Internet News

Google Directory Gone

Final Nail In The Google Directory Coffin, Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Jul 20)

Google Directory - Google's version of the Open Directory - has been closed. For several years Google used the directory to help in ranking and describing sites, and it was a useful tools for searchers to find sites on a topic - but the listings got stale and there were accusations of the volunteer editors being biased. Directories are really very dead - pity - but it happens.

Is Curation Making a Comeback?

Curation is the New Search is the New Curation, Paul Kedrosky, Infectious Greed (Jan 11)

Will curation be the cure? Curation is where editors assess, collect and usually categorize. Once we had directories, then we had folksonomies (user tagging), and always we had people collecting sites. Not mentioned in the post, but Blekko is another search site that invites people to "curate". But - the problem remains - human powered collections don't scale well.

Can't search the Google Directory

Google Drops Google Directory Search Option, Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Dec 21)

Google has removed search from its directory - the search is a web search - you can only browse the directory. Google uses a copy of the Open Directory (Dmoz.) This is one more killer punch to directories. It's a shame - their subject classification was important but few use it and directories are costly to maintain. Hard to know why Google bothers to keep its version of Dmoz at all.

US Yahoo Directory safe (supposedly)

Yahoo UK & Ireland Directory Closing November 8, 2010, Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (Oct 6)

The near end of the Yahoo Directory.

"Yahoo closed four European directories earlier this year including France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Yahoo however told us that the US directory is safe and will not be going away."

What about Canada?

Message from Intute

Intute Reflections at the End of an Era, Adriane (July 2010)

Intute staff reflect on the history and achievements of Intute, the UK scholarly directory. It was grand - but funding was cut. Perhaps the future is in volunteer help (it's amazing what people will do for free but it's not reliable), and subscription fees.

The very sad conclusion: "The problems that led to the creation of the RDN hubs, that is the need to find quality resources and make sense of the Internet, are still pressing issues today, and throughout its history Intute has helped students to make discerning use of the Internet through community collaboration. However, technological developments, changing user expectations and diminishing budgets mean that services such as Intute will need to find new ways to engage with their communities, and the search for alternative business models will require new ways of thinking. "

Srinija Srinivasan leaves Yahoo

Once The Most Powerful Person In Search, Srinija Srinivasan Leaves Yahoo, Danny Sullivan ,Search Engine Land (Aug 3)

Haven't seen Srinija Srinivasan's name in the news for a very long time. She was the head of the directory - or "ontological yahoo" - and vice-president and editor-in-chief. But age of directories is over.

"Yahoo", Danny Sullivan writes, "wasn’t about the sheer volume of content. It was about listing the best of the web. That helped it stand well above the other players in popularity, in my belief, because it was well above them in relevancy."

She has moved on to being chair of the board of SFJazz - San Francisco Jazz Festival.

Yahoo closed 3 country directories

Yahoo Closes European Directories, Says US Directory Is Safe, Matt McGee, Search Engine Land (Jun 17)

Yahoo has started to close directories - Germany, Italy and Spain. It has said that the main directory will continue.

FAQ on State of Intute

Intute, the scholarly directory in the UK, announced a few months ago that funding from JISC would end in 2010. There is a slight reprieve in that funding to maintain the directory for broken links and for development of new tutorials in the Virtual Training Suite will continue to July 2011. This Frequently asked questions page tells us more about plans and some background.

The entire Intute operation has been costing about "a million a year" - £ pounds, one presumes - or about $ 1.5 million USD. This is not a surprise considering the quality of selections, the excellent interface, and the supporting indexing and search technology. But it is a daunting figure - who else would fund such a labour-intensive operation when most believe that a search engine should suffice? And yet labour is what added the quality.

We hope that Intute will be able to find a new home for the catalogue but the FAQ page suggests that they have exhausted nearly every avenue.

There is further information on status of services on the Services page.. This was a substantial undertaking and in closing, a substantial loss.

Intute Extension

Intute plans for the future – 2010 and beyond, Caroline Williams, Intute News (April 12)

I missed this good news - Intute, the superb scholarly directory in the UK, received an extension to 2011.

"We can now tell you that JISC will provide funding to maintain the Intute resource catalogue until the end of July 2011, and will support the development of new membership models for Informs and the Virtual Training Suite."

