Nobody is searching in DMOZ

I understand Glippitt. I can imagine that it might be frustrating for an editor to spend hours on an directory that is hardly used.

I honestly can not remember the last time I did I search in DMOZ, if I were to take a wild guess it must have been more than a year ago, and I am a person with a special interest in web searching. And as a webmaster and former consultant I have and have had access to a lot of web referer statistics, across the board traffic from DMOZ, including the thousands of sites that mirror whole and parts of the directory normally would account for just a fraction of a percent of the total traffic. I guess there must be some exceptions to this rule. I would assume that sites listed in DMOZ categories that are ranked well in search engines like Google might get some traffic from DMOZ, but this would just be indirect search engine traffic.

The DMOZ search results are both good and bad

DMOZ does list some nice resources for single word searches like Cake, but is the results better than the results for the same search in Google or Wikipedia, perhaps they are? However normal searchers do not use single word search phrases all that often. Back in 2004 most searchers used two and three word search phrases, and there is no reason to believe that that has changed. So let us compare the three for the search Birthday cake: DMOZ, Google, Wikipedia and Birthday cake recepies: DMOZ, , Wikipedia. Are the DMOZ results better? In my opinion they are not bad, atleast better than the Wikipedia results, but not nearly as useful as Google.

So where is it DMOZ fails? They do not correct misspellings, take the search for birtday cake and compare it to the same Google search. And if the unlucky searcher where to search for how to make a birthday cake, he or she would get no results compared to the 4.1 million results in Google. And for common local searches like carpenter in Miami DMOZ only return a single irrelevent result, again compare this to Google.

DMOZ still affects Google and other places people actually search

The huge benefit for a webmaster to have his or hers site listed in DMOZ is the massive amount of links that are generated from a single DMOZ listing. Even though few searches are using DMOZ and the huge number of DMOZ mirrors these sites are still crawled by Google and other search engines, the search engines find the links and are using them to boost the search rankings of the sites listed in the directory.

Power in the hands of anonymous editors

It would not be a bad thing that DMOZ affects the results in Google if DMOZ was a superb quality resource and if few or none of the editors abused the power they have to list and deny listing of links on the thousands of sites that are using DMOZ data. Even though the value of a link from DMOZ in terms of Google rankings has decreased over the years due to changes in Google’s ranking algorithm, it is still reasonable to question the power of these editors.

Anyone with a valid e-mail address can apply to become a DMOZ editor, there are no background checks, and nobody can know the true motive of a new editor. Once accepted the editor can pretty much do as she or he likes in the part of the directory that they edit. They have the power to list sites that they are affiliated with and avoid listing sites that are competing with the sites they are affiliated with. And since there are no transparency of the selection process and since nobody knows who hides behind an editor nickname it is very hard to uncover and to prove abuse of editor power. Historically bribing DMOZ editors eighter directly or indirectly was often the only way to get listed in certain parts of the directory, I am not sure if that has changed in the last 18 months, but I some how doubt it.

A future for DMOZ?

The editor community are working on improving the directory. Two of these projects are “Project 27″ which aims to change the directory model and introduce tagging and DMOZ v.2 which is currently in beta.

It is good that they are prepared to change this dinosaur of a directory, but I fear that it will not be enough. What really could change the directory into something that would be used by real people was if they adopted an editor model similar to the Wikipedia editor model, or if they went ahead and got rid of the whole editor community and replaced them with professional editors.

It would also be useful for the searcher if the directory also presented data from other sources whenever appropriate, atleast when the DMOZ data alone can not provide a good user experience.

Ok, this was my first blog post in 14 months. But that does not mean that I will start blogging again. Then again I might.

I wish I had some screen capture software.

• The first page contains the entire 1991-1982 series.
• The page you are viewing contains the 1991-1992 and 1995 specials and the Postman Pat theme song in languages other than English.

Please leave comments and feedback in the comment form at the bottom of this page.

The videos clips are provided by YouTube, issues and questions regarding the clips should directed to YouTube.

Menu

1. Series 1: 1981-1982
   1. Pat’s Finding Day
   2. Pat And The Magpie Hen
   3. Pat’s Birthday
   4. Pat’s Rainy Day
   5. The Sheep In The Clover Field
   6. Pat’s Tractor Express
   7. Pat’s Thirsty Day
   8. Pat’s Windy Day
   9. Pat’s Foggy Day
   10. Pat’s Difficult Day
   11. Pat Goes Sledging
   12. Letters On Ice
   13. Pat Takes A Message
2. Postman Pat: 1991-1992 Specials
   1. Postman Pat Takes The Bus
   2. Postman Pat And The Toy Soldiers
3. Postman Pat: 1995 Specials
   1. Postman Pat And The Tuba
   2. Postman Pat And The Barometer
4. The Postman Pat Theme song in other languages
   1. Danish
   2. Finnish
   3. Italian
   4. Polish
   5. Portuguese
   6. Norwegian

