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a) DMOZ is well known, and has lots of backlinks, which pass on PR (or whatever metric is more important than PageRank, when taking into account on-topic PR) to sites listed in its directory, or
b) DMOZ is so large and internally well linked that it is an on-topic authority even if no-one linked to it?
If its (a), then I have a sub-question. Let's say I have a website specialising in an obscure widget-A. As very few, possibly no, sites which link into DMOZ will be about widget-A, then how do those inbound links to DMOZ contribute to DMOZ being useful to my widget-A site.
My reason for asking is that if I have an established site focussed on widget-B with lots of on-topic widget-B inbound links, is there a way I can kind of morph the widget-B topic through to a widget-A topic through a sensible directory structure, and then link to my widget-A website, so that all those widget-B inbound links pass some on-topic value to my widget-A site?
I appreciate that my question may reveal a complete misunderstanding of the mechanisms at work, so hopefully I'll learn something from this post.
DMOZ is not key to ranking well. Let's put that myth to rest.
What would you give as the rationale for its devalued status Martinibuster?
The value of a dmoz listing is overvalued.
Even considering the dmoz clones, a dmoz link is not in itself better than a link from somewhere else, if your criteria for value is a good ranking.
The popularity of dmoz has made it so that in many cats there are way too many websites sitting in there. It's just not worth worrying about anymore.
I understand your more general point about the worth of a link being related to PR and other shared links on the page. But, what if hilltop or local rank are a factor. Would not DMOZ's authority status then come back into play?
WBF
And your evidence for this is...?
The ODP has a combination of size, internal and external links that make it ideal SE fodder. The sheer number of pages (over half million) and stability of links (of over ten million links, scarcely 1% will look bad to a spider at any particular time) together with a natural distribution of keywords, and natural distribution of incoming links, add up to a kind of spider-bait hard to imitate.
Human reputation, good or bad, only affects the external links (except, that is, as it motivates the thousands of people who actually added the millions of links.)
If every editor that ever editied had added two abusive links to the directory, then out of 4 million listed sites there would be a hundred thousand abusive listings, assuming that none had ever 404d or been cleaned up by other editors.
It should be easy to spot many of those, and if you haven't started reporting them then you are a part of the problem yourself. So, don't hide the details of any abuse; report it. Well, actually, you should have done it already, no?
That's a bit off topic.
Nevertheless:
Yesterday I was cherry picking potential link partners out of the DMOZ directory, and had to interrupt my pace no less than four times within ONE cat to report one MLM spam site after another. These sites had ZERO percent reason for inclusion within that one cat.
After the fourth one I quit reporting and quit counting.
I'm not complaining, just giving you a heads up to what I experienced.
I'm not complaining, just giving you a heads up to what I experienced.
Unfortunately, senior dmoz editors are very familiar with that kind of problem.
HINT: Next time hang on to your list of bad URLs and list the whole batch in a single report. ;)
Just go through the logs of some of the most competitive industry directories in DMOZ. You'll see editors removing good sites for no reason and adding spammy sites all the time. No rhyme or reason. In fact there is a category there in the dating section that has had one editor add about 20 sites, all registered to the same guy in the past month. No other sites added but those. And trust me, there are tons of sites in queue over there.
Whether people want to believe it or not, DMOZ has been abused for a long time. It's no suprise that their PR went down a point.
Most do not have access to the logs. If you do and suspect abuse, report it.
There are metas who have created 100's of editor accounts and have about 5,000 of their own sites listed
Totally untrue.
What was he reply you got from DMOZ when you reported this abuse?
As for reporting these people, what good is it when you report something that goes straight to the person you are reporting?
Where ever would you get such a strange idea?
First, the formal abuse reporting system, including logs, is visible to all metas and staff. One guilty meta couldn't hide an accusation against himself -- even by "reviewing" it himself. And you don't get to be a meta by doing something that stupidly self-serving. Besides, staff does review accusations against metas.
Secondly, that you're even accusing a "meta" without access to the logs indicates you're deep in the twilight zone. You may know that hundreds of sites belong to the same party -- and that may be information we want to know about! But you can't know which editor that listed them, and therefore you can't know whether it's a meta or not.
Therefore: if there is a problem with the directory, then you should report it as a problem with the directory. People who are concerned about directory quality (metas and staff) will review it -- and they will have access to the logs that would indicate whether there's a problem with a particular editor, or whether it is an abusive submitter.
The guy doing it has been around forever and has been reported hundreds of times by people. For heaven sake, there are sites about this editor on the web alone and how to get rid of him.
But you are right, DMOZ isn't corrupt.
I'm not trying to discredit DMOZ too much. Just saying that too many people put it on this high pedestal as the be-all of directories on the web. It's like every other human edited directory on the net, prone to abuse. I've just seen the abuse in DMOZ go up a lot over the past few years. It is no suprise Google is starting to devalue the directory.
Judging from all the links editors have to their own sites and the long waits for everyone else, I would say it is pretty clear that editors only join for their own benefit.
Of course once they've learned the speil, they really joined to share their expertise (their own websites) for the benefit of all mankind.
A pretty detailed and specific allegation of corruption has been made here and all the dmoz defenders are silent.
Rubbish.
has been reported hundreds of times by people
You have to be living in another world to be making such a statement.
A pretty detailed and specific allegation of corruption has been made here and all the dmoz defenders are silent.
I'm not certain, but my guess is that the existing procedure for reporting abuse doesn't say "Post to WebmasterWorld and we will investigate the complaint."
Um, you might try the following:
(1) Look up "detailed" and "specific" in your favorite dictionary. I don't think they mean what you think they mean.
(2) When you figure out what "detailed" means, and what "specific" means, then you can move to the next stage, which would be actually reporting the problem to the ODP editors. There are a couple of mechanisms set up for that -- the official abuse reporting system and the ODP Abuse forum.
The "specificity" should consist of actual URLs, and the "details" should include BOTH the problem with them, and the way in which that problem was detected by you.
Mere allegations that some (UNSPECIFIED) sites might be determined to be inappropriate via some process (DETAILS NOT GIVEN) is, I think any rational person would agree, pretty useless as a starting point for an investigation. It makes a good diatribe, though.
We'll see, by your further actions, whether you're more interested in verbal abuse or in constructive information.
Let's face it, most of the editors on ODP aren't their for the fun of it. Everyone has a self-serving reason.
You certainly do make a lot of bold statements without having any way of backing them up.
bears stated a specific directory and a specific website url owned by the editor. he also stated that he reported the abuse through proper channels several times and that hundreds of others had too. He also stated that the abuse report is sent to the abuser, again a big duh.
He is a DMOZ insider, so he can see the queue that you folks all claim is so fairly administered and which he specifically disputed.
So thanks for the patronizing post, but I was looking for comments regarding the website and the owner mentioned, which you didnt bother to do, so never mind.
