ODP Editors Scam

[megri]

Rumor has it that some ODP editors accept money to speed up submissions and that some people became ODP editors just to promote their own web sites. What you think about it.

I have personal experience where I find one of my competitors is editor of that category and he has not listed my site from last five years after making so many complaints.

[sarahk]

Yawn...

[Guest]

this is from a blog about editor corruptions

Probably the best information I've found about editor corruption.

A link to the source is at the bottom
(please delete post if links are not allowed)
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The Birth and Death of an ODP Editor

I tried in vain for over a year and a half, and could never understand why my sites, which blew away the existing sites, would never get in! Why don't they answer? Who are these enigmatic holier then thou editors?

Our company has over 400 domains, but I'll use our dating personals and directory sites for this example as it's relevant to how I ended up editing. But we had the same frustrating experience with all our site submissions.

The Categories Attempted:

hxxp://dmoz.org/Society/Relationships/Dating/Personals - Listed Editor: theory

hxxp://dmoz.org/Society/Relationships/Dating/Directories - Listed Editor: theory

Our sites had all original content! Polls, articles, humor, forums, chat, and our own database of personals which have always been completely free, and always will be. Our surfers don't even have to register to surf the ads, and send unlimited messages. The existing sites were, and still are affiliate link farms! Pages and pages of identical content! It made no sense!

After 9 months or so, I finally received a return email from "theory" stating that my site was rejected because of affiliates, and adult content which is against the guidelines. He then said if I keep submitting, I'll be labeled as a spammer, and BANNED from the entire directory! (something real close to that, black balled perhaps)...

Needless to say I was shocked. I wrote back explaining that he must have mistaken my site for another, because I only had a few affiliates, which is to support our free personals. I then pointed out that EVERY OTHER site in the Category had two-three times the affiliate links I had, and actual porn links once you got past the main page. All I had was adultfriendfinder, and sexy ads, and we only use text links, never banners! I also pointed out that my directory was an "actual" directory, with no spam links at all, and that most exsisting sites were nothing but affiliate redirect sites with links to more affiliate spam sites with no original content at all! Could you please re-evaluate your position, bla bla bla ...

tic toc - tic toc - tic toc

Never heard back.

Researched, studied, put together the "perfect application", disclosing that I owned one of the submitted sites, and applied for a lowly Cat in the dating personals section.

REJECTED!

Several weeks later, damn near same "perfect application", same lowly Cat, "different Letter", and DID NOT disclose my affiliation.

ACCEPTED!

And super editor I became. Honestly? I was one of the best editors DMOZ could have ever hoped for. I actually enjoyed it, and fell into the concept that humans can do it better, and make a difference.

I edited every day, rising through ranks. Wasn't long until I was right up there with "theory". I had successfully cleared out the back logs of ALL the sub Cats, and submitted sites were often reviewed within a day or two ... instead of a month or two....

I was honest, fair and accurate with every site I reviewed without prejudice. I was savvy at checking the html to insure a sites integrity. I went from Cat to Cat correcting syntax and spelling errors. The Cat's I didn't yet have edit privilege in, I emailed the reigning editors pointing out the many mistakes I always came across, thinking they'd be stoked and correct 'em right away. (Wrong - some are still filled with spelling errors to this day.)

I answered every email sent to me with suggestions or advice when asked. Many webmasters wrote back just to say how blown away they were that I replied promptly and courteously, and wanted to express their thanks and appreciation. Not many editors can say this.

I was proud of my Cats, and wanted them to be spotless. I came across this little, recently created sub Cat with nine links to "top 100" bla bla bla sites. It was very suspicious, so I investigated only to confirm that all nine sites were owned by the editor. All spam, all affiliates, no orginal content. I submitted my find the the staff stating that I was obliterating all nine sites, and that the editor was obviously a tad, "dirty"

Click! Bang! Poof! I dusted those spam sites.

Two days later -

Click! Bang! Poof! Staff dusted that editor.

About a week later, same exact scenario in the "regional personals" Cat, which had well over a thousand sites. This time, it was 16 sites, same exact content, affiliate code, and whois confirmed that they were owned by the same outfit.

*second verse, same as the first*

Click! Bang! Poof! I dusted those spam sites.

Two days later -

Click! Bang! Poof! Staff dusted that editor.

About a month later, once again, same exact scenario in the "mail order bride" Cat, which has hundreds of sites. This time, it was 26 sites, same exact content, affiliate code, and whois confirmed that they were owned by the same outfit.

Click! Bang! Poof! I dusted those spam sites.