1991-1992 Specials (back to top)

1. Postman Pat Takes The Bus (back to top)
   Part one:
   
   Part two:
   
   Part three:
   
2. Postman Pat And The Toy Soldiers (back to top)
   Part one:
   
   Part two:
   
   Part three:
   

1995 Specials (back to top)

1. Postman Pat And The Tuba (back to top)
   Part one:
   
   Part two:
   
   Part three:
   
2. Postman Pat And The Barometer (back to top)
   Part one:
   
   Part two:
   
   Part three:
   

The Postman Pat theme song in other languages (back to top)

1. Danish (Postmand Per):
   
2. Finnish (Postimies Pate): (back to top)
   
3. back to top)
   

4. Polish (Listonosz Pat): (back to top)
   
5. Portuguese (O Carteiro Paulo): (back to top)
   
6. Norwegian (Postmann Pat): (back to top)
   

• The page you are viewing now contains the entire 1991-1982 series.
• The second pagecontains the 1991-1992 and 1995 specials and the Postman Pat theme song in languages other than English.

Please leave comments and feedback in the comment form at the bottom of this page.

The videos clips are provided by YouTube, issues and questions regarding the clips should directed to YouTube.

Menu

1. Series 1: 1981-1982
   1. Pat’s Finding Day
   2. Pat And The Magpie Hen
   3. Pat’s Birthday
   4. Pat’s Rainy Day
   5. The Sheep In The Clover Field
   6. Pat’s Tractor Express
   7. Pat’s Thirsty Day
   8. Pat’s Windy Day
   9. Pat’s Foggy Day
   10. Pat’s Difficult Day
   11. Pat Goes Sledging
   12. Letters On Ice
   13. Pat Takes A Message
2. Postman Pat: 1991-1992 Specials
   1. Postman Pat Takes The Bus
   2. Postman Pat And The Toy Soldiers
3. Postman Pat: 1995 Specials
   1. Postman Pat And The Tuba
   2. Postman Pat And The Barometer
4. The Postman Pat Theme song in other languages
   1. Danish
   2. Finnish
   3. Italian
   4. Polish
   5. Portuguese
   6. Norwegian

Series 1: 1981-1982 (back to top)

1. Pat’s Finding Day: (back to top)
   Part one:
   
   Part two:
   
2. Pat And The Magpie Hen: (back to top)
   Part one:
   
   Part two
   
3. Pat’s Birthday: (back to top)
   Part one:
   
   Part two
   
4. Pat’s Rainy Day: (back to top)
   Part one:
   
   Part two
   
5. The Sheep In The Clover Field: (back to top)
   Part one:
   
   Part two
   
6. Pat’s Tractor Express: (back to top)
   Part one:
   Part two
   
7. Pat’s Thirsty Day (back to top)
   Part one:
   
   Part two
   
8. Pat’s Windy Day: (back to top)
   Part one:
   
   Part two
   
9. Pat’s Foggy Day: (back to top)
   Part one:
   
   Part two
   
10. Pat’s Difficult Day: (back to top)
    Part one:
    
    Part two
    
11. Pat Goes Sledging: (back to top)
    Part one:
    
    Part two
    
12. Letters On Ice: (back to top)
    Part one:
    
    Part two
    
13. Pat Takes A Message: (back to top)
    Part one:
    
    Part two
    

From time to time there is a bogus story going hot on social bookmarking sites like Digg or Sphinn. I this post I will look at the factors that might have played in getting one phony story that got to the Sphinn front page.

The story in question is: Google to punish PageRank for Digg stories?

1. It was submitted by a well know user: DazzlinDonna is a well known user, and most of the stories she submit goes hot. When I see a story submitted by her, I often Sphinn it before thinking twice. I guess some Sphinn users are like me. It might have played in that she got a lot of friends and followers
2. The story is about Google: Sphinn users like stories about Google, especially those who are sort of negative
3. The story was unknown: It is more noteworthy when a Sphinn submission is about something new, like a new Google penalty. A story about writing press releases on the other hand don’t get that much attention
4. It is about social bookmarking: Not only that it is about gaming social bookmarking something that many Sphinn users do on a daily basis.
5. The referenced blog post looked credible: It named one Google engineer, and it had a quote that was supposed to be from the Google research blog.

It took a while, but some Sphinn users started to doubt the story, since:

• the story was absolutely unverifiable.
• the Google engineer referenced had a different job description.
• the Google research blog doesn’t cover that topic matter.
• Matt Cutts posted a comment saying that this was fake.

A few blogs around the world picked up this fake story and presented is as real:

• SEOcial by mj
• ChicaSEO
• FireTown
• SEO Satellite
• TagliaBlog
• Heute Frisch

So what is the lesson to be learnt here?

I am not sure. Please post your suggestion in the comments.

Update:This post has been submitted to Sphinn. And several members have commented on this issue.

