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Other than Dmoz providing the results for the Google directory.
Is Google still using the Dmoz listings in the organic results. i.e. the Dmoz description in the Google algorithm.
Please advise
Also, I don't recall that it was ever true that Googlebot always started with dmoz.org. ODP is the largest web directory extent, which means it would be a logical place to do so, but which also means that Google will find its way there sooner rather than later, and that as a trusted and frequently updated source it would be crawled regularly and deeply according to their algorithm.
I have not seen ODP descriptions in Google search results in some months, nor links to any Google Directory category where a url might be listed.
But the heavy weight that Google gives to DMOZ sites remain. They just hide the DMOZ link references so it is not so obvious. I think the heat they were taking on webmasterworld is the reason they hid the DMOZ references.
I don't wish to hurt any feelings here, but I suspect that the views of WW regulars matter less to Google than the responses of its millions of users.
Search engines overtook directories in popularity several years back. I can see the thinking in the Googleplex. The links featured on the top page of Google should be to the most used Google services. The directory tab was replaced by the link to Froogle.
If the links in the SERPs to the directory weren't being clicked on all that often, I can see why Google would want to save space in the SERPs by removing them too. After all they have the 'Similar pages' link, which does much the same job.
Having removed the links, they would have to stop using the site descriptions in the SERPs as well. Otherwise they could be in breach of the ODP license.
[edited by: Genie at 9:48 pm (utc) on April 21, 2004]
No they haven't. <snip>
>Having removed the links, they would have to stop using the site descriptions in the SERPs as well. Otherwise they could be in breach of the ODP license.
Bull-oney :-)
Google is using DMOZ sites to filter results. <snip>
"things that used to work don't work anymore" No kidding Shirlock! And...a ton of it don't work at all.
[edited by: Marcia at 5:16 am (utc) on April 23, 2004]
[edit reason] Inappropriate, rude comments removed. [/edit]
Having removed the links, they would have to stop using the site descriptions in the SERPs as well. Otherwise they could be in breach of the ODP license
Where did that come from? Not true.
ODP staff did a special deal with Yahoo recently. Yahoo wanted to use ODP site descriptions in its SERPs (for sites not in its own directory). Since the normal on-page attribution would have been impossible, a small acknowledgement elsewhere was agreed instead.
The DMOZ info was a tip-off IMO, that Google probably did not want to be so visible. People can blame it on useabilty or whatever, but it seemed to disappear right after many of us noticed the DMOZ weighting and started talking about it on this forum.
You will also notice that Google implemented an expiring domain penalty which seemed to be targeted at DMOZ listed sites. This was to stop people from buying DMOZ listed expiring domains and using the existing PR (or whatever) to get top placement in Google.
So Google has a way of detecting links made before expiration, which would include a DMOZ link made to the site before it expired. Google would have had to spend a significant amount of time developing and implementing this penalty which would also seem to indicate that Google places a great amount of weight on links, specificlly DMOZ links IMO. Such a great amount of weight that they can not do whatever it is that they do without the expired domain penalty.
People can thumb their noses at me all they want, but in my mind a DMOZ link (if it is current, not before an expiration) is gold for Google, assuming you have not done any really bad sin with your site. I believe that one current DMOZ link would be as good as maybe 500 non-DMOZ links.
The only problem with all this is that most people can not get a DMOZ listing. It's a club that few seem to be invited to.
Google has just been clever and hidden any reference to DMOZ in their organic listings. But the results are still there.
I tend to agree with ILuvSrchEngines. DMOZ is still a powerful player in the Google algorithm and IMO the strongest. Google aside, DMOZ still dominates the Directory world. You only have to look at all the portals/search engines it supplies results to.
What the heck does that mean? My site still carries ranking power. All sites do. But "dmoz" isn't some widget. It's hundreds of thousands of pages, all of which carry different ranking influence than each other, in a way no different than the rest of the pages on the Internet.
I've tested your "mom-and-pop" filter hypothesis, and I reported the results here. It was absolutely trivial, given the tiniest random samples, to find multiple small sites (either mom-and-pop or technologically indistinguishable from them) in any of the four quadrants of the In-ODP/Survived-the-Google-changes Karnaugh map.
I conclude that what's causing your perception is over-reliance on an outmoded over-optimization approach.
Please don't bother to conclude my perception and I won't bother to conclude your perception. But please feel free to conclude your own perception all you want.
<widget>
All things being equal for a certain term, all Google first page results are from the DMOZ directory.
<widget lines>
Well into the second and third pages the folling DMOZ listings will start to show.
<widget agents>
So, for the most valuable of all web terms, the one word phrase, a certain DMOZ catagory exclusively holds the entire first page in Google.
Being fair, the same thing happens in Yahoo for one word phrases, but Yahoo uses the Yahoo directory instead of DMOZ.
Yahoo has yet to do a large scale filter effort into 2 and 3 word phrases (as Google has) at this point but it looks like they may be headed down the same insane path as Google.
A link from Dmoz is no different pagerank-wise than any other link.
There is no "special relationship" that Google gives Dmoz.
That said, Google views Dmoz pages just like they do any other pages on the web. Let's suppose I have an authority site on widgets. A link from me *should* be judged as more of an algorithmic positive than a link from an off-topic site that is not recognized as an authority on any subject. Dmoz pages usually link to quality resources on subjects. Sometimes they blow, and sometimes they should link to more quality sites than they do, but minimally they often link to high quality sites on the topic. A link from such a page should be algorithmically valued, again, just like a link from my widget authority page -- maybe not as much as my widget authority page, but more than an off-topic, non-authority site.
Dmoz links are no different than any other, but that just means that their quality is weighed like any other, and they have a positive value just like a link from my widget site will have to other widget site.
