There are a lot of websites that are fully or partially clones of ODP (Open Directory Project). These websites or part sections of websites that are using ODP script to reformat the data on their site are useless, and they have no original new content. It is learned that search engines, especially Google is, purging or banning such kinds of websites. Why are search engines against Dmoz clone sites? Is the data in them not worthwhile, or are they been misused by site owners? We will try to find our reason, but before that, let us first understand about Dmoz Directory.
What is Dmoz Directory (ODP)
The Open Directory Project is the web’s largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory. It is owned by “Time Warner” constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors, and is unique in many ways. The Open Directory, also known as DMOZ (the domain name of ODP), is a large, categorized directory of websites and pages that volunteers staff. Every website and page added to the directory must be manually reviewed before it is included. Since its index is manually constructed and edited, categorization and relevancy are superior to any other index of its kind, and equally as unique is the fact that this data is open and free to the public for replication. As of July 2005, ODP had about 4.6 million listings organized into over 580,000 categories derived from the contributions of some 69,000 editors.
How is this free data been used to make Dmoz Clone?
There are a lot of ODP scripts to make clones of the ODP. These scripts enable you to add live data of the Open Directory Project at dmoz.org to your website using a very easy-to-customize template-based system. Users can browse and search for categories of websites. These scripts dynamically grab live contents of the Open Directory and format them to make your version of the Open Directory. These are small scripts with few files to upload on your server, and you can get Thousands of Dmoz directory pages on your site in your template design. These scripts get live data from Dmoz.org, which has no original new content.
Does Dmoz Clone bring traffic?
Webmasters do not like Dmoz clone websites as they have no original content but rather duplicate content, and nobody will like to link a site or vote for a site with duplicate content. Most people will not even browse your web directory. Most people will browse 2-10 pages of your directory and just leave and never return.
Why are Search Engines against Dmoz Clone?
There are various reasons which are explained as follows:
- There is no Original Content that is required to make a Quality Site.
- Duplicate contents as all scripts extract live data from Dmoz and create thousands of similar pages on the web.
- The Dmoz directory has more than 580,000 categories. If thousands of sites grab the live content from Dmoz, it will create millions of similar pages, making the web a junkyard of similar pages with nothing new.
- The Dmoz clone sites have thousands of pages created on the fly with no extra hard work, and many spammers are using it for advertising or the Google AdSense program.
- Many webmasters have just created a section of Dmoz to get inbound links from thousands of pages to increase link popularity and search engine ranking.
- Text link advertisers also created the Dmoz clone to sell links on thousands of pages to increase the artificially link popularity of text link ad buyers.
Which kind of Dmoz clone Search Engine will Like
Search engines are concerned with presenting quality results to their users. If you can modify and enhance the data retrieved from Dmoz and present it in a unique format, it will be preferred by Search Engines, Webmasters, and Web Surfers. Google has got its directory for which it has got data from Dmoz but enhanced by Google technology, i.e., ranking of sites on each directory page by Page Rank.
Using ODP Clone Scripts to make a simple odp clone will ban your site from search engines due to duplicate content. Therefore it is advised not to use this virtually useless script on important sites or sites that rank well on search engines. Many ODP Clone Scripts makers’ sites were banned because too many websites with duplicate content ( as they all have Dmoz clones) were linked to them. These script owners require their site URL to be linked at the footer as “Powered by …” Which results in link farming or inbound links from similar pages.
Therefore if you want your site or directory to be safe and run for longer times, then have original and unique content in it, which will make it rank and get good traffic on your site and increase its popularity.
Latest Update: Dmoz directory is closed but still may company running the old database of Dmoz, which is open source and still available on the web.