NOODP? MSN Search, who use ODP data since the beginning of the year, have recently introduced a new tag: This tag tells the MSN search bot not to use ODP title and description of a listing for search result descriptions of your page.
Why should someone want to use such a tag?
* ODP is a directory created for the searchers, no marketing tool, therefore it often does not use webmasters' preferred
SEO keywords, it does not repeat the keywords as often as webmasters prefer, and it does not place listings in the categories best from the marketing standpoint but in the categories where the listings fit. This policy is one of ODP´s biggest strengths, and will certainly not change.
* Sometimes, title, description or category of a listing really do not fit to the content according to ODP´s guidelines: be it that the content of the listing has changed, be it because of a human error. In this case, telling the MSN search bot not to use the ODP information would only cure a symptom, it wouldn´t fix the problem. Therefore, if you find broken listings in ODP, or listings whose content does not suit to title and description, please help us identify and fix them! In each category, you find an update form in the right upper corner: You can use it to notify the editors of broken and changed links.
Keeping the data in a human-edited 4,7 mio listings directory as correct, fresh and up to date as possible is not a small challenge. ODP is not alone with this problem: Doesn´t matter which search tool you look at, keeping the index fresh is a problem that keeps all of them busy. ODP´s volunteer community is investing a lot of energy in identifying outdated listings and updating them, and we are continuously improving the related tools and processes (see the section on the latest Robozilla run above), but nobody´s perfect. So please give us a hand