A featured WebmasterWorld thread shows that Google Is Banning Sites That Use Open Directory (DMOZ) Data. The thread creator conducted a "study" that looked at the published sites using the ODP database. He then checked Google, Yahoo Search, and MSN Search using a site command, and found that approximately "50 percent of them were banned by at least one search engine." Google had a ban rate of Google 37%, Yahoo 11%, and MSN 9%.
Pretty much anyone can go ahead and clone the ODP by using the freely available Open Directory RDF Dump. But this is the first time someone did a study (not sure the validity of the study) showing which sites are banned and which are not. What brought on the study? Yea, this individual was penalized "after operating for more than five years." Was it specifically the ODP data that got him banned? Who knows. Was it the ODP data that got the other 37% banned in Google? Who knows... There are some out there, believe it or not, that use the ODP data to better their rankings, exclusively. Is it possible that some of those people try other things to better there rankings, that may have warranted a penalty outside of the ODP data side? Possibly. Does Google or any other engine want duplicate content? Not likely.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
