DMOZ Blog

A lot of our blog posts are dedicated to exploring the internal workings of the directory or the way in which DMOZ grows, but we don't often talk about how the data is used once it's included in the directory. While the stand-alone DMOZ directory is an excellent resource, many of the information-seekers who benefit from directory content come into contact with it through third-party sites that use the data.

You may have heard DMOZ called by another name – the Open Directory Project, or ODP. This is where the "Open" comes in. The DMOZ license agreement states that users may download the RDF – in other words, the entire contents of the directory – and use some or all of it on their sites free of charge. Many sites both large and small incorporate data compiled by our dedicated corps of volunteer editors. The best-known example of this may be the Google Directory which applies Google's propriety PageRank data to DMOZ results. In other cases, site owners use a small portion of the data relevant to their own regions, localities or lines of business.

In exchange for use of the data, site owners agree to include an attribution badge to ensure that the editors get credit for the work they do to build and maintain the directory. The badge is also important in that it allows interested users to learn more about the project and, potentially, to decide to join us as editors to help it grow. There are some fairly common questions about how and when the badge must be displayed. Examples include:

1. I am only using a very small portion of the data – just one category, or even just a few links. Do I have to display the badge?
Yes. You may use all or part of the directory data on your site, but any quantity of ODP data (large or small) you select must be acknowledged with the badge.

2. I am including my own data in addition to DMOZ data. Do I have to display the badge?
Yes. The license's badging requirement also applies to any derivative works created by end users.

3. I run my own directory and accept my own site submissions in addition to the DMOZ-listed sites. Do I have to display the badge?
Yes. The rules here are the same as with any other derivative work.

4. Are there any circumstances in which I can use data and not display the badge?
The short answer is no. Any use of DMOZ data must be acknowledged in accordance with the license.

Sites that do not display the badge are in violation of the license agreement. Site owners may be contacted by DMOZ and asked to make the appropriate updates in order to comply.

You can read more about the DMOZ license requirements here and download a code snippet to add the badge to your site here.

Hi everyone!

At DMOZ, we get tons of questions about what editor abuse actually is and how to spot it. In this post, meta editor jensarentoft has provided a very useful primer on the signs and symptoms of abuse, and what to do if you suspect it.

Emily

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The ODP Editor Guidelines explain the different types of abuse. Examples of abuse that are not tolerated - and may result in account removal - include, but are not limited to:

Editorial abuse
Manipulating or deleting submissions and listings of competitors.
Adding inappropriate sites or adding sites in inappropriate categories.
Repeated and egregiously poor editing, despite feedback and/or a dashboard warning.

Self-promotion
Cooling your own site or affiliated sites.
Title or description manipulation.
Adding/promoting only one's own sites or affiliated sites.
Creating vanity categories to showcase one's own sites or affiliated sites.

Other violations
Accepting or soliciting bribes in exchange for listing.
Uncivil and intentionally disruptive behavior.
Violating the confidentiality of the forums, editor notes etc.
Concealing affiliations.
Spamming the directory.
One ODP editor having more than one account or sharing the account with others.

Is it abusive for editors to list their own sites?
Editors are allowed to list their own site(s) or affiliated sites provided that their sites meet all listing criteria and that they also list other sites. There is no official number for how many other sites the editor must list to stay clear of self-promotion. Editall+ editors are allowed to list their own sites in appropriate categories all over the directory, and that is no problem because they usually have listed thousands of other sites.

Editors are only allowed to list their site(s) in the category in which they have active editor permissions, and only if the site is appropriate for the category. Asking other editors to list a site in a category is considered self-promotion and is not allowed. Instead, editors must suggest their sites to other categories just like non-editors.

When are editing privileges removed?
Editors can learn about how to prevent abuse by using guidelines, reading editor forums, and receiving feedback from senior editors. In serious matters, they may receive dashboard warnings. Metas, Catmods and Admins make every effort to keep editors on track and make them feel good about being part of this international online community.

Some cases of abuse are very clear. Any editor who accepts bribes or deletes competitors´ sites will find that his or her time as an editor is running out.

In many cases, however, a warning is issued to an editor before removal. This helps to ensure that an editing transgression is truly due to abuse and is not simply the result of gaps in an individual editor's understanding of the category or listing guidelines. It is important to note that there is a difference between poor editing or honest editorial mistakes and editor abuse, and it isn't always apparent which has occurred to people looking from the outside; however, some practices that are visible to the public are good indicators of abuse and we'd like to know about those. A list of these can be found in the "Report Abuse" section below.

Removing editing privileges must be supported by at least five Meta editors and is used only if nothing else works.

How is abuse found?
Abuse is found in various ways and not only from abuse reports submitted by the public or by editors. One of the tasks of the Meta editors is fighting abuse, and

For site suggestors, one of the most important (and sometimes confusing) parts about submitting is determining whether a site's content is unique by ODP standards. For this post, editor crowbar has prepared some tips and examples to help clarify.

Emily

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You'll often hear us referring to the "unique content" of a site as being one of our main focuses in considering whether a site should be added to the Directory or not. Unique content is both simple and complicated to explain because what we are talking about and looking for pertains to the category itself, and with over 590,000 categories in the Directory, it means we could have 590,000 versions, each of them different.

As it states in the Guidelines we follow:
"Consider the relative value of a resource in comparison to other information resources available on your particular topic. Relative value refers not only to the quality of the site, but also to its ability to contribute important, unique information on a topic.

In general, ODP editors should enter sites that represent the following:

DMOZ provides a wealth of local and regional resources to users in towns large and small across the US and around the world. In this post, editor crowbar talks about the experience of building out these local categories.

