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drewwash
Joined: Mar 05, 2001
# Posts: 171
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Posted: 04/12/2005 03:34 pm
Over the past two years the usefulness of DMOZ seems to have declined to almost pointless. Filling out the form to "Add Listing" appears to be about the same filling out a form that simply wastes several minutes of your life.
If you are like me I've submitted several of our sites to the appropriate categories with appropriate titles and descriptions yet in most cases a year or two later the sites are still not listed in the Open Directory.
So the question is if new, quality, relevant sites are never reviewed and added to the directory is it even worth submitting sites with the hope that one of the three dedicated editors will add the site? Or does it come down to the fact that DMOZ is Dead?
I'm curious to read some DMOZ success and horror stories over the past year or two. Does anyone actually get sites listed any more or is it just a necessary waste of time?
I'll start things off with some details about my horror stories in my next post.
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drewwash
Joined: Mar 05, 2001
# Posts: 171
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Posted: 04/12/2005 03:49 pm
As I mentioned I will get going on one in particular horror story that I've experienced with DMOZ.
Over the past two to three years my company has ran a review board that allows users to post ratings and reviews on auto transport companies. The site, at www.Auto-Transport-Reviews.com, has been submitted to DMOZ about every 6 months or so to the /Business/Transportation_and_Logistics/Moving_Services/Auto_Transport/ category.
Of course since I'm a non-editor I have no clue why this site has not been added to the directory. It is a relative site that reaches thousands of visitors each day, yet DMOZ either:
a. Doesn’t find it relevant
b. Has the site black listed for some ridiculous reason
c. Actually hasn't had and editor get to any of the submissions of the site
A. Not Relevant
I could of course make numerous points about how a review board on auto transport companies is relevant to the "Auto Transport" category but I'll avoid going into that since it seems pretty obvious from the title alone.
B. Black Listed
This category, like many others on DMOZ, has been plaqued by corrupt editors. Needless to say a corrupt editor that likely owns an auto transport company would likely not like to see a review board that separates out the good and bad companies added to the auto transport company. I can only assume that an editor that is willing to lie and cheat DMOZ is part of one of the companies that have horrible ratings on the site.
C. NEVER REVIEWED
At the bottom of the page you can see the last update to the category. For the most part the category page is updated about twice a month so I don't believe C is a very good option in this case.
So what options am I missing? I'm forced to think that DMOZ has simply lost its way and is no longer working. I believe that DMOZ is dead.
Thoughts, comments?
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g1smd
Moderator
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10178
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Posted: 04/12/2005 04:06 pm
You haven't read any of the million or so words already posted on this subject have you?
Editors have no set work load.
Subject to permissions, editors edit where they like, when they like, and as often as they like. No one issues commands or targets.
The directory grows by many thousands of sites per week, so someone, somewhere, is doing something. Just not in "your" category, or for "your" site.
There are half a million categories, and 10 000 active logins. You do the math on the average time between edits in an "average" category.
There is no such thing as an average cateogry. they are all different in some way.
Some areas of the directory have spam as 99% of the submissions. So with 1000 suggestions in that one category, an editor might have to look at 990 suggestions before finding something worth listing. In that case their time would be better spent finding new sites for the cateogry by using alternative methods, and ignoring the pile of suggestions; or simply editing somewhere else in the directory.
No-one can "sit" on a suggestion. Even the lowliest of categories has over 200 people who could edit there if they wished, but with half a million other categories vying for their attention then the chances of yours being edited this week are small.
The ODP is not a listing service. No-one is guaranteed a listing. I'm not even sure that anyone is even guaranteed a review.
All sites currently live on the web are eligible for a review and a listing whether or not anyone has actually submitted a suggestion.
If you have submitted a site as a suggestion then there is nothing further to do. Someone may get to it at some time in the future.
As for wasting 3 minutes of your life: you'll get over it.
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drewwash
Joined: Mar 05, 2001
# Posts: 171
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Posted: 04/12/2005 04:29 pm
g1smd -
DMOZ is able to produce some relatively impressive statistics but there are still some major issues, several of which you mentioned in your post.
One issue in particular is the idea that a suggested site might not even be reviewed. Wow. I completely agree that reviewing 990 garbage sites is a waste of far more than 3 minutes. So instead of making some poor volunteer editor spend two hours looking for a diamond in the rough why not make the form to submit a site a little more difficult than filling out three form items? Instead of making an editor waste their time make the submitter waste their time.
- Make them verify one of the graphical codes to keep external programs from filling out the form.
- Make submitters verify their email addresses.
- Add some type of simple spider that verifies the site isn't complete crap.
Does DMOZ attempt to innovate at all? It seems to me that if there is an issue with SPAM they need to do something about it. Sitting back and simply using that as an excuse as to why their directory is not working is not a very good excuse.
As far as the directory growing by thousands of pages each week I'm sure that number is an infinitesimally small percentage of the sites that are added by spiders each week or even the number of relevant non-spam submissions to DMOZ.
My point is simply that if something doesn't work, which I say DMOZ isn't working, than they need to fix it. Simply hiding behind points like, "someone, somewhere, is doing something” is not good enough.
