I was just reading about Bing, like MSN and LiveSearch, using the description in DMOZ instead of from a sites Meta Description tag. The post gave a work around to get Bing to use the Meta Description Tag but I am curious to know what DMOZ is and how, if one can, to deal with it in terms of SEO techniques?

By the way, the work around in case you don't know it is to insert the following into your pages meta detail:

<META NAME=”msnbot” CONTENT=”NOODP”>

According to the post I read this code will tell the MSNBOT to use the Meta Description tag and ignore DMOZ.

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DMoz is the ODP (as in NO ODP), its the Open Directory Project.
It was started years ago, way before google.
It got assimilated into both Yahoo Directories, and Google Directories (i.e. Google/Yahoo scraped the directory).
In terms of SEO, its a bit outdated, but its still useful. The only major problem is how long it takes to get accepted... To be honest, I'm not sure anyone is even working to curate it anymore (it used to be run by volunteers).
Google, and search engines in general, tended to LOVE Dmoz, because of its age and authority... They still do, but it's not like it was.
It's good to get links on Dmoz because it gets scraped and posted all over the internet, by spammers, bots, other directories.. Back when these links used to be powerful, it was a good way to boost rankings.
With google de-valuing all types of non-relevant links, it probably a zero-sum process... But you might as well submit your site, if its free, it couldn't hurt.
Does that help?

DMoz is the ODP (as in NO ODP), its the Open Directory Project.
It was started years ago, way before google.
It got assimilated into both Yahoo Directories, and Google Directories (i.e. Google/Yahoo scraped the directory).
In terms of SEO, its a bit outdated, but its still useful. The only major problem is how long it takes to get accepted... To be honest, I'm not sure anyone is even working to curate it anymore (it used to be run by volunteers).
Google, and search engines in general, tended to LOVE Dmoz, because of its age and authority... They still do, but it's not like it was.
It's good to get links on Dmoz because it gets scraped and posted all over the internet, by spammers, bots, other directories.. Back when these links used to be powerful, it was a good way to boost rankings.
With google de-valuing all types of non-relevant links, it probably a zero-sum process... But you might as well submit your site, if its free, it couldn't hurt.
Does that help?

Absolutely helps. But with all of that said, why would Bing be using an outdated source instead of the meta definitions present in the sites themselves? Curious

DMOZ is ODP, which is very useful for google ranking if you can let them to index your sites, I have try many times and found it's really strictly for indexing some normal sites, just make sure yours is really professional in one field and make yours perfect on many aspects.

In response to Rob, I don't know.. If you find out, be sure to let me know! :)

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