My comments of the main points:

1. Be talented: King claims that if you can write for money you got talent, I agree.
2. Be neat:
3. Be self-critical: I agree, only God is perfect.
4. Remove every extraneous word: I wish bloggers would do this. A lot of the blogs I read frequently had posts that are very wordy. No need to spend 2500 word expressing an idea that could be described in 300 words.
5. Never look at a reference book while doing a first draft: It makes sense, it is best to say what you have to say and then edit it?
6. Know the markets: If you are writing for an audience then this is vital.
7. Write to entertain:“your serious ideas must always serve your story, not the other way around”
8. Ask yourself frequently, “Am I having fun?”
9. How to evaluate criticism:
   • “if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with you piece, it is”
   • if everyone is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say
10. Observe all rules for proper submission
11. An agent? Forget it.
12. If it’s bad, kill it

Other who has blogged about this:

• Jimeno Arroyo
  Actually some very good comments here, better read this first
• Becky Mushko
  This blogpost also got links to writing advice from John Scalzi:
  • Utterly Useless Writing Advice
  • Even More Long-Winded (But Practical) Writing Advice
  • 10 Things Teenage Writers Should Know About Writing

I use Twitter which is a microblogging platform. You can follow me there if you are a Twitter user or by subscribing to my Twitter feed.

My Twitter feed has the following URL: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/7979342.atom

My Twitter profile has the follwing URL: http://twitter.com/Sorvoja

Here are the list of the persons that follows me at Twitter that I find worthwhile to follow back:

Twitters in English

• Barry Welford (Twitter feed) (Web site: The Other Bloke’s blog)
• Michael VanDeMar (Twitter feed) (Web site: Smackdown)
• Donna Fontenot (Twitter Feed) (Website: DazzlinDonna)
• Ruud Hein (Twitter feed) (Website: Ruud Hein)
• Josh Cohen (Twitter feed) (Website: Pocket SEO)
• Scott Milsom (Twitter feed) (Website: Reach Santa )
• Ben Cook (Twitter feed) (Website: Skitzzo.com )
• Kim Krause Berg (Twitter feed) (Website: CRE8PC )
• Reuben Yau (Twitter feed) (Website: Reuben Yau)
• Andrew Long
  (Twitter feed) (Website: Social Space Station)
• Justin Rains (Twitter Feed) (Website:Justin Rains)
• Pierre Far (Twitter Feed) (Website:Ekstreme.com)
• Roni Hercz (Twitter Feed) (Website:Roni Hercz)
• Nick Christensen (Twitter Feed) (Website:Social Media Trader)
• Elizabeth Able (Twitter Feed) (Website:AbleReach)
• Tom Goering (Twitter Feed) (Website:Navy CyberSpace)

Twittering in languages other than English

• Arnstein Larsen (Twitter Feed) (Website:Arnsteinblogg)

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Right now they have more than 40 merchant programs, mostly fashion merchants, but also some others including several well known brands. I feel that it is good that they have so many programs right from the start, it might just be the right critical mass to get the network successfully out of the starting gate.

The first thing that strikes me is that they have about 50 merchant programs. They’re mostly fashion and apparel merchants with a mix of others including many well known brands. It’s an impressive number of merchants to launch with. The last network that launched in the US started with one or two, if I recall. And that didn’t get them very far.

There are five features that makes me happy as an affiliate:

• Real time reporting! If you intend to drive traffic though Pay Per Click advertising then it is nice to be able to tweak without factoring in delays.
• Product feeds. Nothing makes it easier to set up a site faster.
• It is simple to create deep links. It is nice to be able to create those with out using an interface.
• Superb support. It is a hard claim given the network is new, but it has the potential.
• And most importantly the interface is the best I have seen. I was never in doubt on where to click to get things done.

As of now Pepperjam is a US only network, that does not mean that you can’t sign up if you are located outside the US, but all of the programs as far as I can tell are for the US market.

Some merchants I find interesting:

• SEOmoz - A well know SEO/SEM company pays 50$ per lead!
• English Laundry - A fashion store pays 10% per sale.
• Pepperjam - They pay $5 for each lead.
• Dog the bounty hunter - The crazy redneck bounty hunter you know from TV pays 6% per lead.

All in all I find Pepperjam to be interesting and worth a closer look. I am getting paid to write this blog post, however I would have written the same blog-post even if I had not gotten paid.

To be honest I have not taken the time to look into the new dmoz resource zone, it might be good or it might not be that good. And the DMOZ editor that tipped me off claims that they only got two DMOZ editors among their admins and moderators. The name might be a problem though, www.dmoz-resources.com, is clearly abusing the rights of both the DMOZ trademark and the better known resource zone forum. If it had not been for the fact that DMOZ is a very low priority project for AOL, it would have been very easy to legally stop this new forum.

It is a problem that the original resource zone forum, is failing to provide the webmasters with the information they actually want and need. It seems like it is more a forum for DMOZ zealots than a forum for the public, perhaps the new forum is different?