Emily

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One of the more rewarding tasks of editing in the Regional section of the Directory is to find a small locality (city) with only a few listings, and to put it on the Internet map by hunting down every possible site that exists for it and listing those that meet our selection criteria <link to: http://www.dmoz.org/guidelines/include.html> and fits the locality. Depending on the size of the city, it can either be quite rewarding, or quite challenging, but in either case, very important to the people who live there.

My personal view is that every small town deserves to be represented on the web, and this is my attempt to make the Directory and its editors a little more transparent about what it is we do.

As a country level editor, it's like looking at a road map of the whole United States, and each editing session is like throwing a dart at the map, wherever it lands is where I'll be working.

A small city of 15,000 – 20,000 population with only 4 or 5 sites listed would be ideal. My very first category was like that. So where do I start? There are no public suggestions waiting in this one. The first thing I want to look for is the local Chamber of Commerce which usually has a good list of business, charity, and government sites and can be a real goldmine for an editor.

Then on each one of those sites, I always look for links to other local sites, I'm building quite a large spider web of sites, and it becomes like a scavenger hunt, with one site leading to more sites. The Directory has a standard list of topical sub categories that can be used for each city, such as this one for Tampa, Florida:
http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/Florida/Local ities/T/Tampa/ . These include everything from education resources to transportation companies to local news sites.

An editor will normally only create these subcategories when he/she has 3 to 5 sites to put in each of them. What the editor is doing is building a category of entities that are located in this city. Most sites in Regional will be placed at this city (locality) level, not at the County, Region, or State levels.

Next, I'm going to look for educational sites, churches, website builders, real estate sites, and look for more links on them. If I get real desperate, I'll Google some of the zip codes I find on the sites or the first six digits of telephone numbers, both will pop up sites that exist in that area.

Now, I'll take a look at the sites at the County, Region, and State levels. They will sometimes lead me to other sites located in this locality, and I can also search the rest of the Directory. Many times there will be sites listed in a Topical category that can also be listed in the locality.

If an editor lives in the area, checking the local yellow pages of the phone book can yield a lot of sites, or the ads in local newspapers. It becomes so engrossing that a couple of hours can fly by before you know it, but the real reward is seeing a couple hundred new sites listed in all the proper subcategories. You have built something for that city and given them an equal presence on the Internet where they can compete, and they will never know it was you who did it.

The editor will never get a thank you for it, and none is expected, we do it for our own satisfaction. I suppose it's like putting a puzzle together, nobody really cares, but it was fun to do. This is just one activity, in one part of the Directory. Each area of the Directory is a little different to edit in and has its own specific guidelines, and there are many different tasks that an editor can choose to do in each editing session.

I think it's this freedom of choice and the trust that's placed in us as well as the satisfaction of building something worthwhile that keeps us at it. I hope I've given you some insight into what it is we really do inside the Directory.

We occasionally get questions from site owners and directory users who have noticed that previously-listed sites are no longer available in DMOZ. There are three primary reasons that sites might be removed, some temporary and some permanent. The list below explains these in detail.

The site was down when our automated tools scanned it.
Editors use a number of automated tools to help to keep the directory up-to-date. Occasionally a site is down when a tool checks the contents of a category. The first time this happens, the tool will flag the site but leave the directory listing intact. If the site is down again when the tool scans that category again (generally several days later), it will temporarily remove it so that an editor can provide a manual review & either restore it (if it is back online) or remove it. If you know that a site has recently been down for a few days for any reason, this is the most likely reason for its removal.

Note that sites that block our automated tools will appear to be down when they are scanned, so they may be removed for this reason. The same thing is true of sites that block editors who are attempting to review them. A page that can't be reviewed can't be listed in the directory.

The site is being moved to another category.
DMOZ is a living directory, so it is constantly growing and changing. Over time, some categories will grow larger and more complex and editors will split them into smaller, more specific sub-categories. When this happens, some sites will move out of the original category and into the new one. In most cases, category reorganizations are performed by editors with permissions in both the original category and in the new destination category, so the site simply moves to a new location.

If you think a site has moved and you're not sure of its new location, you can look for it by using the search feature within the directory. Note that you must use a "domain.extension" format in order for the search to return the correct results. For example, a user looking for Amazon's site would need to search for "amazon.com" rather than "www.amazon.com" in order for the search to return the desired results.

Occasionally, a site may move as the result of a content change rather than as the result of a category reorganization. When this happens, the site requires a new review and may be temporarily removed from public view until the destination category's editor has approved it.

The site is now unlistable.
There are three primary scenarios that will make a previously-listed site unlistable. The first is that the content of the site has changed and no longer meets our requirements for inclusion in the directory. It may no longer have unique content, or the purpose of the site may have changed (for example, if the domain name has been transferred to a new owner who alters its purpose). In this case, an editor would permanently remove the site from the directory. It will continue to be considered unlistable until such time as the site has been altered to meet our requirements.

The second scenario is that the site itself has not changed, but the listing guidelines for the directory overall (or the particular area of the directory where the site resides) have changed. In this case, an editor would also permanently remove the site from the directory.

The third scenario is that the site was originally listed in error – either as the result of a mistake, an editor's misunderstanding of the listing guidelines, or abuse – and should not have been listed in the directory in the first place.

Site owners sometimes express concern that their sites have been deleted due to editor corruption. While this is rare, there are unfortunately times when it occurs. We take corruption accusations very seriously, and remove any editor who is found to have acted in an abusive manner. If you feel that a site was removed in violation of the DMOZ editing guidelines, you can submit an abuse report (including all details and evidence) via our public abuse reporting system.