How about having a competition or something to get programmers to write a better submission process? Would that be difficult?
Innovation for a site like DMOZ is easy, they just need to stop doing what they are doing and stop accepting “doing something” as doing something better.
ONE MORE THING
Even if there are a million words written about the issues DMOZ has I don’t believe there is problem with a million more. The fact is that groaning and complaining is the only way anyone knows there is a problem and the only way that anything will change. Are we honestly supposed to settle for the status-quo?
I say complain, groan, write mean things... but also offer suggestions, be creative and lobby for change.
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smogcity2000
Joined: Feb 06, 2004
# Posts: 198
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Posted: 04/12/2005 06:05 pm
You should forget about DMOZ, you don't need them to achieve top ranking at all. The editors are crooked and lazy, it is a worthless directory.
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beth_lk
Insider
Joined: Jun 23, 2004
# Posts: 1068
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Posted: 04/12/2005 06:30 pm
Ok we can post if we disagree or agree about DMOZ - but lets keep it clean and stop the name calling.
Beth 
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smogcity2000
Joined: Feb 06, 2004
# Posts: 198
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Posted: 04/12/2005 06:46 pm
Name calling? It's the truth and it wasn't "dirty" name calling anyway.
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librarian23
Joined: Mar 07, 2005
# Posts: 8
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Posted: 04/12/2005 07:35 pm
"As far as the directory growing by thousands of pages each week I'm sure that number is an infinitesimally small percentage of the sites that are added by spiders each week or even the number of relevant non-spam submissions to DMOZ."
Do you know of any directory that adds more sites than the DMOZ on a weekly basis? If you want a list of all the sites on the Web on a topic, go use Google or another search engine. A human edited directory will never have more than an infinitesimally small numer of listings compared to the Web at large.
That is the nature of a Web directory. It is not to list all the sites on the Web. It is not to list even all the best sites on the Web. In the case of the DMOZ it is to make a directory that end users (searchers) find useful. Good sites can be left out and the final product can still be useful to end users.
But I guess since your site isn't listed DMOZ must be dead. It doesn't matter that thousands of sites are added, edited, or removed weekly. Or that hundreds (thousands?) of other sites copy the listings. Or that librarians like me point patrons to the DMOZ as a trusted staring pointing when doing research. However, your not getting what you want so the whole project must be dying or dead. OK. However, I have read dozens (hundreds?) of posts like this before over the years and DMOZ is still going strong enough to generate complaints from webmasters who think of DMOZ only as a listing service. I bet DMOZ stays strong enough to continue generating these complaints for years to come.
[ Message was edited by: librarian23 04/13/2005 03:12 am ]
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windharp
Joined: Mar 11, 2002
# Posts: 513
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Posted: 04/12/2005 09:49 pm
I wonder what it needs not to be called lazy. Probably more than approx. 4-6 hours taken from your spare time each day, and more on weekends.
(Most likely we are crooked and lazy until we have listed all site suggestions of smogcity, regardless of the quality of their content and the ODP guidelines. After that point we are nice and hard-working.)
librarian: Do us a favour and change the "code" section into a "quote" section, so the system may insert linebreaks.
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drewwash
Joined: Mar 05, 2001
# Posts: 171
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Posted: 04/13/2005 05:48 am
That is the nature of a Web directory. It is not to list all the sites on the Web. It is not to list even all the best sites on the Web. In the case of the DMOZ it is to make a directory that end users (searchers) find useful. Good sites can be left out and the final product can still be useful to end users.
See, why can't it be all these things? Shouldn't DMOZ want to list the best sites on the web? Maybe not all sites but at least the best?
So is DMOZ's time better spent adding sites like "ChefMoz" or "MusicMoz" which in MHO are pretty much pointless... or or they better off adding features that allow the editors to add more sites and the best sites?
Look I'm not approaching this from a SEO point of view. I'm approaching it from the fact that when librarians from around the world send visitors to DMOZ to find an auto transporter they don't find a truly helpful site like the one we've been running for several years. I'm confident that we are not the only quality site that is being left out. So as I asked, should we just say DMOZ is good enough even though "good enough" is likely rather poor?
Also, just so it isn't lost in a thread that is somewhat DMOZ blasting... To the editors that spend their time working with the current DMOZ making the best of a bad situation, I salute you! The web community appreciates what you are doing.
Spending 4 or more hours working on something that doesn't directly benefit yourself is noble. I just think that the 4-6 hours that many editors spend on DMOZ with some better tools would allow them to do 10 times as much work in 4-6 hours. In some ways I think the editors should be upset that DMOZ is wasting their time.
EDIT PS:
Sorry about the edit. I just wanted to mention that there is another directory that adds thousands of sites each week, Yahoo. They of course charge $299 for most of them and the form to add sites is more complicated... but people still add sites. I'd say that the listings on DMOZ are viewed just as many times as Yahoo making it just as and more important to be listed in DMOZ.
So DMOZ can remove the $299 charge and add a form that verifies email addresses, makes the user add this and that and boom... more quality submissions with less the SPAM.
