All expired domains in DMOZ not created equal?

[tictoc]

I have been watching some expiring domains and if DMOZ has a system in place for getting rid of the ones expiring I find it very strange that some domains do not get taken out of the directory. Is it because someone who is an editor is bidding on that domain or are their other reasons? I am not sure and hate to jump to conclusions but it does seem strange to me that some expiring domains immediately get taken out of DMOZ and others stay in DMOZ.

I would like to hear what

[pagode]

Although we try to remove all expired domains it is possible that we have missed some. He, we are only humans :-)

If you know of any expired domains that are still listed you can report them. There are 2 possibilities to do so.

1) go to the category the site is listed in and click the "update listing" link at the top of the page. In the reason field tell us the site is expired. Update requests are normaly processed within a few days.

2) go to Resource Zone (seems I am not allowed to either post working urls or the the full text of r-z , you will have to combine "resource - zone dot com" and put the http in front) . In "Quality Control Feedback" you can report situations like this.

We will be thankfull for your efforts to help us keep the directory uptodate.

[tictoc]

Thanks for the quick response.
I figured Dmoz had some type of automated software in place to catch expiring domains...

and if they do I see some sites not being caught (on purpose I would assume)

[hutcheson]

Wow, tictoc, that was one flying broad jump to that conclusion!

I would have expected ANYONE who frequented webmaster forums to understand the shortcomings of automated processes -- after all, how many discussions AREN'T about manipulating Google automatic processes.

Therefore any remaining misunderstanding must be deliberate.

Or, at least, that's the way some people would think.

I don't think.

[tictoc]

I understand the shortcomings of automated processes kind of like when an Ebay ad comes up for a "baby" search in google.

But that does not explain some of the shortcomings you see in Dmoz.

The process could be:
An expired domain database gets sent to dmoz and some names get pulled and others do not... I am wondering how these others slip through. Automated process or not - you still get the same database.

[flicker]

For fairly obvious reasons, we don't provide details about how the processes you're asking about are handled or how best to take advantage of their imperfections. (-:

Bottom line is, expired domains sitting in the ODP are errors. The vast majority of expired sites get removed swiftly, but some annoying exceptions have to be picked out individually by category editors like me. We're trying to get rid of them, so if you yourself happen to be asking for the purest of reasons, we really do appreciate being alerted to sites that have died but are still listed anyway. Gives me that much more time to review stuff. ;-)

[hutcheson]

You can always PM me a few sample expired domains, and tell me the method you used to find them. And then watch what happens.

Neither humans nor automated methods are foolproof, but fools aren't always what they used to be either. So information that can facilitate finding the easy cases, lets us focus more effort on the harder ones.

[hutcheson]

It occurs to me that while you are paranoid, you aren't paranoid enough to move in SERP perp circles. A certifiable webmaster would have accused the ODP editors of leaving the expired domains in, until they could be sold for big bucks ... planning to remove them then.

And this order of events does happen. Now, how much it can be attributed to chance, and how much to deliberate design, is ... well, let's just say doing it by design is obviously a virtuous feature, but extremely difficult to implement universally.

[hutcheson]

I haven't heard anything about expired domains. I can only assume that when you investigated, it turned out they were actually removed.