A Dmoz link is more important than 1000 PR5s

I don't think you are right. Maybe google is investing a bit more trust in a dmoz listed site, but this isn't a condition to rank #1.

 

Some of the DMOZ dir listings still have expired 50Megs site urls!

 

There is zero valid evidence that Google invests any more trust in a DMOZ link than any other link.

If Google trusted DMOZ so much, it would have updated its version of the ODP more recently that 2 years ago. This is very strong evidence that Google has long ago stopped assigning any value to DMOZ, in addition to the evidence you see in the SERPs (sites that have been listed in DMOZ for 2 years and more, that are still PR0 and don't rank at all, sites that aren't listed but are at #1, etc.)

Any webmaster or SEO that thinks otherwise hasn't done his research. Google it if you don't believe us.

 

I'm still learning this SEO thing, but I do agree with what you just said. When I read an SEO article I'll skim it for DMOZ and if I see it, I'll check the date to make sure I'm not reading something from 2002 or something and if it's current I'll not read the rest of the thing and leave nasty comments As, IMHO, if a person is writing an article they should be doing so to help the person reading it.

 

dmoz is an old and established directory.

A link from dmoz would still be more valuable than a link from most other directories on the net.

 

You are assuming that a directory, especially an out-of-date and unkempt one, could have any special value to a state-of-the-art, mega speed of light search engine like Google.

As brizzie pointed out, a lot of DMOZ editors rely on Google for their listing! DMOZ might be considered to be a pathetic, out-of-date and uneven mirror of Google SERPs. Who cares how "established" DMOZ is, it is no more useful to Google than if it came online yesterday.

All DMOZ does, is to take Google results, disregard PAGES and consider only SITES, and add them to a complex and arcane topic tree.

Why on Earth would Google make such a link more valuable??? It's nothing but an imperfect, biased, and incomplete reflection of its own awesome SERPs.

 

Google is a search engine, not a human.

It is no regard for quality of information on any site.

dmoz satisfies most of Google's criteria for a trusted sites.
-old site.
-steady content.
-millions of incoming links. (Yahoo is showing 58 million links to it. .

If having broken links was a big drawback in Google's algorithm, forums like DP (with thousands of broken and incorrect links) wouldn't be found anywhere in the SERPs.

 

I look forward to the day where Google will be able to adjust their algorithms based on praise vs. complaint. Currently saying DMOZ SUCKS and linking to it is a vote FOR the directory. And currently, the number of thumbs down links pointing to the ODP are quickly gaining on the more positive ones.

And rel="nofollow" does not count as there are more of those then you can shake a virtual stick at now, and most of them are site wide making them more or less null.

 

Qryztufre,

What makes you hate Dmoz that much? Dmoz is not as important as OP said of course, but it is not as unimportant as you say, either.

Google, and anyone else, will ALWAYS favor Dmoz over any other directory. Why? The answer is quite simple: No matter how corrupt you or anyone else claim they are, they are doing this as volunteers and "many" of them are doing this. In other words, the possibility of being listed in Dmoz is not at the mercy of a directory owner: It is a volunteer activity done, mostly, by experts. I know many academicians are editors of categories like physics, chemistry, etc. Now, in the directory category, there might be a webmaster as an editor, but that doesn't make other categories, or even that category less quality.

Again, search engines will ALWAYS trust a site like Dmoz more than a paid Directory A. Paid Directory B, etc. people have on their sig links on DP. You poy to the owner, and you get listed in those sites. Such is not the case on Dmoz.

 

I don't actually hate them, in fact I love the potential that they have. Though I do currently think they are evil.

When I was talking about the algorithm above, I was talking in general, with DMOZ as the example. I truly feel that to be truly organic, they must learn between the difference between something I am liking and something I'm disliking. I currently view rel='nofollow' as a neutral vote.

The horrible lack of editors is what lowers the quality. Many categories have not been touched in years. I recently resigned as an editor and the category I left was seemingly not touched in at least 3 years, as while many of the pages still existed many of them had not been touched. Other non-commercial categories have dozens and dozens of sites waiting in queue.

There is no real quality in a directory that has not been updated in years.

