Dmoz Extortion
A while back I got a email from a guy claiming to be a DMOZ editor saying that I had to pay him $5,000.00 or he would have my site: shoemoney.com removed from the dmoz.
I thought nothing of it…. then today I got a email from him saying it was removed and I might want to rethink not paying him. I thought I would check just for grins.
It was removed… WOW
dmoz… corrupt… no…..
I never thought I would say this but I don’t even care anymore. I am stunned Google still uses this as there business directory as its the most corrupt “editorial” system EVER and especially since now they are trying to talk about paid links and crap…
Seriously I would love to see how they defend this one… How does shoemoney.com NOT belong in DMOZ??
Google seriously its time for you to aquire a business directory that has paid inclusion. There is so much porn and spam in the dmoz its a huge black eye for you. Business.com just got scooped up but there is another one that might be able to get got for a nice price *cough* best of the web *cough*
DUMP DMOZ
EDIT: A lot of people have been asking the category shoemoney.com was in. It was :
http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Authoring/
Webmaster_Resources/Affiliate_Programs/Weblogs/
Also you can see from this web archive page that it was in (last link)
So for those dmoz lovers who said I was never in… there you go
Damn that’s shady. They really do have about the worst editorial system in the world.
for real i have to agree. DMOZ sucks…. But u are not the first to report of bribery within DMOZ as i saw a post somehwere guy would get u listed in dmoz for 100 bucks…
This is the first that I’ve heard of bribery as well. I can’t say that I’m surprised though, go figure with a “human edited” free inclusion directory.
I hear the ODP bans any site that ever offers *them* a bribe to list a site. There are records in forums that suggest you tried to pay to get the site listed. If that is the case, then it would never be listed.
So you’ve bribed dmoz editor before? No wonder you got that email (even if it’s unrelated to shoemoney)
Wow Extortion indeed!
This is a new low for Dmoz and the reputation of all who are involved in this fat and ugly project. The stories of abuse seem to be the most talked about when it comes to Dmoz nowaday. I believe that the directory as it stands right now, does not stand a chance. They need to either change how they conduct “business” of just fold the darn thing. Many new web directories are doing a better job without all the fuss that is Dmoz. One example if NoMoz.org, I hope it will replace this aging Dmoz monster.
I’m sorry to have stirred such a row here, maybe 5k was too much … what about 4.5 Shoe? Ok, 4k is my last offer
o.O wtf?
I agree, horrible system.
Sounds like a crook
man dmoz pulled the SAME THING on me but the price was only 50$ I paid it.
Share the info he gave you, paypal or whatever it was so he can be tracked down.
Agreed, share with us. This is bull.
You’re crazy for paying that. DMOZ has never sent me $50 worth of traffic. Let alone the $5000 shoe was asked to pay
DMOZ is overrated these days in my opinion. I’ve always done well without it and so have many others. Fuck the corrupt swine if they want to extort you.
[...] Shoemoney received a email from a self proclaimed DMOZ editor, stating: A while back I got a email from a guy claiming to be a DMOZ editor saying that I had to pay him $5,000.00 or he would have my site: shoemoney.com removed from the dmoz. [...]
Send him a mail asking for $5000 or else you’ll publish his email
Hahaha! Good idea.
Seriously though, I agree. Google needs to dump DMOZ and lets move on. And whats the deal with the pagerank?
Haha yeah good idea.
Probably used a throwaway emails… can’t be THAT stupid right?
Lol, nice idea.
2nd that
Now theres an IDEA!
–Melanie
You should publish that email id on this page itself.. He will be kicked out of DMOZ at least.. We need to kick out so many of such..
I didn’t realise that your blog was in there - wasnt there issue with one particular editor not wanting it in there a while ago ?
DMOZ is corrupt and the data which google uses also not accurate. It is high time google must have its own directoy.
People always claim it’s near impossible to get accepted now but my site got in there and my friend has like 10 in there.
I think with people like that DMOZ will become more n more corrupt n lose it’s cult status, therefore making acceptance in there lose importance.
To be honest I never saw why it was a big deal anyway, there is no need for DMOZ.
N Shoemoney I don’t see why you need it man, traffic, value? what value does a listing have for shoemoney.com, you already have 10,000 subscribers + and people always visit. You have a great design and good posts, forget DMOZ. $5,000 HA!
That’s why he didn’t pay… I can’t seem to get my site in but I’ve been doing fine without it. It’s one of those legacy things that everyone put on a pedestal that has since lost its luster and now it’s credibility.
It depens on the editor. If you find a category with an active editor you have a better chance of getting in. If you not it can take months or never…
I don’t think it is a matter of needing it. It is just proof of DMOZ’s corrupt nature.
Why don’t you reveal who this person was and get him dumped from the editorial team
I think it would definatly be a good idea for shoemoney to expose this loser.
This is bad I give up now
Although the stock of DMOZ has probably dropped like 90% over the last 5 years, paid inclusion directories don’t seem like the answer to me because so many webmasters will not sign up.
