dmoz fraud

[lots0]

webzcas, regarding your 2nd point...

The thing that makes people think things are fixed is not that you removed YOUR forum after it was shut down.

What does make people believe it's all corrupt is the simple fact that YOUR forum got added to dmoz when it was a new forum with very few posts and established forum sites that have an active community have a hard time getting in or can't get in at all...

See that is the problem people have with the current set up.

Doesn't matter what the truth is, the APPEARANCE is that you and your buddies get preferential treatment and placement in the directory.

The real question is would you be willing to replace one of your sites in the or one of your friends sites in the directory with a 'better' site from some person you did not know?

I should have sucked up to you more. Guess I'll never get a site in there again....

 

[dominique]

I should have sucked up to you more. Guess I'll never get a site in there again....

Lotso, come on, that was totally uncalled for.

 

[Vladi]

Webzcas, I think by what you have posted in this thread and your own sites that you appear to be an honest and ethical guy (girl? / no offence). I like that, as we know ethics are in short supply in this industry.

I have a site that is listed in dmoz myself, and I know for a fact that the importance attached to such a listing is massively overrated. I have attached a screenshot from our analytics account - a whopping 79 visits since January 1 this year. So my conclusion is that for traffic it is almost a non-entity. "SEO!!" I hear everybody scream... all I can say there is that we never noticed any massive uptick in our rankings or traffic. In fact we did not even know we had been listed until 6 months later when another webmaster I know commented on it (we went back through the analytics to get an estimate of when we must have been added and compared). Any SEO benefit is pure conjecture. Its likely to be positive, but nowhere near as important as some people here and elsewhere seem to think it is.

Am I happy to be in there? You bet I am - because I think its a prestige thing. It shows that some people have looked at our site and judged it worthy, which is a nice reward for all the work that we have put into our site. It gives us satisfaction but to be honest, little else that I can tell.

HOWEVER ... I thought dmoz rules were that a site should only have 1 listing in the directory unless there are some exceptional circumstances? I would not call a small forum attached to a website exceptional, but admittedly I am not an editor. You can hardly claim credit for sticking to the rules by removing your forum from the directory when all the time the root domain has been listed there as well in another category, because only one of them should have been there in the first place. It is that sort of thing that makes people cry conflict of interest, and in this case, I think rightly so.

 

[inspiration]

I reposted my point of view again:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Quote:
Quote:
I went to dmoz.org and tried to get a couple sites accepted.... actually I think I did three sites and at least one was listed....

Webscaz

Well that is actually against the guidelines if they were submitted Quote:
I went to dmoz.org and tried to get a couple sites accepted.... actually I think I did three sites and at least one was listed....

Well that is actually against the guidelines if they were submitted A. to the same branch. B. As a rule if you have several sites in one particular field, gambling in this case, only your MAIN site is listable. All others are deemed as unlistable.Here is an article I wrote regards submitting sites to DMOZ, if you are interested.

. As a rule if you have several sites in one particular field, gambling in this case, only your MAIN site is listable. All others are deemed as unlistable.Here is an article I wrote regards submitting sites to DMOZ, if you are interested.


My questions are :

a. If you are the owner of 2 or more gambling sites can you have more than 1 site listed in the same category. E.g. : CM and GoneG same owner.

b. What do you mean by that "main site listing only" if your are a gambling affiliate (I see more than 1 gambling site listed from the same individual).

I would be more appropriate to give others a chance to get listed not only those that have the money to build sites.

I am not bitching here just want to know the rules & want to see fair policy.

IF I was an editor I would never allow someone to have 2 listings in the same category because of the rules. IF my assumption is true there IS a conflict of interest in the example above.

The point that these are sites "one must have seen when interested as a player/webmaster in this particular field" and an exception can be made - are not stated in the guidelines as far as I can see.

You can hardly claim credit for sticking to the rules by removing your forum from the directory when all the time the root domain has been listed there as well in another category, because only one of them should have been there in the first place. It is that sort of thing that makes people cry conflict of interest, and in this case, I think rightly so.

I think another DMOZ editor found out after reading posts here and there, which is good IMO. Discussion with different views is good and educational.

IMO 2 listings for the same url is not appropriate one should have known this before adding the other to DMOZ. If it had been done by another editor one would have to contact hime to correct this mistake which I think took a while for whatever reason that may be.

There are hundreds of good sites out there and duplicate urls are duplicates for visitors.

 

[dominique]

Being reasonable here, I think Casinomeister and Gonegambling were both listed before CM bought Gonegambling just a little while ago. Not sure how often the editors go through and update according to these criteria...

I imagine it's quite time consuming to comb all listings by whois periodically. Editors are volunteers... And I think CM only had GG for a couple weeks now.

 

[lots0]

Lotso, come on, that was totally uncalled for.

I disagree Dom. It was the truth.
If I had any idea that all you had to do to get listed was buddy up with webzcas... Well I would have been nicer to him.

I been kinda hard here, but when a person can't see themselves as 'part of the problem', sometimes it takes a slap to face to wake them up.

It is amazing to me that webzcas (who for the most part is a good guy) can not see the fact that he is a part of the problem.

webzcas is obviously proud about the fact he removed his inactive forum from dmoz, but as myself and others have pointed out, it should not have been listed there in the first place and for more than one reason.I am going to be leaving this business anyway, so I really don't care if I get another site listed in the gambling categories in dmoz or not... Hence my comments in this thread.

 

[inspiration]

I noticed an update in

xxhttp://www.dmoz.org/Games/Gambling/Guides/

There are now 97 listings although the page says update since Dec. 9 - 2009

Someone added (the editor of that category) xxhttp://www.casinos-online.co.uk - jsut a few days ago as the page is cached with 96 listings.