ILuvSrchEngines, I know you are dying for tips from me, but you should just be arguing that Dmoz doesn't deserve being viewed as favorably as it is authority-wise. I'm sure you'll agree that it makes sense for the Dmoz Science page to be looked at more favorably in a science context than some shoe-selling page. It's just the degree that is in question. Most of us think that quality degree should be pretty high. Some folks think it should be lower. But Google is certainly right to be judging all pages on the Internet in terms of their topical quality and judgement.
They look at all pages the same way, but obviously some pages are trusted more than others.
Is their listings in the Yahoo category the cause of them being in the top ten? I'd say no.
Is it helpful? Of course.
Google values that Yahoo category, for good reason.
No, I am not, and never have been 'dying for tips' from you because you keep showing that you know virually nothing on the topics that you jump in on. Why would I want any info from you? Now on the other hand, if I want tips on how to be a Google cheerleader on virtually EVERY single anti-Google thread then I will come ask you for tips.
I'd say yes. If no DMOZ listings are found with that result Google would give top ranking to the next 'expert' (aka directory) page of which Google has defined as the most relevant. This is why many of the characteristics of the Google mom-and-pop/money-word filter seem to indicate that Google is using Hilltop or a form of it. If you are not listed in one of the top ‘expert’ pages (directories) such as DMOZ, Yahoo, LookSmart, etc. you will likely get filtered out completely by the Hilltop like filtering. Google loves directories, but Google is married to DMOZ much the same as Yahoo is married to the Yahoo directory. So Google gives more absolute weight to it's marriage partner DMOZ.
You may be able to get tons of links and brute force your way into the top page of results (without a DMOZ link) for a while, but the Hilltop like algo WILL eventually push you down as it places more directory sites above you in 2, 3 and 4 word money phrases.
They aren't perfect about it, but that is why quality Mom and Pop sites continue to do so well, despite the throngs of piffle peddling, low quality, sell-the-same-widget-as-1000-other-sites out there.
In my industry, I suspect that getting linked from my site makes more of a difference than links from DMOZ. An obscure manufacturer that we had some dealings with shot to the top of some appropriate search terms after we added links, beating out several manufacturers that do have DMOZ links.
But I guess that I'm a Google cheerleader, so I'm an idiot. But then again, I'm the one that is still getting Google traffic.
[edited by: Marcia at 7:54 am (utc) on April 23, 2004]
[edit reason] Formatting. [/edit]
seem to indicate that Google is using Hilltop or a form of it.
Just so we can have something concrete and tangible to measure by, rather than playing Carnac the Mind_Reader, would anyone care to point us to what part of Hilltop specifically makes reference to factors that relate to ODP - or any other directories for that matter?
To answer the original question: it looks like they are not currently showing the description in the SERPs, but we have no way of knowing whether or not it's given any consideration, and if so, how much weight among the 100+ factors used in scoring sites it might possibly carry.
They obviously have access to it, so it might just be one of the criteria taken into consideration when scoring sites for topical relevance for associated keyphrases.
That should about cover it, unless someone has something concrete to add related to the topic or wants to comment on Hilltop and how it relates to this topic.
Hilltop, a Search Engine based on Expert Documents [cs.toronto.edu]
Hmmm.. Krishna Bharat - name sounds familiar. ;)
Perhaps the illustration of the phone company in the days of human operators would be enlightening. AT&T did a little mathematical projection of how many operators would be needed within a few years ... and that number matched the entire female population of the United States (in those sexist times).
DMOZ/ODP is based on a lie. The lie that the job can be done at all.
Any data to back up that concept? Consider when MSN dropped Looksmart.
QUOTE [DANNY SULLIVAN, Editor Search Engine Watch, 10/7/03] Why drop LookSmart? MSN said testing it did at its MSN Search UK site earlier this year found that dropping the listings increased relevancy."The testing was conclusive that the more relevant results were outside the LookSmart listings," [MSN product manager, Karen] Redetzki said. "We're not going to talk publicly about how they [MSN Search UK] measured the relevancy or the methodology, but we did see that the test results showed that the relevancy improved.
BOTTOM LINE: (And, yes, I'll phrase it my way.) Human-edited directories LOWER search quality by being full of out-of-date information. Including dead links. Sites not touched for years. Poor initial description or miscategorization, etc. Google is not stupid .
(2) Yahoo apparently IS that stupid. Yahoo/Overture is, they say, using ODP data. SOURCE OF INFORMATION:
[content.overture.com...]
Yahoo! leverages the Open Directory Project
(ODP) to further improve the user experience
on distribution partner sites. ODP title,
description and category meta data is
used to enhance Yahoo!'s relevant search results.
I HEREBY POSIT THE FOLLOWING "THEORY" BASED ON 1 + 2 {smile}
Google is PHASING OUT the use of DMOZ data
as
Yahoo is PHASING IT IN.
This makes Google (NOW) good. {smile}
and
Yahoo (and all its little search engines, including MSN)
The Evil Search Axis
Later,
MV
(Off to read THE WHOLE HILLTOP ARTICLE
just for fun ... It could shed no light on this {grin})
[edited by: Meta_Vision at 9:06 am (utc) on April 23, 2004]
Steveb has some valid points, but I see from the sites that I promote that DMOZ listings are not normal links.
Yes a good link is a good link but a DMOZ link is an excellent link. NOT only that, IMO the weight that Google gives to a DMOZ link depends on not the category PR but on the depth of the link. For example the deeper the link the more weight Google gives it.
Why, because it is more concentrated/relevant to the search and has little to do with PR.
Regards...jmcc
They use to 'display' the link and description to the Google directory which was based on DMOZ, in their search results.
I am not sure that because they don't display it anymore, that they were or are no longer using it.
Hope this is right
Leo