I think a possible answer would be a Directory with a Social Component involved where people can either click a ’spam’ button or do a Digg-style thumbs up/down thing.
You can see the effect of this by looking at Craigslist. Five years ago they were very lenient on spam but are now cracking down. If they hadn’t done this CL would have been 75% affiliate links and webmaster spam.
Active communities — digg, blogs, wikipedia, newspapers, all surely play a larger role in the life of common internet users than directories. Yes, they can and are gamed. The difference is there is oversight and transparency.
Dmoz should have all of their editors personal information made public along with an edit history. Without that, there is no accountability.
I definently agree with making their past edits public.
DMOZ? what the heck is that?
ummmm, get with it
typing dmoz.org takes less keystrokes than “ummmm, get with it”
I read somewhere that the gambling and porn sections in DMOZ are controlled by organized crime.
Haha, that’s a good one!
And this is really shocking!
I wouldn’t doubt it after reading this post.
It’s controlled by a type of organized crime if their members are participating in extortion… that’s a given!
[...] happen today to Shoemoney, his site was been removed by the one of DMOZ editor when he refused to pay $5000.00. Like Shoe, [...]
If you were in the DMOZ, what category would you be under? Certainly not anything related to making money online, since all you seem to post about these days is off-topic junk.
Yea shoe - that link went down - is there another?! Or is this an even bigger conspiracy?!?! I love conspiracies.. keep it up!!
I’m shocked, can’t you just make his email public to DMOZ staff or present this, I’d really like that ****** nailed!
Ya, you need to nail this guy.
for real Nail him to the wall.
Yeah, I have cared less and less for the Dmoz. Shoe, post his email and get him kicked out, that is absolutely shocking to say the least.
Well this is bad news. I tried to get into Dmoz just yesterday.If they come up for some monies, I’ll just get-out of it. Thanks for the report…
Yes, this is bad news.
The first item in the social contract of DMOZ:
[...] The Open Directory Will Remain 100% Free [...]
Why don’t you contact one of the administrators? For more information check out http://www.dmoz.org/guidelines/admin/.
What would make him think anyone would pay 5000 for a dmoz listing?
You get enough offers to add sites for $$$ to DMOZ (I’ve been offered money plenty of times) you realize that there are surely going to be lots of editors who will take it. SOme of those corrupt editors would realize that given the amount of monetary offers they get, surely some websites could be pushed into paying.
PS probably a hacked account anyway
Well Shoe is a gazillionaire so why not shoot for the stars if your going to make demands
Shoe is secretly Bill Gates in disguise.
[...] I didn’t expect their editor would resort to distortion for some quick bucks though… read the full story from Shoemoney. [...]
That’s insane man! $5K for a feakin listing that would bring you like 10 visitors a month?! I’m glad I never went through the process of even putting my website listing in there.
Punks!
Do you think Google will read this and put you back in? How many editors work on your specific section? Dont only a few people have access to each section of the DMOZ, making it easy to narrow down who it could have been?
That’s true they should be able to check logs and see who made the mod, hopefully the keep history of what their staff does… unless this is normal for DMOZ and they just don’t care ..
DMOZ has been a pain to deal with for so long that it isn’t worth it any more. You’re right - Google does need to drop it. DMOZ is dead…
This is why human edited things should be edited by the masses, not by 10 people.
Same thing happened to me for one of my sites… it got toasted from DMOZ too.
I smell a blogging backlash!
Here are some ways to report Dmoz abuse.
That’s riduculous! All this hub-bub about paid links and Google is still using DMOZ! Makes me think the same guys doing the extortion are Google employees. Might as well go to the W3C supporters page where you can get a permanent PR9 link for only 1K.
Ya, unfortunately that W3C link isn’t permanent, it’s for one year. Plus, its nofollow…
[...] a farvi desistere dall’idea di inserire il vostro sito in Dmoz, ecco il colpo di grazia. In questo articolo di ShoeMoney, Jeremy Schoemaker, fondatore del sito e guru del business online, racconta di essere stato [...]
Wow wow wowwww link bait or actual problem!? I wonder what will end up giving you more RELEVANT links… this post.. or being included in the DMOZ?!
Shoe,
Which category are you talking about?
I dont even bother submitting my sites there.. Anyways it is not going to get listed
and I am not rich enough to pay 5K lol..
Can you tell us what caused the header defacement?
[...] says he got an e-mail a while back from a guy who claimed to be a DMOZ editor and that he had to pay $5,000 or else shoemoney.com would be removed from [...]
[...] more here DMOZ Extortion Did you like this post? If so subscribe to my rss feed for more! Share and Enjoy: These [...]
Report the bizoch…
http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2007/08/how-to-report-corrupt-dmoz-editors-and-odp-abuse/
Damn that guy’s got some ballz! Go get him Shoe - turn him in and expose DMOZ for the corrupt dinosaur it is! Keep us posted - please.
