Does Yahoo Directory use DMOZ listings as the supplementary listings?

[sucker12b]

I'm not sure, but I think I saw Yahoo Directory Help says it actually does or would, a few months ago. If so, when did it start? Is it still going on with the revamped Yahoo Directory?

[cbp]

Yahoo does not use DMOZ listings as part of results. Somewhere on the Yahoo site (had a quick look and no find) it does say something like they may pull the DMOZ description into the search results in some circumstances when asite is returned. I have never yet see them actually do that.

[dannysullivan]

I've had it in my mind that somewhere ages ago, they said that ODP info might be used to make descriptions if other things (meta tags, Yahoo's own directory descriptions, extracted text) didn't seem to work.

Coincidentally, I was over at the Overture site yesterday and came across this:

Yahoo! leverages the Open Directory Project (ODP) to further improve the user experience on distribution partner sites. ODP title, description and category meta data is used to enhance Yahoo!'s relevant search results.

ODP is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web with a global community of volunteer editors. For more details on the Open Directory Project, please visit dmoz.org

My jaw pretty much dropped when I read that. I mean, you'd think they'd at least mention that they also use their own Yahoo Directory and give it a little credibility. Instead, Yahoo is saying on that page that the ODP is bigger and more comprehensive than its own directory.

I did a search on some of that text, because it sounded like standard ODP boilerplate. In fact, it is, take from here:here.

The search also brought up this WebmasterWorld thread where someone else noticed this oddity of Yahoo using the ODP and making it sound better than Yahoo itself. Tim -- that's Yahoo's Tim Mayer, comments that the ODP is used for when titles and descriptions similar to what I recalled above.

[cbp]

Thanks - thats what I went looking for and could not find. Its been there for over a year or so --- I do recall some other discussions on it back then (mostly focused on DMOZ bashing)

[sucker12b]

Thanks a lot. Both of you are really helping me with the thread above and that Overture info page.

[redprimary]

Does anyone have the latest scoop on this? I know Yahoo stopped using Google earlier this year for search results, but whats the scoop on the Yahoo directory? Someone mentioned to me that Yahoo uses DMOZ so there is no point to pay for Yahoo if you can get into DMOZ for free. That doesnt make sense to me. If that were the case, you would think I could find more net discussions stating this was so.

[cbp]

This thread is ~18 months old.

Yahoo does not use DMOZ (except that its spider may crawl DMOZ)
You have to pay to get into the Yahoo Directory (unless lucky enough to get a free listing)
You do not have to pay to be in the Yahoo search index

[redprimary]

Thanks guys for replying. If either if you can find a URL at Yahoo that states the specifics of this, that would be great. I would be very interested to get more details about this.

[Robert_Charlton]

I doubt that there's anything on the Yahoo site about Yahoo's treatment of titles and descriptions. The latest official word I've heard, at any rate, was Tim Mayer's discussion of the issue at the San Jose SES Aug 2005 Indexing Summit (and the last sentence in the summary below suggests, in fact, that the policy may be an ever-evolving one)....

Session Five: Day Two: Indexing Summit 2: Redirects, Titles & Descriptions

Tim Mayer from Yahoo up first. The current behavior at Yahoo: (1) Feed titles and descriptions, (2) Yahoo! Directory descriptions, (3) Best match to query between contextual abstracts (on page) and meta title and meta description (on page), (4) If we cannot generate anything they use the ODP (implemented 1.5 years ago) or anchor text for the title. Abstract challenges; sites don't provide titles, sites use the same titles and descriptions for every page, meta tag T&Ds are not query specific, many sites over optimize their T&Ds and it does not accurately describe the page's content and different types of abstracts are appropriate for different types of queries (e.g. navigation versus informational). Going forward, Yahoo! will take all these different inputs and decide which is best based on user experience.

For more discussion and background material on the engines' use of DMOZ, Yahoo titles, etc, vrs titles on the page itself, see the following...

Danny's comprehensive overview, with discussion and poll on the subject...
Proposed Search Engine Standard For Titles & Descriptions

Short live-hope that Yahoo's directory titles had vanished from Yahoo serps...
Yahoo! Directory Titles No More?

Discussion about DMOZ titles in Google...
Google Dynamically Changing Page Titles