DMOZ dropped my sites

[Scooter24]

DMOZ dropped two of my sites (one ranking pretty high in the directory). These sites are still in the Google directory, so they must have been dropped recently.

What can I do?

[Shakil]

were your sites in "ANY" shape or form not following the "specific" category guidelines?

that may be a very good starting point!

Shak

[doc_z]

You should ask the editor of the corresponding category.

[cornwall]

1. Search your soul to satisfy yourself that there is in fact "unique content" in your site. The fact that a site has been there for years is not material, another editor can remove it at any time if it does not match the Guidelines

2. Search your soul to satisfy yourself that there are no (too apparent) affiliate links - another editor may remove a site for this reason.

3. Make sure that there is not a re-organisation of that category going on. A site can be shunted out of a category and into purdah awaiting a return

4. If you are squeaky clean look at who might have edited it out and if it was done correctly. Have a look at all remaining sites in the category, check whois, check interlinks, check affiliates on them. If there is evidence of skulduggary then give the "file" to a meta

5. Check that it has not been moved to another category. Try their site search, but old hands can tell you this is not necessarily up to data, so you have to rely on a hand search

6. If none of the above try emailing an editor, but you chances of getting a reply are not great ;)

[Amras]

When I do a search for my website in the ODP search bar- I get No Open Directory Project results found. But I stumbled upon my site there in an obscure category. I have been thinking I wasn't listed yet because I have always used their search- like they instruct in their guidelines. Is there a lag between when you would find yourself in the category but not in their search database?-did an editor forget to submit all the info? We are still not in Google directory

[gimmster]

Yes there is a delay between listing and being in the search index (normally up to a week) - the search runs on a database created during the RDF creation, there have been problems for the last few months, but it seems to be working weekly again now.

Searching for your url will almost never work in the form www.mysite.com - try searching for mysite.com . Also it is not a site driven search, but a category driven one (the search should point you to categories, moreso than individual sites).

It's up to Google when they take the RDF and recreate their directory, the search engine side of Google does crawl the ODP so the site should be found by googlebot on it's next crawl after the site was added.

[Scooter24]

The categories in which these sites were haven't been reorganised, but it is possible that the editor changed and that the new editor is of the opinion that the sites shouldn't be in the category. How can I check whether the editor has changed?

It's possible that the sites were moved to an obscure directory. I couldn't however find them with ODP search.

[coconutz]

It is possible that your sites were not deleted but rather moved to another category that the editor felt was more appropriate. If they do not have editing privileges for the category it would end up in the unreviewed queue until someone with editing privileges could add it there.

Sending feedback/email to the category editor may or may not get you an answer as very few editors reply to any of the feedback/messages received. If your sites were deleted I doubt that you would get a reply.

[please see charter] If your sites were deleted, I'm sure you'll get a reason why.

[edited by: Laisha at 1:31 am (utc) on Feb. 24, 2003]
[edit reason] please read the charter [/edit]

[Amras]

Thanks Gimmster-I was using www.- its in there

[kwngian]

Cornwall

<4. If you are squeaky clean look at who might have edited it out and if it was done correctly. Have a look at all remaining sites in the category, check whois, check interlinks, check affiliates on them. If there is evidence of skulduggary then give the "file" to a meta >

What does this means? And how do we do that?

Thanks
kwngian

[Napoleon]

>> .. as very few editors reply to any of the feedback/messages received <<

Not sure about that. I have always had replies, and I always reply myself for my small category.

Certainly I would advise you, Scooter, to ask the editor... assuming you genuinely believe that the sites are fine and are best placed in that category.

[Scooter24]

I also enquired elsewhere and the problem seems to stem from the fact that all my sites are under one domain, i.e. I'm guilty of "deeplinking".

Anyway, under current DMOZ policies, deep links are allowed in certain situations. These conditions should apply to my sites.

I'll bring up the matter in resource-zone and see what they tell me.

[cornwall]

Scooter24

Re: Deep Linking

Have a look at this discussion on DeepLinking [webmasterworld.com]

The essence of it is that there is a lot of deeplinking allowed in DMOZ

10,000 URL's are included more than 15 times in dmoz (Data is from RDF dump dated Sept 22nd 2002.)

Whilst they say that you can have a deep link if you offer unique content, my experience is that it depends on the editor - junior editors tend to avoid deeplinks, in case someone thumps them (metophorically speaking)

[cornwall]

If there is evidence of skulduggary then give the "file" to a meta >
What does this means? And how do we do that?

What I am saying, is that if you believe that your site really should not have been removed (or should have been added if you were submitting), then look at whether editor abuse could be the problem.

I am submitting good sites that should, and normally do, go into DMOZ without any problems. If they do not, I examine the editors involved to see if they have an ulterior motive to reject my site.

It does not take a great deal of detective work to check the editor(s) out. You will find invariably one riding shotgun on their "own" slice of the Internet.

If my memory seves me right, there have even been cases of metas (since dismissed) doing that ;)

[Scooter24]

Brief update:

I brought up the matter into DMOZ, pointing to a discussion which took place last October. The general consensus then was that the deep link status of my sites shouldn't prevent them from being listed (unique content in a self-contained structure).

My site has now been reinserted into DMOZ, although two levels lower in the hierarchy.

[Nick_W]

Good to hear Scooter!

Nick