What makes DMOZ so valueable directory?

Hi,
I am wondering why everybody want to be listed in the DMOZ directory? What make DMOZ so desirable directory? And who own it?
Also, once you are getting listed, what is the amount of traffic you can get from DMOZ?

Thanks,
Rani

 

See Dmoz 101: Background on the Open Directory Project. For your convenience, it's the sticky thread right at the top of this forum .

 

Only webmasters with extremely antiquated notions of SEO, dating back before 2000 when humans shared the internetz with dinosaurs, still hold on to the legend that a DMOZ listing is worth anything.

If you do get listed, expect the increase in traffic to be extremely close to ZERO. Personally, I haven't had a DMOZ referral for over a year and a half, going by memory, and I have several sites that are listed.

In conclusion, DMOZ listings bring no traffic, and no special Google love.

 

While I agree with you that DMOZ does not send a significant amount of traffic, I wouldn't say "no special Google love."

While such a listing will not alone give you good results in the SERPS, it is definitely considered a valuable link.

The same would also be true about a listing in Yahoo directory.

Remember, when it comes to SEO, every link counts and some links are definitely worth more than others.

These are definitely worthwhile links and certainly a valuable ingredient in an overall link building campaign.

 

This is 2010. The value of links in the grand SEO scheme has been greatly reduced, since the concept has been abused. Much like meta tags have fallen out of favor, the value of links has become degraded over the years.

 

Dmoz still carries a lot of weight, true its not what it used to be but I'm convinced that it helps in gaining trustrank if you have everything else lined up nicely.

 

Sorry, no, it doesn't.

DMOZ has "PR6" page with listings on it that are still "PR0" - though in all fairness, just like links aren't worth what they used to, PR has become rather meaningless.

If I were Google, DMOZ would be the last place on the web to get special "trustrank."

 

So in terms of traffic, I would not expect to see significant traffic coming to my site, sounds like it's just a show off... It's like winning a gold medal in a competition that no one knows or watch...
I would be happy to get listed in DMOZ, but why bother, invest the time and wait a year for a link (hoping it would be approved) that would not send significant traffic. Sounds like it's only being recognized as a good link by the SEO community.

 

It was recognized as a good link back in 1999. The days of DMOZ being recognized as a source of good links are long gone, but there is still a smattering of incompetent "SEOs" that stubbornly hang on to the notion despite a decade's worth of evidence to the contrary.

 

Its give a trustpr because its about the only large directory to actually accept websites by hand which means humans visit submitted links and say yes or no to them, where robots only check what they can. So it is trusted for this reason

 

If you get a good link in one of the higher categories its still invaluable, I have one site in there 4 levels down, the category has a PR4 and the site has very few other incoming links, it ranks extremely well for quite competitive terms, it is a good site, but I figure it wouldn't be there without that link, so I wouldn't be writing dmoz off too soon.

You may disagree about trustrank, but have a think about who else Google copuld use, sure wikipedia is ok, but how much of that is fabricated for the purpose of site promotion, at least dmoz has humans editing.

 

Like I said in another thread, you'll find plenty of sites with PR0, that have a DMOZ listing on a PR6 page. It doesn't seem to help them. Also, TOPIX with its 20K DMOZ deeplinks never floats up in the SERPs, so even 20K deeplinks aren't helping.

In the past 5 years, Google has made enormous strides in emphasizing content FRESHNESS (definitely not a DMOZ specialty), and in automated recognition of scraper sites, parked domains, and their ilk. As far as scrapers go, Google is now pretty much perfect in not giving them any SERP-love at all. I can't remember the last time I clicked on a SERP site that lead to a scraper.

The process is not only automated, but Google can analyze billions of pages at the speed of light. "Human-edited" is an inferior process by miles, because it is so flawed, and so infuriatingly slow. DMOZ has been falling behind the growth of the web every day, for 10 years.

Google doesn't need DMOZ, and hasn't used DMOZ for a long long time. Think about it. There is nothing that DMOZ can do, that Google can't do infinitely better and faster.

 

There are categories that are not or been updated for 2 years or more. Lots of things happen in a year and new sites adding daily in the web. That is way too slow in 'collating' links and doing hobby. There are sites out there which are not listed but are on top of keyword searches.

 

How fast do you collect stamps? Do you keep up with every stamp that is printed in the world , in every country? If not why not? Surely to keep up with your hobby you have to collect every stamp that was ever printed and will be printed and you need them the day they are printed.

Strange I never ran my stamp collecting hobby like that, I did it in my time, I collected the stamps I wanted to collect and depending on how much time and money I had. But now my hobby is colleting sites and collating them, but, according to popo I have to collect them at his speed, not mine, I have to keep up, but wait a minute, isn't this MY hobby, isn't this what I choose to do with My spare time?

 

I think you're misunderstanding popo completely. That's not what he's saying.

He knows that everyone at ODP is free to list links as fast or slow as they want to - and ODP is what it is, that is, a hobby for a few people.

It doesn't change the fact that's it's of no use to surfers because it's so incomplete and out of date and Google is a million times better.

More importantly to the webmasters that occasionally post here, listings from ODP are worthless because Google would be worse if it used the ODP in any way, and it doesn't.

 

Have never been to the DMOZ site.. most likely, never will,, could care less what they think of my site or if they will give me a backlink..

let them go the same way as Altavista... .. The King is dead,, there is a new Prince in Town...

 

Is your stamp collection for public viewing? Do you claim that it is a service? Do you offer a place where I can submit suggestions for you to collect? Do you set guidelines for yourself then not follow them? The ODP does all of these things and more... so really, the stamp collecting connection is FAR off it's mark.

What directory do you edit for by the way, I'd love to see your collection! I looked for you on the ODP but didn't find your profile. Can we get a link for that?

I mean, the time it takes for you to collect the best sites and put them in order, it must be a REALLY REALLY good collection. We'd all love to see your work. Or are you just making it up about being a site collector?