More on DMOZ, Yahoo and Google

More on DMOZ, Yahoo and Google, seemingly confirming some of my arguments about DMOZ as a total disaster, and finding similar problems in other search engines.

The Scripting News Archive: 10/20/2003 writes:

"Here's what I may just do. I could turn Scripting News into a directory. Forget the weblog. We already have enough of those. My directory would be the top of the tree of knowledge, like Yahoo used to be....

Google's directory of weblog tools. None of the tools I wrote made the list. Centralized directories on the Web are like buggy whips for cars. Let's fix this bug. Google, this makes you look like a total .... Your tool is listed first, and your competitor's tools aren't listed at all. When will it become too embarassing to support this antiquated model.

When I first posted that I thought it was just a repurposing-DMOZ-problem, so it was a question of how Google looked, not anything they had actually done. But then Seth Dillingham posted a pointer showing that Radio UserLand is actually on the DMOZ list for weblog tools, so Google modified the list to take Radio out. This is surprising, and imho, requires an explanation. Did they modify it? If so why? And do they modify search results to favor their products and services? This is scary stuff. "