A while back I took Dave Winer to task when he complained that Ev Williams was “disappearing” UserLand by not citing Radio as a major competitor to Blogger. In that context, I didn’t feel that Evan was obliged to rattle off an exhaustive list. However, today Dave is pointing to some evidence that Google is actively filtering Radio (and Manila) out its directory listings of weblog applications. Without a good explanation, this smells pretty crummy and will if anything tend to make people more suspicious of Google’s subjective manipulation of its listings and results.
Here’s Dave’s latest update on the issue (I’d include a permalink to the Scripting News item, but I’m getting it out of my NetNewsWire aggregrator on the only link provided there is the link to Brian Carnell’s weblog):
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. [Scripting News]
Comments
4 responses to “Google 'disappearing' UserLand?”
Actually, Google just hasn’t updated their Open Directory feed since Radio Userland was added to that category a few months ago. If you look at other ODP syndicators with old feeds (e.g. directory.net), you’ll find that they don’t include Radio there either.
Thanks. I just read something similar at Workbench. This still begs two questions (only one of which is related to Google): (1) Why didn’t DMOZ’s editors know about Radio until a few months ago? and (2) Why is Radio’s page rank zero (according to Dave Winer)?
(1) Looking at archive.org, it appears that the Weblogs category went through a major reorganization earlier this year (possibly there was a new editor or something), and several of its listings were rebuilt from scratch. Radio Userland is still present in other categories of the Google Directory.
(2) It isn’t. Its PageRank is actually 8, according to the Google Toolbar (and to a Google Directory listing in another category).
Blame Dave for this. The editors at DMOZ are volunteers for specific categories. Dave didn’t submit manila, radio, or userland to the various editors as the product sites were launched like any half-decent marketer would have. He relied, effectively, on Google’s search picking up his share of the blogosphere. It’s all very good to feel left out of a list, but the responsibilty for gettting the word out about a product sometimes rests with those who have an economic interest in its success.