It's mainly maintenance - not additions to the database - but it buys some time.

"We want the legacy of Intute to live on. Our discussions on this so far include facilitating a community generated catalogue of websites and working with other organisations in the sector to find a new home for Intute content. Its early days for this work but as leads turn into viable projects we will post updates here."

Update on Best of the Web

Directory Search Just Got Better with Best of the Web , PRWeb (Mar

In this press release, the directory Best of the Web (BOTW) announces a cleaner look and faster search.

"The updated search engine takes advantage of new, high speed indexing technology that provides for unmatched performance. Layers of search analysis and business logic further improve the quality of the results and advanced keyword search features help create an intuitive search experience. Listings are ranked on a number of signals including the listing description, listing name, website URL and listing category. Senior Software Architect Matthew Kronyak adds, “Taking traditional search engine results one step further, ours are enhanced by deriving context from BOTW’s human organized directory structure.” "

It looks a lot like the Open Directory, and appears to use the taxonomy from the Open Directory. But where BOTW lists five sites for Top: Regional: North_America: Canada: Weather: ODP has 14, and only two are on both lists.

This was easy to figure out because BOTW links to matching categories (when available) in Open Directory (dmoz) and the Yahoo Directory.

There is some search syntax: supports quotation marks for phrase, OR, and - for exclude. Or use the Advanced Search.

I'm glad to report that WebSearchGuide and Internet News are in this directory -see Top: Computers: Internet: Searching_the_Internet: Help and Tutorials: - which greatly increases my regard for BOTW :-)

BOTW also has a directory to blogs, and will cross-reference to these from categories in the main BOTW.

There is also a new local search for cities in the United States.

BOTW advertises for sponsor with this message at the top of each page -- Sponsor This Category Free for 30 Days - Customize your message and appear alongside search results. Start your Free Trial today! . It also charges for new submissions to the directory.

This directory has been around since 1994, and had its ups and downs in quality. Now it seems to be on an upswing with the fresh look, updates to tools ,and in my sampling, no dead links. This makes it a worthy addition to the tool kit.

Try it. Best of the Web Directory

Toronto Public Library - beta version

The Toronto Public Library is beta testing a new website with a new look and navigation structure.

The new look is much more vibrant - scrolling banner, featured items and direct links to popular sections on the home page.

Navigation is faceted. TPL is using Endeca techology to make searching much easier through the use of facets. We get a sense of that from the search interface for Books, Video, Research - with the major categories.

Recommended Websites is really the Virtual Reference Library. TPL is the only standalone Canadian subject directory on the web. It has 22,000 resources with Canadian selections given preference.

There is tremendous cost pressure on libraries to not maintain guides to resources. Thankfully, Toronto Public Library has resisted. Directories are vitally important as a search aid for finding best sites and for getting an overview of a subject area.

For now the new interface is viewable through Recommended Websites. Later, the Virtual Reference Library will be the gateway to this collection.

Search is now AND - and there will be some advanced search features for limiting by the established facets. Categories are shown as a facet - makes it easier to browse all the categories that have results for that query. Unfortunately, the individual results do not show the indexing - and searchers need to know how a site has been categorized.

It's ready to use. And they are inviting feedback.

Dmoz up for a relaunch

DMOZ 2.0 Rumored to Launch at End of March, Webranking (Feb 12)

Good news - rumours that the Open Directory Project / dmoz will be relaunched in March.

"From what I could find, which was not much, it looks like this is going to be a complete overhaul of how the data is stored, accessed and presented. This update should allow the directory to evolve in a way that it never really has been able to. And since it has largely been in the same shape for the past 10 years, this can only be a good thing for the once mighty DMOZ."

Hope they keep the full taxonomy (with some updates).

Yahoo Directory

Yahoo Directory is like a ladder that is losing its rungs. It's unlikely that Yahoo is actually maintaining this although there are always fresh entries on the main page.

Tonight, searching a category in the Directory returned results from Yahoo Answers - of all sources! This occurred only when I was logged out of my Yahoo account and operating as a "guest".

Yahoo Directory does invite suggestions, and the entries indicate that there are still people in the building.

