Commercial Vs. Non-Commercial sites in DMOZ

[stcrim]

Does there seem to be a trend toward listing non-commercial sites in DMOZ quickly while commercial sites take much longer?

Or is that just my experience?

-s-

[theseeker]

Speaking as an ODP editor, my observation is that business categories get a lot more submissions, a higher percentage of spam, and have fewer interested editors. So I think the appearance that non-commercial sites get listed faster than commercial sites is just the "nature of the game" rather than a conscious choice of the editors.

[kctipton]

I agree with theseeker.

[skibum]

It's probably much more interesting and rewarding to edit in non-commercial categories due to less spam. Generally, I'd expect a much slower turnaround time in commercial categories.

[hutcheson]

My own impression is that this is not a RECENT trend.

Four years ago, it was obvious that we were already beating Yahoo all hollow on a rapidly expanding set of non-commercial categories, while often lagging behind them on commercial categories. I was speculating that some major portal would allow pay-for-inclusion for their own copy of the ODP, to allow faster inclusion for commercial sites. It hasn't happened to us yet in exactly that form -- although in a way it did to Zeal.

These days the approach seems to be Adsense/Overture-like programs offering ads on directory pages. That doesn't have exactly the same set of advantages, but is easier to manage (tracking changes in the ODP taxonomy is a daunting task.)

[Genie]

That's right. For years Yahoo has given priority to paid review of commercial sites. Dmoz has gone in the other direction - not from any deliberate policy, but as the natural consequence of a volunteer base.

Because editors are volunteers, Dmoz cannot charge for review. Charging commercial sites the earth and ignoring the pile of submissions in the upaid queue would eventually cut down the spam submissions. But then Dmoz would be exactly like Yahoo. What would be the point of two directories exactly alike?

The divergence seems to me a good thing.

[flicker]

I agree with everyone else on this. (-: I think it does depend somewhat on the specific commercial niche, since some attract less spam than others. In particular, commercial sites seem to get listed much more quickly in regional business or shopping categories. Not a lot of spammers spend their time hammering the Business and Economy subcategory of every small town in Minnesota somewhere, so the editors often find the submissions pool valuable and have quite a fast turnaround time there.

[IITian]

A volunteer system like the DMOZ listing commercial sites brings up its own unique problems.

In brick and mortal world most (90%+?) new businesses fail within 5 years. In internet world the figures should be somewhat comparable. However, since the cost of continued internet presence in so low in case of free listings, most failed business sites are not going to shut down therefore getting delisted. In case of directories like Yahoo with their 300 dollars annual review fees there is a much higher chance of businesses being delisted after they have failed. As a result DMOZ might have a higher percentage of "zombie" business sites.

Moreover, in case of for-fee directories since each new listing results in more profits, incentive is to hire more people if the demand for reviews goes up. In case of DMOZ, that is not the case. More editors in commercial categories means fewer editors in non-commercial ones.

[steveb]

Much of the endless bellyaching about DMOZ would disappear if the entire Shopping and some of the Business categories were eliminated. Qualifying businesses could be listed in the Regional branch, where the criteria for listing is more appropriate. This whole idea of "businesses" gets in the way of listing quality web resources on informational topics.

The Directory should alter itself and not give a flying hoot about businesses and just list web resources that illuminate knowledge on topics.

[tschild]

However, since the cost of continued internet presence in so low in case of free listings, most failed business sites are not going to shut down therefore getting delisted

Might be a problem with some sites on free webhosts. My experience in the last years is that even small businesses start their web presence with commercial hosting on their own domain, to be taken seriously, My guess is that for commercial hosting billing cycles of more than a year are rare.

[IITian]

>My guess is that for commercial hosting billing cycles of more than a year are rare.

True, but some of the best-rated web hosting cost less than $100 a year and even offer a few domain pointing. Even in the case that host is used just for the single domain name listed in DMOZ, yearly cost is below $100 and that can be offset to a large extent by placing Adsence, or some other ads or even links to other businesses (mostly for PR gain) for a fee.

On the other hand, if the person is already using at least one domain name for some other purpose, say for a personal site (and it is becoming quite common), the incremental cost of maintaining the domain name listed in DMOZ is just $8 or lower (for yearly domain name renewal) since incremental cost of hosting is 0.

[hutcheson]

>Much of the endless bellyaching about DMOZ would disappear if the entire Shopping and some of the Business categories were eliminated.

This would lose some of the true mom-and-pop fractal-niche small-closet-in-garage microbusinesses that could never afford the fee to get into Yahoo, but offer REALLY unique items: you know, bat house plans, battleship models, handcrafted ceramic kazoos or chiral widgets, Man-eating Mongolian Magnolias and other rare carnivorous plants, etc. The dark corners of Shopping contain some categories that are really fun to edit, as well as offering content that no other directory can match.

An alternative approach would be to implement full geocoding, like Yahoo does, and let Business and Shopping categories piggyback on the excellent work done by the Regional editors. This also has some weaknesses: it is conceivable that a legitimate business have a listable website that nevertheless isn't listable in Regional.

There may not be a good solution: the ODP may never be the one best commercial resource. In the end, an effective internet user has to understand that no human conceptual model can fully express the complexities of the internet, and learn to use all the major models (free directories, classified-ads directories, reference directories, search engines, targetted ads, aggregated product catalogs, archives, uncategorized links) for what each does best.