[ Message was edited by: drewwash 04/13/2005 06:08 am ]
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g1smd
Moderator
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10178
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Posted: 04/13/2005 02:09 pm
If you want to get into comparisons of ODP and Yahoo, then you'll see that ODP has a bias towards informational sites, and Yahoo towards business sites.
If you'll get a better result with Yahoo then stump up your cash and ignore the ODP altogether.
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drewwash
Joined: Mar 05, 2001
# Posts: 171
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Posted: 04/13/2005 02:51 pm
If you'll get a better result with Yahoo then stump up your cash and ignore the ODP altogether.
Why so bitter? Are you even reading my posts? I'm for change and improvement. The site that I'm even talking about adding is an informational non-business driven site.
The only reason I even mentioned Yahoo was because librarian23 asked what other directory adds more sites that DMOZ.
The purpose of this thread is to figure out how to raise DMOZ from the grave. Don't get caught up on the mundane sub-plots and details.
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librarian23
Joined: Mar 07, 2005
# Posts: 8
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Posted: 04/13/2005 04:34 pm
The purpose of this thread is to figure out how to raise DMOZ from the grave.
The DMOZ is not in the grave. It is not anywhere close to being dead. I appreciate your stated desire to attempt to improve DMOZ but you will have no success when you start with incorrect assumption that the DMOZ is dead. Not only is this inaccurate but it appears as though you are yet just another webmaster on an anti-DMOZ rant. The problems with being flooded with submissions (the few good ones and the ton of spam) is occuring because of the success of DMOZ. If it was a dead directory, those submissiong wouldn't be pouring in and you wouldn't care that you are not listed...
I believe your are interested in improving DMOZ. Great. Keep a posive attitude, don't make inaccurate statements on the health of DMOZ, and go on over the DMOZ Resource Zone and in the General ODP Forum start a thread with your suggestions. Or, take the time to apply to be an editor, edit for a while to see how things work, and maybe start a dialogue internally on how to make improvements. You may discover that things work differently than you imagine.
Maybe you should also consider starting your own directory. Make it open, allow others to volunteer to edit, and give the database away. After a few years, you may be successful and everyone will aspire to be listed in your directory. You can, by example, show the world your idea of how an "alive" directory should be.
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cbp
Joined: Dec 25, 2003
# Posts: 181
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Posted: 04/13/2005 10:51 pm
hmmmm...DMOZ in the grave?
1. In March, DMOZ increasd in size by 24 399 sites - what other diectory came remotely close to that?
2. At start of April, DMOZ had 4 556 169 sites listed - what other directory comes remotely close to that?
Rather than dead, that makes DMOZ the most alive, biggest, fastest growing directory...
I just wanted to mention that there is another directory that adds thousands of sites each week, Yahoo
No they don't - in the last 7 days, Yahoo added 1523 sites to the directory - a fraction of what DMOZ does.
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collusion
Joined: Nov 10, 2004
# Posts: 3
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Posted: 04/17/2005 06:57 pm
And there is cbp DMOZ DEFENDER. cbp, why are you here and ummmmm everywhere else defending DMOZ all the time. Why don't you instead, go and do some work indexing sites. If you spent as much time "working" at DMOZ as you do defending them, there wouldn't be as much congestion on the amount of sites in queue. Same goes for the rest of the DMOZ editors hanging around in forums. I have personally argued with cbp for the past I don't know how long at WebProWorld and somehow, being that he is a Mod my posts or entire threads got deleted. I started my own Forum where no DMOZ editor can touch my posts because it has gotten so bad. Please, go do some work man!
[ Message was edited by: bhartzer 05/16/2005 11:44 am ]
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Prowler
Moderator
Joined: Aug 14, 2000
# Posts: 1705
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Posted: 04/18/2005 06:59 am
>>Is DMOZ Dead ?
It has over 4 million sites,67,816 editors and over 590,000 categories. I am not in anyway connected to DMOZ. But in all these years, I have managed to list several dozen sites in DMOZ within a time span of less than 6 months in each case.
It pays to follow their guidelines to the last letter and as in all things in life, a little patience and courtesy helps you to see things in proper perspective.
Running a directory one millionth the size of DMOZ is no fun. The amount of spam and repetitive submissions can make any determined hardworking editor dizzy.
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g1smd
Moderator
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10178
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Posted: 04/18/2005 12:20 pm
>> 67,816 editors
That's a myth. That is the total number of editors that have ever contributed.
The number of active log-ins is about 8 to 10 thousand at any time (active means logged in and done one edit within the last 4 months).
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macdesign
Joined: Sep 13, 2004
# Posts: 25
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Posted: 05/02/2005 10:07 pm
I looked at the forum link from collusion. There seems to be a lot of threads being deleted there also, since there are only three left.
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collusion
Joined: Nov 10, 2004
# Posts: 3
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Posted: 05/15/2005 09:22 pm
No MacDesign that is a new forum that is why there are only a few threads there. I will not allow threads to be deleted on my forum without very good reason.
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