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It's been over 7 months, and my site still has not been listed. I occassionlly post
at resource-zone and the queue for my directory is still over 100?
DMOZ it under staffed and over queued. And after the pub conference, it seems editors are
having problems logging in to edit the directories.
Is there any plans for Google to hold less weight for listings in DMOZ and give more weight to
Yahoo and Looksmart listings?
Maybe the first few applications were not up to par, however the LAST DOZEN I had
other people revise it before I submitted it; and still I got no where.
Not only are they under staffed, but I wouldn't be suprised that there is a little corruption
going on in there. Who is not to say that my competitor is not the editor of the directory I am
applying for - and preventing me from becoming an editor? With that said; I am sure that most
editors are fair in reviewing applications and submissions.
Only if Google purchases DMOZ and establishes some order will things get better. With SEO becoming
more popular, the weight on DMOZ will only get heavier.
Last I checked the ODP had something like 3.6 million listed profiles. While obviously you'd prefer your site to be listed, that doesn't mean the ODP isn't useful to anyone. And, there are areas of the ODP with no backlogs. Unfortunately for you, not where you submitted. :(
Some competitor of yours is keeping you from applying to be the editor of a category about schools in your hometown? It may be easier to blame other people for your lack of effort, but that just leaves you pointlessly complaining seven months later.
Who is not to say that my competitor is not the editor of the directory I am
applying for - and preventing me from becoming an editor?
Editor applications are reviewed by meta-editors, not run-of-the-mill category editors. It's possible that your site remains unlisted because a competitor edits the category, but when such things are caught violating editors get booted. Anyway, your competitor is almost certainly NOT the reason you've been rejected as an editor.
They recommend that you start editing in less desirable corners of the directory & then apply for a second category when you have some more experience. I can't say from personal experience whether it really works, b/c the cat I wanted to edit was quiet enough or low-enough level, or something, that I got right in.
Last I checked the ODP had something like 1 million sites in the unreviewed queue.
My guess is that 3/4 of them wouldn't be listed anyway.
And, of the ones that are listable, most of those wouldn't be the most important and authoratative sites on the topic.
How do you know? If it's like that, we can close the ODP and send all the volounteers home. Because we already have most of the "authoritative sites"...
jan
;) ;)
Nice response
DMOZ tends to be in denial on unreviewed. Standard response is that they are all spam. I have never seen proper assessment of their unreviewed queue publically available.
wouldn't be the most important and authoratative sites on the topic
rfgdxm1, as bull mentioned: you are not considering organizations that will be forming
in the future that would have excellent content to provide in their respective industry.
With DMOZ being so over queued, any new site that has excellent content, more then
the authoritive site for the respective industry, will have to wait probably long line-up
to get that valuable link from DMOZ.
Google should not hold has much value to the DMOZ link as it should the Yahoo link.
Whatever the degree "dmoz" is in denial about the unreviewed, that degree is about one-tenth of the denial the clueless webmasters suffer from when they submit their blatantly non-compliant sites to the directory.
The true denial is something a lot of folks can't handle: to a large degree unreviewed sites exist because no one, including those who submit them, care about them.
Volunteers are self-selecting. Areas that people care about are dealt with. Many areas that no one (or few)truly cares about have backlogs. If no one in the world cares about something, by definition it is not that important.
I really don't care how often the guy down the street cuts his lawn. If he doesn't care or do anything about it, his lawn will overgrow and collect trash. Other people in the neighborhood though get off their butts and cut their lawns, and even offer to help others in the neighborhood too who are making the effort to work on their yards.
But I certainly don't give a hoot about the guy crying in his junk filled yard demanding that other people come over and maintain it for him.
[edited by: steveb at 11:50 am (utc) on May 1, 2003]
Google values DMOZ because it is the best thing of its kind by far. It certainly could be better, but that is up to people with interests in every walk of life to do something about.
There is no crying in directories... or there shouldn't be anyway.
Absolutely correct.
The key point is that it is NOT there for the benefit of webmasters or SEO professionals. It is there to serve Joe Public, and it does it very well.
There are plenty of topics on which an ODP (Google Directory) produces by far the best quality available. Not all, but plenty.
That's its point. That's why Google values it. That's why plenty of other people value it.
