hutcheson - 11:57 pm on Feb 22, 2008 (gmt 0)

My guess would be that DMOZ removal and Google rank change are not causally related, but that they are both effects of the same cause -- that is, on the website itself.

Either downtime, or ownership change, or drastic content change, or some other signal to the world that everyone might consider starting from scratch evaluating the site's reputation,(*) could have all sorts of ripple effects. Some of the effects you won't notice. Others, like Google or DMOZ, you might. Some of the effects seem to happen overnight; others may be delayed for awhile -- Google is obviously usually quicker than DMOZ, but not always. Some of the effects, you'll be able to figure out how THEY caught on. Some of them, you won't.

(*)Before the re-evaluation, obviously nobody KNOWS whether the site has improved or degenerated. So it's safest for their users to ... not make any recommendation until the re-evaluation takes effect.