37 replies to this topic

[Debra]

Click link before reading post:

http://www.queenword...midis/aobtd.mid

I noticed all the internal pages of this directory are out of Google's index: http://www.san24.com/

The main page is showing but that's it, anyone have an idea why? I've written the San24 owner but didn't hear back, wanted her/his take on it. This is the 4th directory I've found out of G's index lately. All established "normal" directories.

Was hoping to hear from some of the directory owners that post here and get their take.

[projectphp]

Maybe all the directories should get that as their hold musac

All the pages have gone supplemental: site:www.san24.com the, and that is not good!

No idea why. I had an idea though: if everyone uses the same description at directories (I know I do), then directories with the same sites listed in cats will all look pretty identical. That might perhaps trip a duplicate filter, especially if everyone uses the same directory list... Just a thougth anyway!

[Leann_Pass]

Debra,
I tried to look at this site. What I saw was some music player from 1998 (at best). Everything else was just - well - non existent. I had to X-out.

ProjectPHP,

if everyone uses the same description at directories (I know I do),

That is just not smart! Surely you know better. Stop it.

Leann

[tlpretender]

The site was an ODP clone. Google has been removing these from their database of late. See:

http://www.san24.com...ited/index.html

and

http://www.google.co...er-Edited/?il=1

The content is not original.

[Debra]

Leann, it's the music from Queen's "another one bites the dust" - you're missing some good stuff there.

Why would having DMOZ content be a bad thing? I've added sites to this Directory in the past so I know they have other content coming in.

And why now after all this time, they've been around since 2003. At the bottom of their site they state they have over 2 million links in the Diretory. No ad-makes-no-sense here or any other kind of link buying that I can see.

Oh dah.. maybe that's it! They've been popped for NOT having any goooooogle ads!!

[projectphp]

if everyone uses the same description at directories (I know I do),

That is just not smart!

LOL. I wish I did know better!

So do you mean for every directory you submit a site to, you write a totally different description? Wow! I find that amazing. I can't imagine that most people do that, and I know I certainly don't. When I do change the description, I don't vary it much, because how many ways are there to describe a site in a paragraph? Usually, it is justa sligth reworking that uses the same main words.

With many directories requiring the business name as the title, there is even less variety and, as I said, perhaps this throws some sort of duplicate content filter.

That is the only thing I can think of for directories biting the big one, short of a hand removal..

Edited by projectphp, 23 August 2005 - 12:07 AM.

[InspireMedia]

Maybe all the directories should get that as their hold musac

Is that when you are trying to contact them to see what happened to your listing?

[projectphp]

Would be hilarious to set up a support email that was just that link!

[tlpretender]

Why would having DMOZ content be a bad thing?

Because it is not original content. Why would Google wish to have hundreds of copies of the same thing? It degrades the search results.

So do you mean for every directory you submit a site to, you write a totally different description?

Yes, usually not by much, but different enough.

Of course, their our only about six or seven directories I submit to regularly. The others, unless they are niche, aren't worth the time they take. IMO.

[qwerty]

I'm afraid my descriptions aren't unique either. I write three or four versions, but that's based on length. As a general rule, the shorter ones are the same as the longer ones, with a few words or a clause removed. On occasion I have to rewrite a little to get the shorter length to work, but that's pretty rare.

So this puts us in a bit of a bind, if it's really the cause of the problem. When I see that a directory is an ODP clone, of course I don't submit to it, but if they seeded the directory with ODP data and then started adding new material on their own, I've never considered that a problem. How many pages am I going to have to compare to their equivalents on the ODP before I decide if a directory is likely to get slapped down for not being unique enough? I mean, it may well be that the page I'm submitting to is already very different from the ODP's, but if other pages are going to get the whole directory dropped, that won't really matter.

[Debra]

but if they seeded the directory with ODP data and then started adding new material on their own, I've never considered that a problem

Bingo, same here, which is why San24 was still on my list. Interesting comments about descriptions being the same. I use a couple different ones, depends on the anchor text and what kind of presence/brand building campaign I'm focused on. But never wrote different ones for each Directory submitted to.

I can see where Google would go after clones with nothing more than ad-makes-no-sense but to penalize/drop sites that use ODP data in conjuncture with their own submission process? Why would they even use the DMOZ then as their Directory?

How many pages am I going to have to compare to their equivalen

Yeah really! In my case, I would submit to a couple of directories and quickly become familiar with the cats I was working in. But even when I found dupe content I wasn't too worried about it, just figured those sites were popular enough to be added by the Editors or the site owners savvy enough to know to use the Directories in their marketing arsensal.

Will be interesting to watch what goes on with the rest of the Directories then if this is a tactic Google is going to take.

[Michael Martinez]

It's not a typical DMOZ clone, as the ADD URL link takes you to a custom page. However, their layout (just barely) conforms to my profile for the types of sites that were filtered in the July 25 update at Google: it uses breadcrumbs and Javascript ads. The ads are not as conspicuously placed as the SpamAd sites that were filtered, but maybe the use of DMOZ data is as significant as many people have assumed (there is no way to be sure).

Other kinds of sites which vanished from the search results in the late July update included scraper sites that took search results from Google and other search services and splattered the pages with Javascript ads (usually Google AdSense) and RSS-feed driven sites that also splattered the pages with Javascript ads (usually also Google AdSense).

Some apparently innocent sites were caught up in the flux. I've looked at a few and they all had similar characteristics: they used breadcrumbs and some sort of Javascript advertisements (not always Google AdSense).

Despite being contacted by a few peoplein private, I still have not been able to evaluate enough sites to feel certain that these are the two primary criteria Google used for changing its search results, but this combination is the only set of characteristics common to ALL the vanished pages.

[projectphp]

The problem I would see would be that there are only so many sites that deserve to be in a category. As such, the page for www.GENERICDIRECTORY.com/internet/search_engines/pay_per_click should all be about the same. On top of that, as the SEs get more processing power, two sentence can look virtually identical if word are changed, or differnt versions of the same stem are used, e.g. shop, shopping, shops.

Pure speculation, but that is a possibility, no matter how remote, although probably still not as likely as a hand removal.

[Jen C]

The website in my sig seems to have suffered a similar, but not exact fate. It has some links pointed at it -a few pr6, and lots of smaller sub links, and has had those intact for about two months. It has yet to be indexed in google whatsoever. It is not a clone of any directories I know, and is a unique directory than the standard php directories that are cheap or free (thus a bit more unique possible in googles eyes)

It is not a ODP dupe or anything and only contains real links to decent sites.

Any thoughts? MM your comments regarding breadcrumbs have me questioning, as this one uses breadcrumbs as well. I would happily remove those if i knew this would help me to get it indexed, as the breadcrumb is simply something built into the program by default.

Any thoughts on how to expedite indexing in GG, please let me know.

As a side note, the site was indexed in MSN in 7 days, and Yahoo in 4.

Jen

[projectphp]

Your problem is too many empty categories. That would be my bet!