The fact that there are unreviewed sites or webmasters (often with their own objectives) who can't get on board is secondary to this.
On a tangent, of those who complain about being rejected for editorship... I wonder how many have not applied to further own ends? We've seen threads on here in which people have openly admitted applying to promote their own sites and having been rejected. Good - the process works.
I'm not saying that applies to everyone rejected, but probably most.
The net result of this though, is verbal abuse for the ODP. I would guess a lot of it (not all) is from owners of sites that have been rightly rejected, or from webmasters who have been been rightly rejected.
The word 'rightly' of course is moot - those webmasters and site owners are bound to think they are in the right. Conseqently they will slander the ODP.
To some degree it is a healthy sign. However, it is a little tiresome after a while.
All in my humblest of opinion of course.
Let's put things straight
1) The backlog does exist. Being nitpicky, I would say that it's not 1 million sites, and last time I checked is more close to 900k, but this isn't that much of a difference, talking about numbers.
1.1) True, a large amount of them is spam, or inacceptable sites per the ODP Guidelines. Difficult to determine a percentage here, since some categories are more targeted by spam, and some others don't: there are no definitive studies on the average percentage of spam submitted, thus we have to rely on personal experience. Working every day in many different categories, and having seen both huge backlogs and empty unreviewed queues, I can say that I happened to delete up to 80% of the submitted sites in some of them (mostly in Adult and Shopping categories), while in others I usually find nothing more than a 10% of the usual attempts to slip in with doorways and mirrrors.
1.2) Many sites sitting in unrevieweds which are not spam are legit sites which are already listed in Topical cats and have been sent by editors, or submitted by the owner/webmaster, for a double-listing in the Regional branch, or for a [language] double-listing in the World branch. Thus, these sites are already present in the ODP, and are just adding up to the unreviewed queue as possible double listings. Here again, it's difficult to determine which is the actual percentage, but a search for multiple listed domain names can show how many of them are listed Topical/Regional or Topical/Regional/Word: if so many are already listed (legit listings) multiple times, it is understandable that at least as many are waiting in unrevieweds. Sure these sites are waiting for a legit listing which will enhance the final users' possibilities to find a different language version, or find a site when browsing by location, but I wouldn't consider them fully unrevieweds (that is, they have at least one listing in a relevant category)
1.3.) I believe that any site which is Guidelines-compliant deserves a listing, no matter how "authoritative" or "important" it is. I might not be enthusiastically interested in a photogallery of Elbonian Widgets, but someone else could, thus from an editorial point of view a non-profit homemade collection of Widget pictures should be weighted the same as the most complete and appealing shopping site of most-wanted diamond widgets. ODP has many legit sites sitting in unrevieweds, and whereas their number isn't really high if we strip out spam and possible legit duplicates (my personal assumption is that we're in the range of a couple hundred K), they're still hidden from the users' view and we don't like it for sure. Software (and hardware) improvements and new features will put editors in a better position to deal with unreviewed spam, which is the main cause for legit sites being buried and waiting months to be listed, thus partially solving this problem in the long run
2) The unrevieweds backlog has nothing to do with whether ODP is an authoritative and comprehensive list of sites. It's comparing apples with pears, two different things.
2.1) ODP has some 4 million sites listed now. No matter how many are the unreviewed sites, it's still the most comprehensive directory around. The term "most comprehensive" means just that: there are no other resources around listing and categorising as many sites as the ODP does, which is probably one of the reasons for it is used by major SEs for their base index, and by hundreds of minor ones. We don't (and we never will) list all the sites around, as well as no Search Engine can claim to be listing all pages currently available on the Web. It's just a matter of numbers and quality: Google or Fast are considered the most comprehensive/authoritative SEs since there are no other SEs having as many documents listed, and offering the same level of relevancy in their search results. Number + quality. ODP is the most comprehensive/authoritative directory since there are no other directories around having as many sites listed and offering the same ontological structure (always evolving and improving) for categorization. Number + quality, here again.
2.2) Efforts are made to keep the listed and categorized sites as much "clean" as possible. Dealing with sites going 404, changing content, and hijacked domains, are top priorities in our attempt to keep the directory an authoritative resource for the final user. Fighting abuse is another top priority: we like to keep the directory "clean", and no matter how many claims are made about abusive behaviour by editors, this is limited to a few cases which are effectively and quickly dealt with thanks to a growing number of meta editors and several new tools easing our job. Also, be waiting for news on this side, since we do listen to good suggestions/needs coming from public discussions. We just take our time to elaborate them.
