Does Google Control DMOZ?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Thursday, September 13, 2007 Comments (5)

I had an interesting conversation with a friend last night about Google TrustRank. My friend’s premise was that Google’s human editors were actually DMOZ editors.

My counter was – and still is – that makes sense. Google has always relied upon DMOZ for its information on websites. In fact, Google rose to prominence largely because of its reliance on DMOZ. Over time, however, the Internet outgrew DMOZs ability to adapt, but Google kept getting its information from ODP. They still rely on Google to some extent and my friend also pointed out that Google has started operating the ODP.

There’s no proof of that, but it does make sense. If you go to Google’s directory you’ll that it is very similar to the DMOZ directory set up. It has all the same categories in the same configuration except that they are alphabetized on the page from top to bottom, left to right instead of from left to right, top to bottom as is the case at DMOZ. Furthermore, the subcategories are the same as well, except that they too are in a different order. Now, type in a search query. Go ahead, type in a search query. Any query.

What you’ll see looks like a normal SERP. But scroll down – all the way down – to the bottom of the page. See it? Yep, that’s right. It’s the DMOZ logo. And what does it say just above the logo? Ding dong!

See the “Modified by Google” small print? What that means to me is that Google now has its fingers in DMOZ. It is likely using DMOZs human editors to evaluate its TrustRank factor. It’s just a theory, but it does make sense and Google has stated that it is relying on human editors to evaluate trust among websites. I’m not saying it’s not a good system, but it does open the door for nepotism. If my friend’s theory is true and DMOZ editors are primary sources for determining Trust then when word gets out I think you’ll see a huge rise in people submitting applications to be a DMOZ editor. Increase the value of the position and you’ll increase the likelihood of corruption. No wonder Google is keeping it a secret.

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Comments (5) Category: Search Engines

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5 Comments

Made Tuesday, 18 of September , 2007 at 4:03 am

As far as I know, dmoz.org (owned by AOL) is completely independent of Google. Google is just one of the many users of the dmoz.org data under the terms of the licence at http://www.dmoz.org/license.html (Incidentally this license includes a requirement that the user states if the data has been modified.) For more details you might like to read: http://jean.manco.googlepages.com/googleanddmoz

Comment by namecritic

Made Tuesday, 18 of September , 2007 at 11:24 am

If you search for google directory, you get the dmoz directory.

Comment by elara

Made Tuesday, 25 of September , 2007 at 2:22 pm

Yes, Google pays the editors the same amount as AOL/DMOZ does.

That proves that Google really has their finger in the pile and at least partly runs the show.

Comment by Tom

Made Tuesday, 25 of September , 2007 at 6:29 pm

Google’s directory is a copy of the ODP Directory, depending on when it last downloaded said copy. The “modified by Google” only means the entries within each category are NOT arranged alphabetically as in ODP, but according to Google’s algorithms. Google does NOT run ODP.

Comment by namecritic

Made Wednesday, 26 of September , 2007 at 1:52 am

Point taken Tom. I saw that when I went there. Anyone can actually set up a directory in the same way I suppose.