Yahoo Directory may be old-style, Web 1.0, linear, directive, prescriptive - add any number adjectives, but the concept of a directory still applies and is valuable. The directory is a starting point for sites that are about something. You don't have to trust to the ranking algorithms and optimization efforts to see a few good sites.

Intute on the ropes

JISC reviews its Intute service, JISC (Dec 15)

Bad news from the UK. Funding has not been renewed for Intute, the excellent UK directory to scholarly resources developed by faculty and students in the UK. JISC in reviewing the funding concluded that Intute is too expensive to maintain in its current form and that no alternate funding would be possible.

"JISC regularly reviews the services that it funds, to ensure they deliver value for money, quality products and to test their sustainability for the future. A services portfolio review takes place annually and in May 2009 the future funding of JISC services, including Intute, was considered in order to identify the funding priorities for the academic year 2010/11. As a result it has now been decided that funding to the Intute service will cease in its current form from 1 August 2010."

From the email: "Our current service level will be maintained until 1 August 2010. After this date, Intute will still be available but with minimal maintenance. In addition, we are looking at possibilities to develop Informs and the Virtual
Training Suite and offer these as membership services. "

Would LIS Students Help Save DMOZ?

Rise Of The Web Librarian: An Elegant DMOZ Solution Eric Ward, Search Engine Land (Nov 3)

Eric Ward speaks as a link builder with an educational past in library/information science in proposing a way to save the Open Project Directory (DMOZ). DMOZ has been weakened but its aim to assist in web classification is still worthwhile. He proposes recruiting library and information science students and asking ALA to help. Good luck.

Favourites Page

AllMyFaves - all-in-one page of hand selected resources in areas of education, entertainment, travel, games (those are the main tabs) - and with versions for Canada, UK, US, and India. But there is more - Weather, Finance, News, Sports, Magazines, Health, Recipes - selection depends on the tab you have open. Very good for browsing.

They call it the "ultimate home page"

"Our visual platform not only directs users to their sought-after information fast but also introduces them to new and exciting sites, both of the same and different categories. We achieve this through a strict selection process and a back-and-forth dialogue among the AllMyFaves team members. This way, AllMyFaves acts as a pioneering force of Internet browsing, searching and learning, thereby offering nothing but the absolute best of what the web has to offer. Today, when much of the searches we perform produce considerable numbers of spam, fraud and aggregation sites, we feel someone needs to step up and sift through the Internet so that Internet users' experience is a positive, to the point and no-nonsense one. AllMyfaves has a calling and we're dead set on doing it right. What a better way to do so than by the use of the human brain."

Web Directories in Decline

Don’t Forget About Us, The Web Directories, by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land (May 5)

Dmoz (Open Directory) is the main item - it wonders why it doesn't get respect. Schwartz's comments make it pretty clear that the volunteer editors are often prone to bias if not enticements. There are other "web directories" mentioned here - but none I would recommend.

Keeping web directories up to date with good selections is a lot of work, and the volunteers get very little recognition for their efforts. Search engine algorithms figure in links from directories when ranking results, but the directory does not get the credit. Editors would surely be tempted to add sites for a fee. A social bookmarking service that shows ranking by popularity could easily outperform a directory now for currency and quality. My bet is that web directories will be of diminishing usefulness.

LII merging with IPL

This was a shock. In revisiting Librarians' Internet Index I noticed that the faceted list of topics for a set of search results was gone. Also that items listed as Recent were very old - 2007 or earlier. Then I discovered the notice on the page, New This Week October 2, 2008

"LII IS NOW ADMINISTERED BY IPL

This week the editors received a press release announcing LII's merger with the Internet Public Library (IPL). IPL is a huge and wonderful Web portal hosted by Drexel University and maintained by a consortium of colleges and universities with programs in information science. It has solid funding and a paid staff augmented by graduate students in library and information studies programs, allowing it to maintain and improve the database's content and aesthetics with new skills and technical tools.

As you may know, in the last two years LII's funding was cut by 50%. Consequently, we had to reduce the number of sites we add each week, halt improvements to the browsing structure, and generally do less of everything. IPL will give LII's years of work continued life and value and we think they'll do a terrific job. The LII editorial staff and the newsletter will continue through April 30, 2009. We will share news with you as it becomes available; for more information, please contact IPL or Linda Crowe at Califa."