Two days later -

Click! Bang! .... Yikes! That editor was undusted!

Oh no, it was one of those "META" editors! The all mighty great ones that we lowly up and coming editors worship, adore, and aspire to be some day! Well, corruption is corruption, no matter what "Meta God Like Edit-all" status one obtains, so I was sure it just a matter of time. And keep in mind, these sites I dusted were very very, "tacky". Horrible to look at, and no content expect pop-up Russian babe redirects.

I went to Florida and New York for a week on business. Came back, went to log on, and POOF!

I was REJECTED! A little over one year from the day I started, my editing days were over. I ***ume it was because I had a few sites that were not disclosed, but always figured that since they were high end, with tons of quality information, it would never be a problem. I ***umed, anyway.

I did learn a few things, however. For example. Every editor in the vicinity of my Cats was/is a site owner, and has a hidden agenda. Some, even have a SUPER, hidden agenda.

Back to modern day.

The Cats I spent so much time tidying up, are now back to being "backed up", and the edits are simply mind blowing. All the sites have changed, and some of the sites are not only obvious affiliate link sites, but absolutely the most horrid things to look at!

I came to find out that theory was indeed a greedy webmaster that key word fluffed his title and descriptions to the max, but had no idea to what extent. The more I investigated, the more things came to light.

hxxp://dmoz.org/Society/Relationships/Dating/Directories/

You'll notice that theory has his name on this, and several other sub cats. This is unnecessary because when editors have upper editing prividges, they can remove themselves from the lower Cats to make room for new editors. (Upper Cats means you edit all the Cats under it)

theory is top listed here:

hxxp://dmoz.org/Society/Relationships/Dating - (where I left off)

When I reached this point, I removed my name from all the lower Cats, like all other editors do.

Why do you suppose that theory leaves his name on ALL his previous Cats? I always wondered.

Society: Relationships: Dating - theory
Society: Lifestyle Choices: Veganism: Dating and Personals - theory
Society: Relationships: Dating: Directories - theory
Society: Relationships: Dating: Personals - theory
Society: Relationships: Dating: Personals: Guides - theory
Society: Relationships: Dating: Personals: Matchmaking - theory
Society: Relationships: Dating: Personals: Regional: Asia - theory

Why? To keep other editors from applying to these Categories! Doh! I somehow slipped in!

Continued in next post

[Guest]

Continued from last post

Then we have all those "adult" Cats, but that's another issue.

How ironic. One of the most backed up Categories in DMOZ, yet no Meta editor has noticed that theory is purposely keeping these Cats at bay.

Research Pays Off - The hard working editors of Society...

The editor known as theory, and a couple other fleeting editor handles, is actually Brian Rauschenbach and his posse of homies; Norman Clarke, Jason Lorin and probably a couple other staffers. (theory was Brian's college homey DJ nickname).

These guys are part of the kiss and udate.com empires - (kiss was recently sold to match.com), as well as major porn smut kings. Major players, with major bucks at stake. (We're talking millions, kids)

What they have managed to pull off is quite brilliant, cunning, and very strategic. I'll attempt to be brief, and not get to in depth.

In a nut shell, they basically register multiple domains, mainly for adult porn TGP galleries, and dating/matchmaking directory affiliate programs.

They register site contact information under various false and misleading aliases seemingly from all over the planet, then join all the affiliate programs under a slightly different individual or company name so each site has different affiliate codes. They have the affiliate checks sent to different locations in the Seattle Washington "area", and London UK "area", both within a 20 mile radius or so. This kind of puzzled me for a while, then I remembered that kiss/udate sent their affiliate commission checks from London! Aha! I bet Uncle Sam would be interested in how they pull that off. Still, pretty damn smart. If they don't do more then 600.00 per affiliate annually, then that does not get reported to mister tax man!

They then build completely different looking directory link sites adding only certain amounts of affiliate links to the main pages so it's not blatantly obvious.

However, when one dives intro the depths of the "webmaster submitted" sites, which are typically under the link farms of affiliate sites, it only takes a couple clicks to be directed to yet another affiliate directory which will certainly have the remaining affiliate links not listed on the main pages. These are usually adult links, of course.

Basically, these sites are pure spam recycled over and over again, with no original content at all. It must be maddening for the poor single surfer trying to find decent content.

Take one of the their first directories, lovesites.com, for example.

(click) Woe, nice pop-ups! (I never do pop ups) Every page is identical, affiliate links galore. Under the affiliate links, is the alleged "directory" that webmasters submit too. Little do they know that after couple hours, or even minutes, their sites fall into the abyss of eternal link farm hell. Most all the webmaster submissions are just more affiliate links anyway.

