Google, DMOZ, and the Jedi Mind Trick
Warning: copy() [function.copy]: Filename cannot be empty in /home/jlhdes/public_html/wp-content/plugins/mytube/mytube.php on line 220
According to Google’s default #1 search result for [jedi mind trick]:
Jedi typically perform this ability with a wave of the hand and a verbal suggestion (for example, “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for”). If the trick is successful, the victim will reply by restating the suggestion (”These aren’t the droids we’re looking for”) and will immediately think or do whatever the Jedi suggested.
Two days of ago Google’s most famous Googler said that the DMOZ home page had disappeared due to a ill conceived 301 redirect. Today the official DMOZ blog took time out of their busy schedule of not approving competitor’s sites to clarify the situation and say that the real reason was actually:
…changing the root domain from dmoz.org to www.dmoz.org. What we all witnessed yesterday and what was reported by the great sites above was part of an index recognizing, adjusting and updating in real time. This was confirmed in discussions we had with Google…
From this exchange I can only wonder about a few possibilities:
- Google waved their hand and said, “those are real time adjusting and updating” and DMOZ obliged and responded with, “those are real time adjusting and updating”
- Matt Cutts needs to talk to his crawl team who seemingly fed him some bad information
- DMOZ actually doesn’t have the skills required to institute a proper 301 redirect
- Google fell on the sword and decided to look like fools and said that they can’t handle domain canonicalization
- If you have a site with a home page with PageRank of 9 or less (that’s only a small percentage of the web) you should reconsider instituting a 301 redirect, lest Google will loose you for a few days of recognizing and adjusting
- Minty fresh results only apply to lower PageRank blogs and not older established sites
- Google actually had a big screw up, instead of sending Adam Lasnik out to say it was a Bad Data Push, they waved their hand and buffaloed DMOZ into doing their dirty work for them
- There are screw-ups, cover-ups, and foul-ups going on here
Note to DMOZ, if you have to continually remind people that you are not dead or dying, you are dead or dying.
- Today, “DMOZ is not dying folks. We’re growing every day. Globally.”
- Two days ago, “the editor community is very much alive and thriving”
