (I admit that opinions about the definition of this term may be different, mileage may vary, no refund guarantee) gets moderated, as per our TOS. This allows us to focuse on the only and solely main topic of that board, offering useful answers and possibly (eventually) educating submitters, making ODP editor's job easier, meta's job in spotting abuse more effective, etc. Everything for the benefit of the final user, of course, but the side effect will also be a benefit for webmasters and site owners.
>> regrettably in always seems to be expressed in a polarised way
The day when everybody will understand and agree that we do have a common goal, we will hopefully get rid of this polarised approach. Personally, I try to work for it rather than stressing the differences as opposite goals. That is, I agree with your statement here, just took the liberty to elaborate it a bit...
>> posters here may just come up with the seed of an idea to improve to ODP
And they're welcome. Looking at things from the "outside", unfortunately even the best ideas aren't always feasible stuff, but you can't imagine how many of those ideas are actually considered and brought in by senior editors to be discussed in internal forums. Also, several of those having had seeds of ideas regularly become editors, thus being able to discuss them with a better pitch of "what's inside" the machine.
And now, I'm guilty myself of having shifted this discussion OT :)