So let's check out the "lovesites directory"

I just clicked on dating services, then adult personals.

The first site, ukadultdating, is of course a mirror to another site.

Next sites consists of wonderful original content: (cough cough )

I kid you not:

hxxp://www.girls2bang.com one of their adult friend finder affiliate portals.
hxxp://www.onlineswinging.com/swinger-sex webnaughty.com
hxxp://www.cybersexads.com/horny-women/ = webnaughty.com
hxxp://www.photosexads.com/adult-photo-personals webnaughty.com
hxxp://www.onlineswinging.com/couples-seeking webnaughty.com
hxxp://www.adult-personals.us one of their adult friendfinder affiliate portals
hxxp://www.bedlover.com/find-a-new-lover webnaughty.com
hxxp://www.localsexcontacts.com/local-adult-personals webnaughty.com
hxxp://www.reallylonely.com webnaughty.com
hxxp://www.dateme100.com/lonely-women/index.php webnaughty.com
hxxp://www.bedlover.com webnaughty.com

So on and so forth.

Enough said. This is the editor's site, (theory) that originally threatened to blackball me from DMOZ if I continued to submit my sites. His reasoning was that I had affiliates and adult content. - ah-huh.

That Cat is now a complete joke. The "theory" love cartel own 6 of the sites listed, and the remaining ones are so pathetic, they can't even be considered competition.

Only a couple sites have true directories, the rest are nothing but affiliate link farms. Every page has identical affiliate content, but I guess the editors didn't catch that. The so called "directories" are just offsite links with different affiliate codes to make it appear that it's not related to the site of origin. A little in depth research reveals that they have gotten lazy because many of the alleged "webmaster submitted" sites have the same affiliate codes. These two, "reystar-dating.com", and "123-online-dating.com", even have the same affiliate code!

The majority of descriptions are bunk, and have nothing to do with the sites. For example: usa-love.com Desc: "USA dating and love related resources"

Do you see any USA related sites?

Just have a glance at the sites that these editors are adding! For example:

The very first site listed: hxxp://www.all4love.8m.com

The last site listed: hxxp://eworldsingles.com/portals/ws/ws.html

Egads! These met the standards for quality web sites, huh?

Then we have editor Susannah of:
Society: Relationships: Dating: Personals: Christian
Society: Relationships: Dating: Personals: Jewish
Society: Relationships: Dating: Personals: Specialized
She has close to a dozen minglematch affiliate sites she has managed to sneak in. It's almost as if every third or fourth site is a minglematch affiliate! All those checks are sent to Utah.

And this is rather interesting, these two sites are RIGHT NEXT to each other:

Positive Singles - Personal ads for singles living with herpes, HIV/AIDS, or other STDs.

and

Positive Singles - One of the best dating site for those who living with Herpes, HIV/AIDS, Thrush or other STDs. The fact that you have STD is simply not an issue, and you have an opportunity to move on with your life.
Found here: (hxxp://dmoz.org/Society/Relationships/Dating/Personals/Specialized/)

Same URL, except one is an affiliate code! And how about that precise, grammatically splendid description!

Then we have justinparfitt The new editor for:

dmoz.org/Society/Relationships/Dating/Speed_Dating

Boy is this kid out of the loop. It only took a minute to figure out what sites are his. Not a master editor, however. He's keywording all the titles, making spelling mistakes, and offering biased descriptions! For example:

Minute Mixers Speed Dating - The ULTIMATE Speed Dating Experience!

Sheesh...

And it goes on, and on, and on.

The other two "corrupt" editors that were in my cats are now gone, and I didn't even mention the big cheese, but it's really not hard to figure out if you're motivated.

How high up the ladder does this crap go? Not sure. I do know that theory has had numerous complaints, as I personally received 5 while I was editing. I don't know how much the "staff" makes, but I do know how much theory makes, and he's still playing editor after all these years. Somethings up with that, I'd imagine.



So if you're a disgruntled web master, wondering if your kick *** quality site is not being allowed in the DMOZ because the editor is your competition? You'd most likley be wondering right. Are there legit editors that do this for the sheer joy of it? I'd say there's a few, I just never encountered any.

Word on the street is that Google will be doing away with DMOZ all together because of these types of scenarios. Humans do it better? Nah. Humans are greedy bastards that can take extreme measures to get what they want. The only thing they do better, is cover the tracks.

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http://www.geocities.com/matchfraud/dmoz-editor-scam.html