Thomas De Maesschalck blog

Another reason why Google should drop DMOZ

A couple of days ago I wrote about ShoeMoney’s bad experience with DMOZ. Basically some corrupt editor demanded $5,000 from ShoeMoney or else his listing would be deleted – he refused to pay and much to his surprise he noticed that his listing was indeed gone.

Today when I was browsing Digg I noticed an article from Joost de Valk, a Dutch SEO consultant and also a DMOZ editor. He read the article on ShoeMoney’s website and tried to help, the result: his DMOZ account was disabled!

I thought: heck, I’m a DMOZ editor, I don’t want to be associated with stuff like that, let’s see if I can do anything to help. So I posted something like that in the commentthread to the above post, and I added a note to Shoemoney’s URL in DMOZ asking why the URL was removed.

Now pay attention: within 36 hours after doing that, my account was disabled!

I’d put quite some work into that account; I was editing 9 categories at the time my account was disabled. I did NOT put all that hard work into it for some meta to come along and ban me on sight when he sees something he doesn’t like, without sending ANY email or other notification.

DMOZ was a wonderful idea but thanks to all the corruption and amateurish behaviour it’s gone to hell. I think Google should stop using them asap.

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Thomas De Maesschalck

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7 responses to “Another reason why Google should drop DMOZ”

  1. Dynamoo Avatar
    Dynamoo

    Thomas, you should check your facts more carefully before making rash accusations. The first site was dropped because the site owner offered a bribe for a listing, and the editor in question for removed for abusive editing. If you only listen to one side of the story then you won’t see the whole picture.

  2. Thomas De Maesschalck Avatar
    Thomas De Maesschalck

    Perhaps I was indeed a bit too rash, closer inspection indeed reveals that both persons may not have been as innocent as they claim.

    But that doesn’t take away the fact that DMOZ is pretty corrupt. It’s a public secret that quite a lot of editors are willing to take money to get your site listed in the directory.

  3. Bush Mackel Avatar
    Bush Mackel

    Hey Thomas, I checked out some of your previous posts and I gotta say – I like the site! Keep up the good work and hope to see you around!

  4. shaun Avatar
    shaun

    I agree with you! Great posts stumbled it !!!

  5. aaw Avatar
    aaw

    You’ll find that Shoemoney’s site was banned from being listed since 2005, after HE offered a bribe to list it. Threats of removal in August 2007 are pure invention. Removal from where? It wasn’t listed.

    The other editor broke the rules in trying to help a “friend of a friend” get listed, despite the “no list” policy for the site in question. That, and some other indescretions, got that editor canned.

  6. Eric-the-Bun Avatar
    Eric-the-Bun

    From Shoemakers disclaimer which he says everyone should read before acting on the post:-

    ‘You should assume everything written on this blog is a lie. You should assume I have motivation for linking to everything on this page and will benefit from it somehow. …. You should question everything. You should come up with your own thoughts and opinions and not trust some stupid blogger.’

    Looks like there are a lot of stupid bloggers out here…

  7. Rob Jones Avatar
    Rob Jones

    I’ve been editing at Dmoz since ’99. The only thing I know about corruption is that editors caught in shady business are summarily canned. These invariably spend the next few years proclaiming they have no idea why they’re out (like joost) and (even more fun) running from one forum to another claiming dmoz is corrupt.

    The project has a LOT of work to do to catch up to changes on the net, and we’re working on that. Meanwhile the corruption thing is like the Proctor & Gamble satanist connection… a popular urban legend that will never die.

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