DMOZ Link Value - Update from PubCon

Just wanted to let all of the DMOZ haters out there, and the rest of DP, in on something Matt Cutts said yesterday about DMOZ. It is obvious that the biggest benefit of a DMOZ listing is that the number of backlinks it will give you because of the large number of DMOZ clone sites out there, is very high. Matt Cutts mentioned that Google has tried to eliminate the clone sites from their index and from what I saw last night when poking around online from my hotel room, it seems that they have done a pretty good job at eliiminating many of them. So, it seems that the value of a DMOZ listing will likely be greatly diminished in the near future.

 

That's good news I guess considering I haven't been able to get a site in in over a year.

Careful, buddy!

 

My laptop screen took a dump before I went out, so I had to use the webTV internet setup at the hotel. But, to be honest, it was pretty nice. "Pictures" look the same on a hotel TV as it does on my Dell 19" LCD.

 

Thats good to know. The DMOZ should be the most important directory, but not King Kong!

 

The official list of sites using ODP data is Sites Using ODP Data. I have checked quite a few sites from this list at Google, and so far they are all indexed.

 

checking the actual results for one of the first sites listed there link and using a site: with +san diego in the query results in these pages...all listed in the supplemental index.

 

I wasn't there of course but I think you may be misinterpreting the comment. I have felt for some time that what Google would do is not necessarily de-list the clone sites but discount any PR value from the clone directories. Among other things, such sites pervert the "popularity vote" or "importance vote" value of a link by the procesds of cloning, so it's no longer "one vote per person" but "many votes for certain people". If indeed they have done this (I think they started a few months ago at least), then those directories could still exist but they would not pass PR.

 

This would be ideal IMO

 

It would be indeed. Ideal for everyone concerned.

 

You might see quite a few editors starting a mass suicide cult if this is true. After all, they would be losing thier premodonna status and not have any further reason to go on!!!!! lol just kidding guys, dont blacklist me even though you still havent even looked at my site!!!! 1.2 years and counting....

 

They wouldn't commit suicide. They'd just go on to some other forum and bully people there instead.

And that would leave the true believer editors unencumbered by the deadwood, which I'm sure would make them happy, and unencumbered by angry webmasters, which would definitely make them happy.

 

Really? Are you sure?

 

Yikes! Isn't that feedback? Isn't that against the rules?

 

Just an observation. I don’t even know which site he is taking about and where was it submitted.

 

Nice recovery

 

No wonder my ears were burning...

Nice first move by Google... now all they need to do is stop using DMOZ completely and this will be a perfect world...

 

Spoken with a true passion.

 

fryman, I was going to red rep you and sign your own name, but suddenly my cold dmoz heart melted as I looked at your cute puppy dog face. Now I just feel an urge to pat your head and feed you snausages.

 

With Google getting closer to eliminating the effect of duplicate content/spammy links, I would think that the clone sites wouldn't matter much in G results anyways.

However, it seems as if sites in dmoz already get special treatment (outside of the clone links) in G. They obviously put a large amount of trust in dmoz, populating their own directory with dmoz results, and using dmoz descriptions for search results. With trustrank coming into play, and sheer amount of spammy, duplicated, scraped links becoming less important, I would argue that dmoz listing is more important than ever.

 

Ah... compostannie... you should read some of the DMOZ horror stories around this and almost every forum on the net...

It is just a good thing that turned bad... really bad...