Of interest - "the editors received a press release" - suggesting that this must have been a shock to the librarians involved with LII. Although LII began in California and was funded by that state, in later years there were contributions from other West Coast states and British Columbia.

I am sad about this. LII was a good, general collection of web resources and key articles, well selected, annotated, and categorized. Internet Public Library has always seemed to me to be more directed to school-age students and more specifically for the US, while LII was for adults and had a more global reach. LII has long had a much better navigation system than IPL, although IPL has changed it system to show the categories on search results.

But scholarly / public library directories in North Amercia simply don't attract the funds they need to prosper. The Toronto Virtual Reference Library is another that shows severe signs of neglect. Some public library systems and university libraries might still be keeping guides of their own to web resources, but I'll bet that those too suffer from infrequent updates.

Intute in the UK seems to be the main scholarly directory still thriving.

I hope that the Internet Public Library can build on this, and possibly continue LII as a separate site for LII's users.

AOL Promises New Dmoz

Ask AOL: Editors' Questions about DMOZ Answered, dmoz blog (Oct 3)

I'll believe it when I see it -- AOL said in this posting that, "we can tell you that we're actively working on an all-new DMOZ that incorporates an updated UI and an overhauled back-end infrastructure. Stay tuned for more updates as we get closer to launch!"

Facts about Dmoz

Everything You Should Know About Dmoz by Ann Smarty, Search Engine Journal (Sept 11)

Smarty gives us the bare bone facts about the Open Directory Project, aka Dmoz - started in 1998, human editors, directory. But she leaves out the contentious issues - are there problems in keeping it maintained, is there bias, are editors happy, do real searchers use it as a directory or is this just a place for SEO people to raise their rank in Google?

One point to know about Dmoz - it has one of the best taxonomies on the web for categorizing sites - better than Yahoo's in my opinion.

DMOZ looking for editors

What Topic Do You Care About? DMOZ blog (Oct 24)

Dmoz seems to be inviting people keen on a topic to apply to be a category editor.

Post has some figures that tell us a bit about its operation.

+ "Over the history of the project, DMOZ has had more than 70,000 volunteer editors worldwide. On average, there are approximately 6,000 active editor accounts at any given time. "

+ "On average, DMOZ accepts 78 new editors per week"

People commenting on the post weren't impressed. Many aren't accepted as editors, and there may be a high turnover of those who are.

Changes in Yahoo Directory

Search capabilities have changed significantly at the Yahoo Directory. This may have happened in the last month, more likely the last six months. Basically, the syntax that Yahoo allowed for the directory (but didn't publicize) has been removed, and the indexing practices have been changed.

+ Yahoo Directory searches for keywords in the title of the item, the description, the full category (from top to bottom of the hierarchy) AND NOW (this is the new part) the actual page. Google does this too in its use of the Open Directory Project. I think it is confusing for searchers since it causes less relevant material to turn up in the search results.

+ The syntax for u: to limit to a url doesn't work. You can use site: or inurl:.

+ The old t: for title search is gone. Use intitle:word1 intitle:word2. Yahoo Directory search doesn't seem to do a good job with phrases "word1 word2". Note that Yahoo often does not show the full title on the search results page, sometimes cutting it back to one or two words and not showing the part with your search terms. Click through to the page and you'll see the rest. It's annoying. Understandable with long titles, but certainly not with short.

+ There is no truncation operator. Don't bother with * at the end of the word. Yahoo Directory ignores it. But, now that Yahoo Directory has indexed versions of the pages the * would be less needed.

+ Yahoo Directory does pick up some variants automatically. Export will also find exports, exporting, and recipe picks up recipes. But sometimes this goes too far. trade databases finds trademarks. If you don't want these extras, put + in front of the word; eg +trade. This helps somewhat but not completely or reliably.

+ The commercial listings are overwhelming.

+ Granularity of categorization is taken to the extreme in some areas. There is a separate category for the movie Trade which (I guess) opened September 28, 2007. How bizarre (and not very useful) is this?

+ The one good thing is that it is easier to search the directory and not be switched to a full Yahoo web search.

Overall, these changes make using the Yahoo directory less pleasing and productive.