How long does it take for DMOZ to impact on G?

No improvement after DMOZ listing

[whats up skip]

One of our sites was accepted into the DMOZ (finally!)

After the last update Google, Google now shows it to be in their directory (Great!).

Problem :( for the category title's keyword and all other key words in the directory listing our SERP went down or only held its position. Particularly of concern was the category title where we went from 126 to 132!

The site and DMOZ listing are in Japanese, but I cannot see that this would have any impact.

Well, what happened?
Does it take two update cycles for Google to factor in any benefit from the DMOZ?
Is Google just ignoring new listings in the DMOZ?

[mil2k]

Is your site being shown in google directory? IF not then wait for the next update (Pray to god). Concentrate on other things as you cannot do anything abt it! Try Link popularity, that probably would help you much better than a dmoz listing.

[edited by: mil2k at 8:17 am (utc) on April 16, 2003]

[steveb]

Dmoz doesn't bake bread. It's just a link. Get more links.

[Napoleon]

Indeed, it's only link, like any other from a similar page. Nice to have of course (also because DMOZ is widely used), but just a link nonetheless.

[whats up skip]

Thanks for the feed back guys.

We have been working on building up the number of links. The major problem is there are very few sites with PR greater than 3 that are in the same sort of field. Those that have it are our competitors.

It is simply a fact of life. Japanese language pages have a lower PR than a similar English language page would have.

Google seems to have more difficulty getting the algo correct in Japanese. Major reference sites such as the Australian Tourism Commission site (in Japanese) SERP may only be 15 for a key phrase. The home page of ATC site has a very high ranking (PR7 I think) and it is in the DMOZ.

One of the problems for Google in Japanese is the domain name and the file name have no relevance. They are in English and the key phrases are in Japanese! This then really limits the input Google can use.

Thus the need to obtain some value from reference sites such as the DMOZ.

[takagi]

> Does it take two update cycles for Google to factor in any benefit from the DMOZ?
I think it takes another cycle to process the link from the Google Directory. Usually this directory is updated at the end of the Google dance using the latest RDF dump from DMOZ as input. Then Freshbot starts spidering the web for the next update. This information is used to calculate PR, count back links, count keywords, etc. This calculation/counting process takes some time (let's say a week, 10 days, who knows). Your site is only just added to the Google Directory, so in my opinion that data was not available when the PR was calculated. If so, you can expect some PR boost with the new update. Look at the cache of the DMOZ page where your site was added. DMOZ was very hard to reach for quite some time last month. Google might not have been able to spider this page after your site was added. In that case, you can expect another PR boost when it can.

> Japanese language pages have a lower PR than a similar English language page would have.
That shouldn't be a big problem for your ranking in the SERP. It will hurt your competition just as hard. The SERP wouldn't change that much if you and your competition would get a bonus or 2 PR (PR3 -> PR5, PR4 -> PR6). It is about the difference in PR. And most Japanese customers will not look for a non-Japanese keyword.

> One of the problems for Google in Japanese is the domain name and the file name have no relevance. They are in English and the key phrases are in Japanese!
I know it is very rare, but it is possible to get a domain with kanji in it. And even if the domain is in English, the rest of the URL can still have kanji (e.g. the japanese category in DMOZ). But a domain with kanji/kana can cause you some problems too! Browsers that don't support it, getting links to it from an English page, etc.

> Google seems to have more difficulty getting the algo correct in Japanese.
There are no spaces in the Japanese language. So finding keywords is not easy for a searchengine.

> We have been working on building up the number of links.
Keep working on it.

Try to find out who is linking to the competition. Try to get links from English pages. If your site is about tourism outside Japan, offer some hotel/theme park/resort a one-page Japanese translation of their English site in exchange for a deeplink to this page on your site.

<added>
BTW, if it is the site in your profile, then you have a PR4. And it is not a low PR4 because the back links show up. In the back links I do see the one from DMOZ (PR3), but not the one from Google Directory (PR4). So after next Google dance your PR will be beter.</added>