2.3.) Something that is seldom considered, but has to do with quality and thus with authoritativeness, are the efforts editors put in continuously building up and adapting the ontology of the ODP. Not only there are no other directories around having such a complex and well-thought ontology, but several of the major and minor ones do take hints or ideas from it, when they don't just copy it.
2.4.) Public and editors interface performance is an issue which is out of editors' hands. This doesn't mean that it is not an issue. Whereas AOL isn't very keen in spending money on hardware and new staff, we finaly have new servers, and they will be up and running as soon as the only staff programmer will finish installing/testing/moving/etc. Also, new ODP mirrors will be activated, and eventually they will have their own search, thus limiting the bandwidth and cpu use of Dmoz servers to regular updates of their index. Being ODP a free, non-profit resource, it would be pointless to say that such and such changes could take X days for any corporate website/server. Not only because "any corporate website/server" doesn't have to hold thousands of editors working on such a huge database, thousands of users (hopefully, not that many as other major directories) visiting the public interface, and hundreds of sites fetching live from it, but mainly because ODP is not a company, has less paid staff then any average small company, thus achieving its goals in a different timeframe. If you like, any WBS set up for ODP tasks is different from the same WBS set up for any other company ouside there.
However, as mentioned before, if a new site is launched with more Up TO DATE and more
USEFUL information on a given topic, the fact that it can take up to 12 months to be reviewed
and included is the DMOZ directory is the only reason why I think a DMOZ link should not be valued
as much by Google as it is presently.
It gives a unfair unadvantage to sites already listed; due to the long queue new sites must wait.
It is there to serve Joe Public
Thank you for that detailed, and frank, response to unreviewed and the server problems at DMOZ. It was informative and did not attempt to gloss over the situation.
I does make it easier for non editors to comprehend the position - although no doubt those with sites waiting "n" months for review will still feel aggrieved.
I would accept that you have gone as far as anyone can in answering the question of unreviewed. I posed the point of "in denial" in the first place as it concerns me that posters here try to gloss over the point of unreviewed as if it did not exist or was trivial.
Let us hope that when the new servers are up and running that a number of the grouses expressed here will disappear into the past
Still baffles me why so many posts on DMOZ break down into robotically pro, or rabidly anti DMOZ ;)
Whereas I don't agree with you on the fact that having many legit sites waiting in unrevieweds lowers the overall value of a directory having around 4M already listed ones, I agree with the general point that Joe user would benefit from having an up-to-date and useful site listed as soon as possible in the correct category.
I also agree that probably the main problem is how this value is... valuated. Notice that Dmoz isn't born for, and never pretended to, supply a base criteria for rakning to any downstream user. We just review, describe, and categorize sites, with the aim of building a comprehensive and authotritative resource for Joe user (quantity + quality - with quality having to do with selection, correct/effective description, and ontology applied to categorization).
The fact that some SEs use ODP data for ranking calculation is therefore out of ODP hands (and purposes), and it's also often an overestimation (?) of the use of ODP data. As said multiple times, a link from an ODP category doesn't boost PR and ranking in Google much more than a link from any well-established site. I personally do have sites which are not (and will not be) listed in ODP -- mainly product sites of an already listed company one -- that do well in Google just benefitting from an accurate, on-theme linkage strategy. Also, I keep on finding new sites to add to obscure categories searching in Google and being able to pick up stuff that ranks very well for their target keywords, has a good PR, and has never been listed or submitted to the ODP.
Sure an ODP listing does appear in the index of SEs and directories using ODP data, and in some of them (Google, since after all we're talking about one of the bigger ones) the ODP site description is displayed in SERPs when the listed URL shows up, but this isn't that much a ranking result -- more an additional information used when the ranking of a document has already been determined by the algo and based on many different criteria.
