DMOZgate – ShoeMoney, Extortion, and Disappearing Listings
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There is a big DMOZ (Open Directory) kerfuffle going on at Jeremy Schoemaker’s ShoeMoney blog over an alleged extortion attempt by a DMOZ editor.
A while back I got a email from a guy claiming to be a DMOZ editor saying that I had to pay him $5,000.00 or he would have my site: shoemoney.com removed from the dmoz.
I thought nothing of it…. then today I got a email from him saying it was removed and I might want to rethink not paying him. I thought I would check just for grins.
It was removed… WOW
This was followed by nearly 200 comments expressing outrage at DMOZ, as well as doubt about Jeremy’s story.
For my part, I can confirm a couple things about the whole situation. When I went into DMOZ as an editor of the affiliate marketing section to submit Jeremy’s site, I saw a notification saying not to list him:
This warning referred to a post Jeremy made on Digital Point.
Since I figured the post to be tongue in cheek, I added the site to the affiliate blog section of DMOZ (under the editor name of ‘clubmom’ – my DMOZ editor account was created in 2000 when I was working at ClubMom.com).
This was on March 1, 2007. Jeremy’s site was then removed from DMOZ on April 6, 2007. Yesterday, DMOZ editor Marcin Sochacki posted the notes regarding ShoeMoney.com in DMOZ on the Google Blogoscoped Forum:
clubmom 2007/03/01 14:30:05 CET I think he was being snarky about the bribe thing and his blog is important in the affiliate marketing arena. [Added in Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/ Authoring/Webmaster_Resources/Affiliate_Programs/Weblogs]
motsa 2007/04/06 01:34:48 CEST Snarkiness is irrelevant. Offering a bribe results in banning. Do not relist. [Deleted in Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/ Authoring/Webmaster_Resources/Affiliate_Programs/Weblogs]
As far as anybody that doesn’t believe that the site was ever listed in DMOZ, you can see it in the Wayback Machine archives.
I can’t speak to the rest of this scandalicious story, but the site was definitely in DMOZ earlier this year.
What is to be learned from all of this? For one thing, “Snarkiness is irrelevant.” The rest is TBD.
- Posted in Affiliate Opinions
6 Comments
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On August 28 @ 3:01 pm posted[...] we have extortion? It’s time for Google to step up and simply drop DMOZ from having any relevance. Simply stop [...]
Sounds like a movie script. I would guess that ShoeMoney will continue to survive without DMOZ.
When faced with a roadblock, choose another road.
BeachBum
reply to this commentUnless Dmoz unlocks the gates , it will loose it’s value to webmasters. I don’t Need a listing in Dmoz to get a number one listing or all the traffic I need.
reply to this commentWow no I am really not surprised DMOZ in my opinion is actually very easy to have corrupt editors. I submitted one of my sites to scottish gifts section of DMOZ and it was reject. Then I found out the editor her self owned a celtic,scottish,irish gift site. My side site is doing well so I really don’t care it never got on to DMOZ.
So I am saying; If you don’t think editors are easy to corrupt then I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
I have been on DMOZ and saw so many sites that are no longer even up.
So Google should dump them like an ugly hooker.
I think a lot of Black Hat SEO people are actually editors at DMOZ.
reply to this comment@James Dorans
I actually applied to be an editor back in 2000 after the frustrations of not being able to get my sites listed.
I think there are a couple problems there – editors that block competition, as well as those (and I was one of them when still an editor) who gradually edit less and less, due to the increasing amounts of junk submissions.
reply to this commentSo, the shoemoney site was banned in 2005, and the owner knew about it in 2005. That was long ago.
Any recent message about a removal must have been a shock to him. How can a site that wasn’t listed be threatened with removal?
Make no mistake; the root of the site has never been listed. A feed URL was listed for a few weeks but that was six months ago.
So, who would send a mail about removing something now? Unless the mail was never sent?
reply to this comment