Webzcas why is this your site next to the other OCR xxhttp://www.onlinecasinoreviewer.com ?

This sure looks very suspicious - conflict of interest - to list 2 sites in the same category by the same owner / editor?

???

I read you bought that site just recently thru an auction.

 

[greek39]

DMOZ fraud = Fact

Think that about wraps it up.

greek39

 

[DaftDog]

I noticed an update in

xxxxxdmozorg/Games/Gambling/Guides/

There are now 97 listings although the page says update since Dec. 9 - 2009

Someone added (the editor of that category) xxcasinos-online.co.uk - jsut a few days ago as the page is cached with 96 listings.

Webzcas why is this your site next to the other OCR xxxx.onlinecasinoreviewer.com ?

This sure looks very suspicious - conflict of interest - to list 2 sites in the same category by the same owner / editor?

???

I read you bought that site just recently thru an auction.

I think a lot of people are waiting for an answer to this one.

 

[bonustreak]

Webcaz has been away for the London conventions I think you all know he would not ignore this thread intentionally.

 

[Webzcas]

Calm down people.

I believe there was an overlap of ONE day whereby OCR and Casinos-online.co.uk were listed together. You will see that OCR is no longer listed in DMOZ and has not been for several days now.

Why has Casinos-Online.co.uk been listed? Quite simply it is a far better site than OCR in terms of quality of the content and amount of content already on offer. Also as this site is having content added to it daily, whilst OCR has not been updated for a while, it was an easy decision to make.

As OCR was approved to list as part of my application to become an editor, I made a judgement call and replaced it.

Was this action going against editorial guidelines?

Answer is no I am afraid. As long as the criteria for listing a site is applied objectively and fairly. Which is the case.

Remember no one site is guaranteed a listing for life and that applies to any and all sites.

When I have time in the near future I will also be going through the submission queues, so expect to see some more changes in the Games/Gambling/Guides cats.

Below is the google cache and also the current cat as it is today. This bears out what I have stated above.

Open Directory - Games: Gambling: Guides

Open Directory - Games: Gambling: Guides

 

[DaftDog]

Just for interest sake, why is the last update still showing: "Last update: Wednesday, December 9, 2009 5:47:32 AM EST" ?

 

[Webzcas]

Just for interest sake, why is the last update still showing: Last update: Wednesday, December 9, 2009 5:47:32 AM EST ?

Very good question. With a simple answer.

AOHELL!

Back in July, AOL who own the directory decided to upgrade DMOZ from a flat file structure to a database driven directory, along with many other features, which would drag the directory into the 21st century.

However it has been a nightmare. The editor interface is still not working correctly, all cats display the last update as being back in 2009, when that is not the case. Plus new editor applications were not working for several months after the upgrade.

Bugs are slowly being resolved. But as there are a lot of them and they require a lot of resources in manpower from AOL, this is time consuming.

 

[inspiration]

I have some remarks about you changing sites in DMOZ


Ok I think it is fair to list your site as an editor if it meets all criteria ............. but by replacing your listing with the other website in DMOZ you have the advantage of 2 sites listed in quality directories.

Not only is :

your second site casinos-online.co.uk in

xxhttp://www.dmoz.org/Games/Gambling/Guides/

but :

your first site in onlinecasinoreviewer.com is now in :

xxhttp://www.google.com/Top/Games/Gambling/Guides/

and

xxhttp://www.google.com/Top/Games/Gambling/Chats_and_Forums/


Come on webzcas, you definately know what you are doing with your listings mate.

 

[Webzcas]

Come on webzcas, you definately know what you are doing with your listings mate.

Yep you would be correct, let me explain it to you.

DMOZ has no control of the google directory or any other site that uses the RDF dump provided by DMOZ. Google updates it's directory based on the RDF dump every few months.

On your basis above, no categories should ever be updated, because low and behold, the google directory will be out of sync with the content on DMOZ.

Fact is, when the google directory updates, OCR will be removed from it's listings.

I don't personally care whether anyone believes I am on the level or not. The main thing is, I have disclosed all my site affiliations to the DMOZ Senior Editors, and the action I have taken in delisting OCR and listing Casinos-Online is allowed within the editorial guidelines.

The fact that the about us page on Casinos Online, states I am a DMOZ editor, should show anyone who is in any doubt that I am transparent and open with any and all my site affiliations.

Bottom line is, Casinos Online's content is of a far superior quality and numbers many more pages than OCR. Objectively and with my editor's hat on, it is listable and hence it is listed.

Final point. A listing in DMOZ is not the holy grail of search. Proof of this is the fact that Online Casino Reviewer will still maintain it's top rankings in google.co.uk months after it's DMOZ listing has been removed.

 

[inspiration]

On your basis above, no categories should ever be updated, because low and behold, the google directory will be out of sync with the content on DMOZ.
Fact is, when the google directory updates, OCR will be removed from it's listings.

Ok that sync part was never told to me, my mistake.

I am sorry for being so harsh on you webzcas LOL, sometimes I can be very relentless.

Thanks for explaining all.

 

[Webzcas]

Ok that sync part was never told to me, my mistake.

I am sorry for being so harsh on you webzcas LOL, sometimes I can be very relentless.

Thanks for explaining all.

Not a problem at all, as I have nothing to hide and am happy and willing to answer questions concerning the directory where I am permitted to, based on the guidelines of the directory.

 

[bonustreak]

I know you have to be very busy after LAC thanks for taking the time out to come and address this Dave.