When Did DMOZ Go Corrupt?
Posted by Carl Thomas / Affiliate Preacher on June 3rd, 2007I would like to know when DMOZ got so corrupt.
My first contact with DMOZ was about five years ago. I have a family website and applied to be the editor for the category because it was taking so long to get approved. I did not complete the process to become an editor but my site was approved and it still sits there.
Years later I created a MySpace layout site and wanted to submit it to the directory. I did not know what category to submit it to so I searched for MySpace Layouts. If you search Google there are almost 24 million results.
But it seems that all those myspace layout sites owners don’t want to be listed:
http://search.dmoz.org/cgi-bin/search?search=myspace+layouts
That’s right. Only four in DMOZ. Though that is three more than when I applied. Unfortunately, I am still not listed and don’t suspect I ever will be.
Then I found out this was endemic.
There are hundreds for desktop wallpaper but only four for myspace layouts. Clearly the desktop wallpaper guy did not know you could make some money by not approving these sites.
Again, only 18 sites on Forex training.
The mortgage editor did not know this was so lucrative because there are a couple thousand mortgage listings: http://xrl.us/wtfd
There are more examples but you get the idea. I know Shoemoney blogged about this earlier this year but still, you gotta wonder when this will be addressed.
Comments(6)
Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 11:03 am
I’m curious to know how you jump from the observation that some topics seem to have a lot more listings than others, to the conclusion that it much be due to editor corruption.
I would suggest to you that the observations can be adequately explained by a combination of chance / randomness and which topics happen to be of interest to the current editors.
For example, you compare desktop wall-papers to myspace layouts. When the ODP (DMOZ) was starting up, there were far fewer websites around than there are today, and myspace hadn’t even been thought of. In terms of things to down-load to jazz up your computer, desktop wall-papers were probably quite high on the list. An interested editor or two probably went around listing all the wallpaper sites they could find. Myspace is a relatively new phenomenon, and I would guess tends to be used by less technically-minded web-savvy people, who are in turn perhaps less likely to be ODP editors. Assuming there are plenty of myspace layout sites out there, it’s probably just that no-one’s decided to volunteer their time to building a category for them yet.
Finally, you do realise that no editor owns a category, don’t you? There are 200+ editors who can edit anywhere they like in the directory — you’d have a hard time bribing all of them without being spotted!
Whether or not you believe it, the meta editors and admins take the integrity of the directory very seriously. The policy on anyone seen offering bribes to editors is a permanent ban on their sites, and any editors accepting bribes will have their accounts terminated. You can report any suspected abuse at: http://report-abuse.dmoz.org/ (but please don’t waste our time if you don’t have any firm evidence to go with your suspicions).
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Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 1:07 am
I have taken your challange. I applied to be an editor a few times in the past but will apply again! We will see if I can make a difference.
I will report how things go
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Tuesday, June 5th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Hi,
I mean… if you had found any really good and unique sites that would fit there, help fill it up. Now that you are on your way to being a volunteer, maybe you can help straighten out some of the areas that you are finding problems in. Good luck. Seriously, I hope Dmoz is not corrupt as you are describing. Maybe they are short staffed. I don’t know. PS. I really like your CAM site blog 
thanks for creating it. Is it listed in Dmoz? You are doing nice work and I enjoy reading your opinions.
I don’t think they are corrupt. I wish you luck on becoming an editor! When you were finding categories with limited listings, why didn’t you make a few suggestions for the category.
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Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
@ Robert, is this the true structure of DMOZ?
Staff – only paid employees – work for AOL/Netscape
Admins – administer the project, approve new metas, editalls
Metas – approve new editors / new categories
Editall/Catmv – can edit anywhere in the directory plus can move categories – annie and I were editall/catmvs
Editall – can edit anywhere in the directory – can not change the directory structure
Cateditall - can edit in an Root/Category ie: http://www.dmoz.org/Business/
Editor – can edit (a) specific category(s) ie: http://www.dmoz.org/Business/Food_an…mes/Tortillas/
So editors can’t actually edit anywhere in the directory.
Still did not hear back on my application.
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Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Don’t sweat it – Dmoz is a waste of time. It carries no special weight, unless one is counting on all the scraper links. I just apply and forget about it. There are many easier ways to get higher-quality links.
As to the question in the blog headline? About when the SEO community started hyping the site.
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