DMOZ Experiment or just another log file dropper?

Anyone know about this?

[too much information]

I was going to post this in Tracking and Logging, but I am more interested in what experiment DMOZ may be running.

Has anyone heard anything about a DMOZ Experiment or did I just get hosed and I should have posted in T&L because this is a cloaked User Agent?

[onedumbear]

i got one too,
what did yours look like too_much?
mine was something like searchsite_dmoz_experiment

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 5:21 pm (utc) on Dec. 20, 2003]
[edit reason] examplified [/edit]

[mbauser2]

mine was something like searchexample_dmoz_experiment

That sounds more like "searchexample" is experimenting with DMOZ data, rather than a dmoz.org experiment.

(There appears to be an SEO discussion site called Search Example. Never heard of them, myself.)

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 5:22 pm (utc) on Dec. 20, 2003]
[edit reason] examplified [/edit]

[Marcia]

Well, I *have* heard of a couple of the people and I'm personally hardly amenable to giving any air-time. They're not "experimenting" with anything.

You've been log-spammmed, dude. That trick is older than dirt, and I ain't tellin' who invented it. ;)

[too much information]

yea, that's what I thought, but you never know. It only hit my homepage so I wasn't sure.

oh well...

<added>Mine said searchexample_dmoz_experiment also</added>

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 5:22 pm (utc) on Dec. 20, 2003]
[edit reason] examplified [/edit]

[toolkit]

It's as much log-spamming as when Googlebot or Slurp leave their calling card - just a polite notice to say what's been looking at your pages.

[Marcia]

I really have to apologize for what might seem to be rudeness to those who may be unfamiliar with the terminology and may possibly misconstrue.

Here's a thread from a while back that's pretty self-explanatory and relates to what we're discussing here, in our now deprecated Search Engine Spider Identification forum:

A new agent or new advertisement? [webmasterworld.com]

It involved none other than our esteemed colleague and long-time member Fantomaster [webmasterworld.com], and was quite an interesting discussion.

Again, my sincere apologies for not being clearer and for not pointing out that thread to begin with. :)

[chrisridings]

Strange that Marcia, I thought you were discussing calling a legitimate and well documented spidering research experiment using a USERAGENT of an almost universally standard format and without mentioning a url but providing a contact email log spamming and not an experiment at all.

Might I ask what research you did to

a) Determine that it was log spamming
b) Determine that there was no experiment as you categorically stated?
c) Whether you would call Googlebot a log spammer

[chrisridings]

Additionally, as I'm somebody well versed in terminology and I don't see the connection between the fantomaster thread (where a referrer is used) and your allegations then perhaps you can explain the connection?

[lawman]

You've been log-spammmed, dude. That trick is older than dirt, and I ain't tellin' who invented it.

My being a member at WW is proof that logfile spamming works. ;)

lawman

[Marcia]

>>without mentioning a url

*cough*

Chris, why do you think this thread was posted by our member here, in this particular forum, with that particular thread title?

Let's hear what you think about why. After you - you get to go first!

[Brett_Tabke]

as usual - lets leave the urls out of it. There are atleast 10 of these "experiements" running now, and there is not reason to give them air time.

lol - ya, we ran the same "experiment" 4 - or was it 5 - years ago too. As Lawman said - log spamming erm - experimenting works. Did good data come out of it? Sure did. Some we shared - most we did not. It was a good way to check servers, page sizes and other general page data.

Lots of good reading on experimenting with log file spamming and the eventual data set here in a site search on log file dropping [google.com].

What kind of click back ratio are you getting out of the log files? It used to run as much as 5% when we first started, and then quickly fell off to tenths and then thousands of a percent.

In the end, it is up to the site that got the spidering that makes the determination of whether it is spam or not. We get anywhere from 5 to 100 of these spider spam log drops a day. I don't know any webmaster who wouldn't call the 99.99% of them spam.