Back to the useful&updated information buried for months issue, of course there's not a definitive solution for this. A somewhat partial solution would be to convince as many webmasters/owners/SEOs as possible to
a) submit sites in the more appropriate category (thus avoinding time wasted by editors attemtping to move the site from one unreviewed queue to another)
b) submit sites with a Guidelines-compliant, informative description (thus enhancing the possibilities to be picked up faster by editors wading through an unrevieved queue looking at the mess sitting there)
c) point editors to spammy/inappropriate listings (where do you find another major directory where the public can interact with editors in an editor-supported Forum?). This doesn't only help in keeping the directory clean public side, but also helps our behind-the-scenes job in detecting and flagging patterns of inappropriate submittals even in the unrevieweds queue
d) apply to become an editor with an upfont, honest application (you can help out even if you are accepted in a category far away from the site you own/promote -- others will help out in that area, or you can prove your capabilituies and move to higher level categories in a few months). Metas reviewing new applications may sometimes appear to apply strict selection criteria, but we prefer to be on the safe side and avoid having to deal with abusive behaviour as much as possible.
Again, doing this doesn't guarantee that good sites won't get buried under the usual load of spam, in particular in a few "competitive" (= spam magnet) areas, but sure will ease editor's job and enhance the possibilities of being noticed and picked up.
Many of the unreviewed are NOT waiting for a listing. A fair number are sites which used to work and now do not, so they got unreviewed rather than deleted outright. Some are sites already listed just fine but the webmaster tried dozens of categories in order to get into one. A large number of listed and unlisted sites are sitting in the "Test" and "Bookmarks" categories for various reasons, and they are included in the overall total which keeps being bandied around here: 1 million unreviewed, 3.8 million reviewed. I've posted elsewhere that the actual rdf-pertinent count is approx. 3.4 million reviewed. Bookmarks holds just under 100K unreviewed sites. Test holds just under 200K unreviewed sites. Now, please, stop saying 1 million unreviewed since those ~300K really don't count, and please stop the hystrionics suggesting that the other 700K or so are all Extremely Unique and Valuable. Nowhere near that many are worth listing (and some, of course, are dead or 404).
Google finds the 3.4 million listings to be useful and free. Do you have a better database for them to use?
You think that typically *most* of the sites in an unreviewed queue at the ODP are authoratative? I'll gather that you haven't seem many ODP unreviewed queues? ;) I didn't say that there were *no* sites that were authoratative in the queue. Only that they are the exception to the rule.
No newbie editor is going to be given a category with 500 listings and 500 unreviewed. Apply to something smaller that you know about (hometown categories are often used as an example) then build that, fix bad entries, write good descriptions, add new entries and THEN you're on the editor career path.
Think of it as like being vetted for a job. You need to prove yourself as an editor, especially if you have a commercial interest in that category.
GoogleGuy has posted himself that an ODP link is NOT valued any more highly than one on any other page on the Internet. The average ODP category has a low Google PageRank, which is diluted by that being divided by a large number of listed sites in the category. Seriously, typically getting a link on cousin Kim's personal home page is more valuable that getting listed in the ODP. Particualy since you should be able to get cousin Kim to link with just the right keyword laden anchor text.
You have editing privileges over around 6000 sites.
Unless I am mistaken, you are basing that premis on the 6,000 sites that you can see the unreviewed queue for, out of 3,800,000 sites in DMOZ.
Surely you mean "that they are the exception to the rule." in those 6000 sites for which you can see the queue ;).
invitation to a meta/editall to state it is true generally
You think that typically *most* of the sites in an unreviewed queue at the ODP are authoratative? You think that typically *most* of the sites in an unreviewed queue at the ODP are authoratative? I'll gather that you haven't seen many ODP unreviewed queues? ;)
My site was recently added 3 times to the ODP (!), two times regional, once in its topic category. Must be one of the exceptions therefore. No, I didn`t see a ODP queue yet. Perhaps you have chosen the wrong category?
jan
>invitation to a meta/editall to state it is true generally
For this not to be generally true would mean that the majority of sites in the queue are "authorative". Note that by "authoratative" I mean more than merely listable, and something like a very comprehensive site on the topic. The vast majority of sites on the web are not authoratative, so I can't imagine the ODP unreviewed queue could be different.
I happened to delete up to 80% of the submitted sites in some of them (mostly in Adult and Shopping categories).
Let me back up the 80% sludge factor for the (formerly) unreviewed in Cash Flow categories. Some category families will always be prone to submissions of such little value they would even make an SEO cry. ;)
-- Rich
