I've read many "rants" on the fact that their site hasn't been listed in the ODP. My question is, why is it so important? Personally, I've never used the ODP for search, but maybe I'm in the minority. I assume that a listing can count as a quality back-link, but how much weight does it really carry? As far as I know, an ODP listing is not required to rank high for keywords, so why is inclusion so coveted? P.S. Just out of curiousity, I know an editor determines who is listed, but who determines who becomes an editor?
Nice question. They are called the Mafia. Er, Sorry they are called the Meta. And most of them can be found at Little Italy right here Resource Zone
im going to apply for here: http://dmoz.org/Business/Publishing...g/Products/Commercial_Printing/United_States/ hehe funny to see one of the places i actually did work for back in my hometown is in there. there are much better places though that should be added.
The people that post all those "rant" threads you mention never seem to be able to answer THAT question. I think it is mostly the noobish and uneducated that think DMOZ is a "magic pill" that will make their web business boom. If all hopes and dreams are riding on whether you get listed in one directory or not, then you are not going to succeed...DMOZ listing or not.
@an0n: ../Commercial_Printing/United_States/ is enormously too big for a newbie. As all the good advice elsewhere and the actual application form say, pick a category of under 100 listings to begin with. Don't forget to use your keyboard's shift key when filling out the form .
Nonsense. Check out the Google clone which puts PR next to listings. Note that there are plenty of examples of listed sites with zero PR. It is one, repeat one, backlink, no more.
Wait three months and tell me again... If you cant get google to come to your site often you will not get good PR... being listed gets google to come more often... plain and simple...
Since I said it at least three months ago, I'll tell you again now, check out the Google clone which puts PR next to listings. Note that there are plenty of examples of listed sites with zero PR. It is one, repeat one, backlink, no more. What you are saying has absolutely no evidence to back it up, what I am saying is evidenced by the existence of PR0 sites listed in DMOZ, and listed for some time in order for them to appear on the Google clone. To the same extent as being listed on any other directory with a similar backlink value to the category. Thus DMOZ is not important to get PR quick. Getting quality backlinks (plural) will undoubtedly help. But I have a site with no backlinks whatsoever (work in progress that no-one except me should know even exists) that already has PR2 which is 2 more than many sites listed in DMOZ. Go figure, it isn't fair is it. Neither is misleading people into thinking a DMOZ listing is some pot of gold at the end of a rainbow in terms of PR.
Of course you are entitled to your opinion... but the fact remains that many people would disagree with you... otherwise they wouldnt even bother with DMOZ... Like you said, its ONLY 1 backlink... I dont dispute its only 1 link... I also dont dispute many backlinks from many sources does far better than being listed once in DMOZ. But if I was listed tomorrow Im sure my PR would go up soon after.
How do you explain the existence of sites, listed for a while in DMOZ, with a PR of 0, zero, zilch, nothing, then? Many people would disagree that the Earth is round and orbits the Sun, preferring to believe in the Flat Earth theories. Don't make 'em right though, and I don't think they should be allowed to teach geography in schools. It isn't a matter of opinions - PR0 sites listed in DMOZ is surely more evidence than you could ever want about the neglible PR effect of a DMOZ listing. But hey, I'm not the one that is going to be disappointed, so dream on.
I have a site that isn't listed that is being crawled frequently. In terms of whether PR is gained or not, if so it's nice, but PR doesn't always translate into high serp's rankings. -Thanks for the feedback
@an0n: I tell you that your preferred category is much too big for a newbie but you decide to go ahead and apply for it anyway. What would be the point of that?
The point is to experience what it is an editor has to do and does, and I am and expert in that field. With all of the dmoz wah wah wahing that i've read throughout the months, it's stricken somewhat of an interest in me. Oh yea, let us not forget that I have many years of experience in the offset printing industry. I was running machines at the age of ten. My pops still is a pressman to this day (god bless his 55yr young self). I know all facets, pre and post. I've managed an entire shop of a few dozen people. So why are you so concerned? Yea, I know, you're probably thinking of corruption. Well when it comes to me, you're dead wrong. So take it elsewhere e-bud-e.
Expert in the field = Conflict of interest At DMOZ if your found guilty there is no charge, trail, defense… only sentence - even in Kafka novel you would have better chances.
Well, the sites with pr0 are at least listed in google. Since sites when starting have trouble even getting themselves crawled, I'd still say dmoz makes a big difference. And it's not one link - with all the DMOZ clones out there it's several. This doesn't mean you can't get listed without DMOZ, but that if you do, it helps.
Trust me on this. The chance of a new editor being joined in a category of over 500 listings is infinitessimal.
One day late last summer I submitted my site to DMOZ then forgot about it. About 4 months later I noticed some traffic from DMOZ and found my site was added. Shortly after I noticed traffic from Google directory as well. I now have at least two extra links (maybe more from DMOZ clones) that send me some traffic daily, not much, but you never know if any of that traffic links back to me creating even more traffic as a result. It took me about 30 seconds to submit my site and as I never worried about it after that, it was a good investment of 30 seconds for my site. Here's some math: I get about 10 uniques/day from DMOZ and Google, my average visitor views 10 pages so that's 100 page views/day. At a CTR of 2% that's 2 clicks/day. At $.20/click that $.40 day That's $12.00/month That's $144.00/year And that's just from direct traffic that I know about from being listed. Again, well worth the 30 seconds.