OK. A while back I said, "Show me some evidence". I'm open to being proved wrong here. The evidence I've seen to date tells me that the description tag and the snippet is not related to page ranking. If you can find evidence that would suggest otherwise, believe me... I would be VERY interested in that information. For one thing, I would approach constructing description meta tags somewhat differently than I do now.
Well, yeah...I would like to be able to compile some evidence. But I can't get any new sites in DMOZ. Just assume they do use it....it can't hurt.
And thatv is based on...??? A wild guess? Something you read on another forum? What? I think that assumption is (a) false and (b) does hurt... all those people who think they can't rank without a DMOZ listing.
Re: a) - fair enough. R: b)- Well that is a different story entirely. I'm making the suggestion for rational people. People like us, Dr. Minstrel.
I seldom visit any forums other than digitalpoint. Its from my personal experience... I cant give any concrete evidence, though... but after getting listed in DMoz, one of my site rank higher for a particular 'search term'.
Sure. You got one more backlink with some topic relevance. Getting another similar PR link with similar relevance from any other web page would have accomplished the same thing.
do you have an HOW MUCH sites use dmoz data? most of them with a pr6 and beyond. its not only google and dmoz, there are a lot of internet providers, large (national and regional) portals who embed dmoz into their own layout. i think you quite underestimate the dmoz link power with "(one) another similar PR link would have accomplished the same thing."
na, not really - just because some sites i know rank very well for duplicate content. google didnt find the holy gral yet if i check my sites and for what i rank good and for what not. sometimes i seriously think most firstgraders could do a better job finding relevant content, if you give them a list of 1000 random pages and search terms like "epson printer", "acer 1680" or most other consumer products.
Industry, especially the engineering industry that I had my first 10 years of employed life does need a good directory. Why? Because its what the older generation use. I don't know about the rest of the world, but in England we are an aging nation, and when non internet savvy people I know talk about finding leeds on the internet, they don't (to my suprise) look to google but start searching for a suitable directory - I look on aghast! Its not what I would do, but it is what those around me do - its what they grew up with. ODP has a place in the world while we have a good percentage of people still wanting to do things the old fashioned way, I don't think it needs a replacement, just some coals placing on the fire and a few new ideas. Who knows, it 10 years (an eternity online) Google may be a thing of the past for the next best thing.....
Yesterday So what you are saying is that you take people's money for links knowing that no-one ever visits directories?
I think it's very narrow minded to assume the value of DMOZ goes only as far as Google, webmasters and traffic. For some factual information see the sites listed at http://core-n02.dmoz.aol.com:30080/...ories/Open_Directory_Project/Research_Papers/ I see hundreds, if not thousands of directories trying to do what DMOZ does only better. So far I haven't seen any come close.
I get kind of lost on this one What is a directory? http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=e...irectory&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title Most if not all directory scripts search using keywords whether in the header or body?
It's been tried. ODP came about at the right time in history when there were not that many quality directories. The founders were able to convince a large number of volunteers to join and work for free to promote the concept. Internet users are more jaded today. I think you would have problems attracting the mass of volunteers necessary to make it work. DMOZ has trouble attracting quality volunteers in today's world. They can attract those who would become editors to promote their sites and sites of their clients but it's hard to attract volunteers who are willing to do it without gaining anything but personal satisfaction for a job well done.