Which in a way is sad, as if DMOZ went paid, at least they would start listing sites now affiliated with it's meta staff.

 

A reasonable point Vex. There are large tracts of ODP that are non-commercial and therefore less prone (though not immune) to abuse. And interesting to edit too. This is, however, a webmaster forum and as such the focus tends to be on the failings of the commercial sections. "Importance" in the context of this thread, I think means importance in getting the all-important Google PR marketing points so beloved by webmasters. In that respect it is singularly unimportant in that anyone competent in SEO can and should be able to easily counter not being listed. Those looking for commercial services are also highly unlikely to use the ODP though there are some excellent maintained categories on non-commercial subjects that probably could not be beaten by any Google search.

 

the effect of dmoz is a secret. nobody can give exact answer that dmoz link effect to your serp or not. in my opinion, dmoz is only a directory

 

Correct.

Nonsense. There are lots of old directories. Links from directories are worth no more than links from any other site. And in truth that's not a whole lot, since whatever SEO benefit they provide is distributed among numerous other listings on the same page as that link to your site. And the anchor text and description for a link in DMOZ is frequently about as weak as you can get.

You're simply wrong.

(1) See the post from helleborine above: Where is the evidence that Google values DMOZ listings at all, let alone more than other links?

(2) From an SEO standpoint, the listing in DMOZ often sucks. See my comment above.

 

Go read the post again.

I am just comparing dmoz with other directories in general.

There are a hundreds of thousands of directories on the internet. 99.9% of them are total junk.

Are you saying dmoz is at same level as those?

 

I'm no expert, but I had a site listed in DMOZ about 2 months ago and the increase in traffic and the spider activity has been very noticable. While it may not be worth 1000 links I believe the effect is better then minor.

I'm not sure if anyone really knows for sure. If there were some studies they'd be well publicized by now.

My 2 cents:
The major search engines know their main weakness is their lack of human filtering in their approach. ANY human edited directory that is as unbiased as DMOZ is (however imperfect) is going to be viewed differently (i.e. more weight) then other sites that are equal in pagerank. I can't prove this, but common sense tells me that when a lot of search engines scrape listings off of DMOZ (all listings) it carries more weight then many other link sources.

It's worth trying to get listed... I'm certain of that. It's not worth worrying if your site doesn't get listed... I'm certain of that too. If your site is somewhat unique I'd try hard... if it's another one of the same ole, same ole, I wouldn't waste my time.

 

You may be right about him being wrong. But, he may be right and you may be wrong.

Not sure of any other directory that receives as much attention as DMOZ. There are some first rate, high ranking, directories out there, but none that have captured our attention the way DMOZ has. This "buzz" and belief by many that a listing in DMOZ IS of value in effect makes it of value imo.

I may be wrong. Does it matter if I am? Nah.

(Minstrel: I've read your posts here and there for a bit and I recognize you as an "authority poster" so don't think I'm questioning your knowledge... I'm just chiming in.)

 

Anyone can have an opinion. But opinions worth listening to are evidence based.

 

I thought that Google used all Dmoz listings !

One site my friend had was PR2 and when it was listed went to PR5

I think it has some worth submitting

 

Here are some sites that have been listed for OVER TWO YEARS and are PR=0.

That's right. PageRank ZERO.

creationsbycrouch.com, madebyangel.com, lawilderdesigns.com, theherbalnook.com, sunrisecrafts.com, dragonswire.com, ginnyscottage.com, etc.

So I think it's fair to say that "pristine" websites with little inlinking to confuse the issue, and pretty much only a DMOZ listing to consider in the equation, get ZERO PR from their DMOZ listing. Even after a mimimum of two years of stewing in the bowels of the dinosaur.

I would suggest that your jump from PR2 to PR5 can be safely, and more accurately, be attributed to other factors.

 

Imo a dmoz link will count a bit more than a link from another general directory, as dmoz is older and has a better reputation..

I don't think it's now still as important to get a link on dmoz than it was say 4 years ago.

When analyzing some my competitors I noticed one of them was already listed on dmoz a few years ago.. as a lot of new directories just copy info from dmoz, his website was added to more than 100 other directories..