Dmoz Lottery

My question is who actually uses the DMOZ. I got to be honest, I have been using the internet since 1994, and owned and operated a regional ISP for 5 years and was involved in other capacities with the internet since then...

Until I recently started getting into web publishing and seeing information about SEO and such, I had never heard of DMOZ.

To me it seems like this site has way too much pull in the scheme of things. I bet I couldn't find one person I know that has ever heard of it.

So what is the story, why is this directory so prominent, and why does it have so much clout?

 

So true.

Im new at this as well so my answers may not be the best, but from what I understand Google and several other SE's pull data from DMOZ and use it in the algo.

To what extent they use it I have no idea. From what I know it used to be given a lot more credit then it actually has today.

 

Yeh there is definately no doubt in the fact that dmoz is nothing if google hasnt been using it but that made them too corrupt. And its time for google to penalize them.

 

What a big deal if out of 40 sites u have one listed its nothing great. And surpirsing thing is that u found worst sites listed in the category u submit while they dont have time add a good one. However this a debate which cannt stop, but i cannt understand why is google using dmoz now..

 

Editors. That's it.

The only other people who "use" it are webmasters. When they submit a site, or when they check to see if it is there. Other than that, all you will hear in the cyberhalls of DMOZ are the sounds of mumbling editors and that lonely wind sound they always have in westerns or horror movies...

 

Yes dmoz is not a search engine that peoples use it to search anything. Only webmasters use it that too because they r bound to do that. Everybody knows how difficult its to bring a site in google top 10 with a competitive word, untill and unless it exists in dmoz or yahoo. Yahoo is already charging $299 every year and dmoz editors donnt have time to review sites, its throws light on the fact that how much competitve this field is becoming.

 

Being listed at DMOZ has nothing to do with how you rank at the engines. This kind if hype is why DMOZ is so over rated.

 

That's really not true.

 

I heard it first time that being added in dmoz had nothing to do with search rankings. Well there are proven results for the same and if u have anything to show that it has nothing to do with ranking than we will glad to know that. There is definately no doubt that google gives much weightage to google followed by yahoo.

 

It does depend on the category. Some listings carry a lot of weight, yes. But there are many top ranking sites for very hard keywords which are not listed in DMOZ at all.

 

huh???

 

Where do you see either Fryman or I saying "it has nothing to do with ranking"?

What we were disputing is the claim or implication in your previous post that a top 10 ranking requires listing in DMOZ or Yahoo. That's just not true.

 

Well in case of less competitive keywords or in others words 3 words combinations one can bring in google top 10 rankings without dmoz submission. But when it comes to competitve keywords i.e. one or two word combinations its very difficult untill and unless you have a listing in dmoz or yahoo. I know this is not a conclusive statement and peoples are able to bring with same but with bulk link building. But how can it be possible to have bulk link building for every site. There is definately no doubt that a site with 10000 links and another one with 5000 links but having a listing in dmoz will rank ahead.

 

"definately no doubt" for you perhaps -- I definitely don't share your belief.

 

I don't agree with this.

1. Google is showing DMOZ descriptions in the SERPs. Not always but sometimes.
2. My first site jumped up on the Google SERPs when it got listed in DMOZ. And got a PR 4 with only a few other links to it.
3. Being listed in DMOZ gives you about maybe 800 links from other sites that uses DMOZ data.
4. My very recent SEO test confirmes the value of a DMOZ listing. Out of 22 test pages Google ranks the one #1 that has the domain listed in DMOZ, not the highest PR but DMOZ listed. This when the link popularity is equal for all test pages and only because of one of the test pages was on a domain that was DMOZ listed it ranked as #1.
5. Googles own directory and it's new alpha directory has the database from DMOZ.
6. Looking it from Google's viewpoint. Google knows that the sites listed in DMOZ has been manually reviewed and has reached a certain quality in order to be listed. There is no reason why Google should not grant those sites more importance.

These are facts and while I too don't like it I hope that this directory will be handled.

 

Because there are so many factors that go into determining search engine ranking for a specific search term, it is difficult on a limited sample of your own sites to be certain what causes what -- add to that the fact that your competitors are also optimizing in various ways and you need to look at the weight of evidence from a larger sample to be able to draw meaningful conclusions.

They also show snippets from the meta description tag -- or from wherever Google can find it. That doesn't mean that the DMOZ listing has a premier ranking role.

Well, you added another link, didn't you?

Not sure where the 800 figure comes from but whatever -- there are several suggestions / indications that this may be changing and that simple DMOZ clones are being devalued.

See my opening comment above.

Which seems to be bit by bit being devalued. By the way, the alpha directory isn't new.

If the premise were correct, perhaps. But many of the sites in DMOZ are not quality sites by anyone's criteria except the editor who listed them. There are numerous threads documenting this.

Bottom line is that there are numerous top 10 ranked sites without DMOZ listings. That IS a fact.

 

Yes, true.

While we can discuss this about DMOZ I am certain that being listed is one of the thousands of Google algo variables. Then how big factor this is, if it is big, or only a minor difference, none of us knows for sure and only the Google engineers can answer.

 

Can't disagree with that, Jim.

I do believe that Google is slowly devaluing DMOZ but that is more opinion based on my personal observations than evidence.