Google showing DMOZ title & descriptions

What's up with that?

[Haecceity]

This morning I was surprised to see that in my field on [72.14.207.104,...] Google is showing the DMOZ title and descriptions rather than the real versions for all sites. I'm not at all happy with this. Anyone else seeing this happening?

[legallyBlind]

I see that on few sites of mine but it did not effect placement, at least for now. I almost feel that google has a very old index data mixed with some new data and still changing

[kaled]

This has been Google policy for at least a couple of years.

Kaled.

[tedster]

What I have been seeing for a while is that either your page title OR the dmoz title may be used -- it seems to depend on the specific search query.

[potentialgeek]

I've seen this for the last two days; my dmoz title is also in search results. For this site, it's "Webmaster World" instead of "WebmasterWorld News and Discussion for the Web Professional."

My search engine rankings for a primary keyword are also down two places. When it reverts to the actual title, later in the day, I go up one position from last month.

Is this some kind of a Google dance gone haywire, the "Dmoz Two-Step"?! :/

p/g

[nutsandbolts]

As Kaled said - this has been the norm for a long time.

[balam]

DMOZ description showing instead of meta description? [webmasterworld.com]

[annej]

What I have been seeing for a while is that either your page title OR the dmoz title may be used -- it seems to depend on the specific search query.

That's what I'd noticed until yesterday when I took a new look at DCs. Then I found with the exact same search some DCs were giving the dmoz titles and other were giving my page titles. Morever the two groups of DCs were each serving up different search results.

I think something is starting to happen. But I have no idea which set of DCs will be the final results. And maybe it was just a passing thing. I haven't had time to look at DCs today.

The DCs showing dmoz titles seemed to be showing my meta desc though.

[Haecceity]

<quote>DMOZ description showing instead of meta description?</quote>

What I was seeing what the DMOZ description AND title. I wasn's pleased at having no control over what was displayed. I've sent in changed details to DMOZ, but heavens knows if the editor (if there is one) will accept the changes.

[ichthyous]

I have seen the same thing. Depending on how you type the query you get a different title/description...sometimes DMOZ, sometimes not. I have submitted my changes to DMOZ several times and nothing. It took me almost three years of trying to get another site listed in DMOZ so I won't hold my breath

[stinkfoot]

This sort of thing has happened many times over many years. The manually edited Dmoz descriptions just stink most of the time, worse than my feet in most cases. Google is just trying to tell webmasters ... it doesnt matter what you do .. we can throw a spanner in the works when ever we want to.

Hmmm ... more like dark brown stuff at a fan really than a spanner.

[steveb]

They have been doing this a long time, in no apparent consistent way. Some of the DCs now, especially those out of step with the majority, are often showing the Dmoz stuff. It's unfortunate but it seems clear you can't do anything about it.

[annej]

I've sent in changed details to DMOZ, but heavens knows if the editor (if there is one) will accept the changes.

I did that. It took me 2 years and several letters to get it changed.

[300m]

I sent changes in to DMOZ about 3 months ago and they made the changes about 1.5 months ago. I have always seen DMOZ titles popping in and out of the serps for the longest time. However, since the last unofficial data refresh that I noticed (early March) the Google was showing the updated DMOZ info. This morning on 72.14.207.104 it is showing the old DMOZ information pior to 1.5 months ago. I do not know what significance this has if any, but i did find it sort of odd that I am seeing the old DMOZ listing in comparison to the updated one. I hate to sound like the rollback guy, but its instances like this that cause me to beleive that some data centers are rolling back or using old cache dates after they refresh the index. Is it at all possible that they do this to add to thier index size, then use older cache dates to make sure that everything comes together during the filter and algo tweaking?

It almost makes sense if you read through other posts that discuss supplimental issues showing up again, and other things that were discussed within the past couple of months that seem to have went away, but now have come back?

[Phil_Payne]

> The manually edited Dmoz descriptions just stink most of the time, worse than my feet in most cases.

DMOZ is hopelessly corrupt and overloaded.

I regard it as inconsistent and hypocritical of Google to continue using it in the light of its otherwise consistent policy of doing everything "programmatically" so as to be fair.

DMOZ is not fair. It's based on human whims. I know of at least two SEO specialists who are also DMOZ editors in their spheres.

[Brian]

Can't believe that Google would do this. My take is that somebody deep within the bowels of the company has got nothing much to do, and decided to go fiddle with something.

Of course it's crazy to use the ODP listings. Not only are they years out of date, but in the case of proper names they are reversed. So that, if George Bush was listed as a dentist with a really cool title for his index page, he would appear in the listings as "Bush, George".

I don't get it at all.

[reseller]

Hi Folks

FYI, I have posted about that DMOZ thing. on 24th March 2006:

Google Datacenters Watch 2006-03-21
msg #:94
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