[...] Shoe money a világ egyik legjobban kereső bloggere, írja le a blogjában, hogy hogyan lett megzsarolva egy Dmoz szekrkesztő által, majd eltávolítva a blogja miután komolytalannak vette a zsarolást és nem fizette ki az $5,000 összeget. Az eset hihetetlennek hangzik, de a poszt komolynak tűnik. Az egész ügyön túl, lassan ideje lesz a Google-nak tényleg átgondolnia a Dmoz iránti nagy bizalmat. Magyar Dmoz-al sem a legjobbak a tapasztalatok, finoman fogalmazva, legjellemzőbb kérdés magyar fórumokon, amit most én is megkérdeznék: Neked sikerült már regisztrálnod weboldaladat a Dmoz-ban? [...]
it’s funny in my opinion… screw them. You have your loyal fan base. Like you need the dmoz??? You should post this clown’s email address and have us flood him with spam.
Ever heard the saying two wrongs dont make a right. You cant condemn someone for doing something bad and then spam them, that would solve nothing.
That is so shady and should be blog about to get the word out how corrupt they are. I will add a post to my blog at
Last I checked, extortion was still illegal. This is the kind of thing that could take down DMOZ … and THAT’s linkbait!
nice idea! hehe
If your friends at Google aren’t ready to dump DMOZ, perhaps they *are* ready to pressure DMOZ to help get a prosecutor involved and make a high-profile case against the “editor” responsible for the problem. Go over DMOZ’s head to Google.
WoW, what a nerd. Let’s go e-thuggin’ on his a$$
DMOZ is including paid links…
Google Penalty!
It’s time to crack down this organization. I’ve tried to submit some interesting no-profit organizations and even some customer sites but i’ve never received an answer. It’s funny that it’s full of cellphones tones 1-page sites and they won’t accept an art collective.
[...] 近来发生的两件事似乎从另一侧面验证了我们这种“不厚道”的猜测，先是方舟子质疑中文维基管理员、编辑的中立性——当然，这与SEO无关，不过考虑到如今越来越多的Black Hat SEO转战维基百科，也许很快便会有类似的事件出现在SEO领域——引发一番风波；今天又看到ShoeMoney称因其未满足某自称DMOZ编辑者$5,000的要求而导致shoemoney.com被DMOZ删除的事件，尽管目前仅仅为一面之辞，也许其被DMOZ删除缘于其他原因，但还是很让人吃惊，当然，也很搞笑。 [...]
[...] has a post today that highlights how bad the situation with DMOZ is. He got an email from an ‘editor’ who wanted $5k or his DMOZ listing would be [...]
I can’t find any evidence that you were ever listed anywhere in the ODP - - and I have looked back through the last two years at archive.org and several mirrors and data-users.
Which category was it supposedly listed in then?
Shoe, I hate DMOZ editors for doing stuff like this… Could you drop me a line telling me who it was, perhaps I can help. Looking at your URL in my editors account, it has a red by Jim Noble, based on this thread.
which does make me think you asked for it
but seriously: this sucks. Drop me a line and I’ll do what I can to help out.
How utterly pathetic. I wonder just how many times this works, though?
I’ve been a DMOZ editor in the past and, quite frankly, maybe had two or three actual submissions come my way. The vast majority of my edits came from tracking down political candidates on my own and getting them to give me their web address when they went live.
I’ve also had my site listed, though I can’t ever recall receiving a hit from it. So I always figured the value of a DMOZ listing was that it would get you in the search engines faster not actually bring you visitors.
I think in a lot of cases, the reasons people aren’t listed is the fact that there are so many categories without current editors that there is no one to look at it. Demanding any form of payment or editing with a vendetta, though, is definitely across the line.
Since they use volunteer “section editors,” is it possible you hit a rouge?
corrupt dmoz editor dot com is amusing if you’ve never read it
ya he should update more =(
Who cares about DMOZ?
Google, and thats about it.
Directories are over-hyped, imo. Screw DMOZ for being extortionists.
[...] was browsing digitalpoint when i was catching a break from my daily hassle of a life, and i read Jeremy’s blog and i was shcoked to read that he was being extorted by a DMOZ editor, i mean if he had picked on a [...]
Even if this is not true it is funny:
I totaly Agree. They need to discredit DMOZ and not count their pr transfer. I mean serously its empossible in most cases to get listed unless you know someone and are probaly buying your way in. Atleast yahoo and BOTW upfront tell you to pay and they have paid editors to give you a fair review.
DMOZ Gets Ugly…
Today over at Shoemoney, Shoe relates a story where a DMOZ editor contacted him and wanted $5000 or he would remove Shoe’s listing in DMOZ! Pretty pathetic. Unfortunately, when Shoe told him to take a hike, he got delisted!
I wonder how much mone…
[...] das wollen wir jetzt wirklich nicht verallgemeinern. Das was Shoemoney in seinem Blog berichtet wird sicherlich nur einer von wenigen Fällen sein. Korruption im DMOZ ist aber nichts [...]
Google should acquire BOTW. That would be a perfect directory for them.
I couldn’t agree more. BOTW has all the values and ethics that DMOZ proclaims to have.