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The recent G changes favor larger sites with DMOZ listing and links coming from larger sites with DMOZ listings.
Mom and Pop selling homemade candy on the internet may be looking for some other line of work soon as will thousands and thousands of small webbers.
This change in Google's algo no longers serves the internet as a whole - but gives a step up for the big to get bigger and the small to stay away. Granted, anyone can claw their way to the top, but the playing field is no longer level.
Most of the top G search results favor listings in DMOZ which frowns on any type of affiliate site. It's also a listing that can be very hard to get because of under-staffing at ODP. And in many many cases people just don't know it's important!
Most of the top G search results favor large sites with hundreds of pages rather that a dozen or two - even though small sites bring some of the best content to the web.
Most of the top G results have links from other sites that are also listed in DMOZ and are large as well.
This is a major change from G's previous policy and practices.
With Google's changes and Yahoo's need for a Gold Card the interent may be facing a new and interesting path.
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Sites that don't have original content but only point to sites with original content tend to do less well.
And some folks think this is a bad thing.
Hmm...I just checked some totally non-competitive SERPs that are totally non-commercial. All of these SERPs were of exact bottom level category names in the ODP. As these are all non-commercial SERPs, someone actually using SEO to try to get their site to the top would be unlikely. Thus, if an ODP listing is extremely valuable to Google rankings as you say, then I'd expect the top 10 SERPs to be dominated by sites listed in the respective ODP category. In all cases, this wasn't so. An ODP listing sure isn't the magic bullet to to top of Google rankings when the SERP is non-commercial and non-competitive.
Yes, they use the same algo for large or small sites but the theory is that Google are using 'Hilltop' which favours larger themed sites which will probably be getting links from the smaller ones.
As a user, how is that automatically a bad thing?
Some here have mentioned that it takes a really long time to get a DMOZ listing approved. I dont find this to be true at all. In the last 6 months I have submitted 5 sites to DMOZ and all were approved in less than 2 months.
If you submit a site to DMOZ that has nothing else to offer besides purchasing your widgets, yes, your site will sit in the queue for 7 months or longer and never get approved. Some people seem to think that as long their site is not affilate related they will be able to get a listing in DMOZ. If this were true, DMOZ would be a totally worthless collection of garbage sites (with a few good ones here and there).
Google should be giving points to DMOZ listed sites if they aren't already. DMOZ holds the highest standards of quality among any other directory. And it has nothing to do with how big a site you have!
There are many 1 page web sites listed in DMOZ ... that deserved to be there!
[edited by: mrbrad at 11:12 pm (utc) on Mar. 19, 2004]
I don't think anyone has said otherwise. The Google 'mom and pop' filter only kicks in with highly competitive search words or phrases (1,2,3 word phrases), many of which are geographic in nature. If the search word or phrase is not considered competitive by Google (they can’t make a buck off of it with adwords) it pretty much passes through with no filtering.
I also had a call today from a new client who'd been doing a little research into his competition and was very surprised that he hadn't been able to find their sites (which he knew existed) on Google and that he was getting very peculiar and unrelated results.
Let's see, large sites with high quality links do well.
Sites that don't have original content but only point to sites with original content tend to do less well.And some folks think this is a bad thing.
That is NOT what is happening. What is happening is link farms, 404 pages, guestbooks and other crap is dominating the serps. Again, looking at informational sites and not commercial, which I could not care less about.
An interesting theory. However, the original post was about ODP listed sites dominating. On these competitive searches that are geographic in nature, are you seeing that Mom & Pops consistently rank high if they are listed in an ODP regional cat?
Can someone show me otherwise on an important term?
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Mom and pop small business web sites usually don't ever make it to ODP. That's why you see so many small business people complaining. They are effectively locked out of Google.
To give you an idea how skewed or screwed the ODP really is, go to the Google directory (not the main search but the Google Directory which is available as a tab at the top of the Google search screen).
Now try a search in the Google Directory for 'paris hilton'. You know, the latest Internet porn queen?
You will see plenty of ‘paris hilton’ sites already in the ODP! If the ODP people see a popular search term they waste no time quickly exploiting it. Paris Hilton is one of the highest word phrase searches on the Internet at the moment.
If you are a mom and pop small business trying to get in a regional category in ODP though, good luck, you may be old a gray before you get there. You won’t even get a response from ODP you will just be sending your ODP listing request into a black hole, unless of course your web site has info or pics related to the latest Internet porn queen, Paris Hilton.
Need I say more!
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Try out some of the obvious porn search terms. If by "important" you mean big $ search terms, it was easy for me to find lucrative adult SERPs where ODP listed sites didn't dominate.
How can that be a way to run a search company Google? Roll on Yahoo! At least you know where you are and sites don't take seven months to get listed. One of my freiends actually admitted to deleting thousands of submissions to keep his category clean! Weird if it is coming down to hand managing web sites.
[edited by: exmoorbeast at 12:50 am (utc) on Mar. 20, 2004]
The best sites tend to be in the directories and tend to be at the top of most searches.
Consider relocating your business to my hometown. I happen to be the ODP editor of that, and there are currently 0 sites in unreviewed. ;) Not all submissions to ODP regional cats go into a black hole.
Again, I wish I could show examples of mom and pop sites that haven't made it into ODP are burried under junk that doesn't even fit the search - but that would violate the TOS of this place...
I content Google is using DMOZ as a major part of their current filter. It is one of the best ways in the world to dump affiliate sites to the bottom - but others are being hurt too.
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is there anything I could do to persuade you to relocate yourself into *my* hometown?
OK. For the sake of argument I'll accept this.
>The ODP boost is especially clearly visible for the highly competitive 1 word search examples that I mentioned earlier in this thread.
Whoa. Wait a second here. If the ODP didn't exist, then for a highly competitive 1 word search term if Google is working the way it ought to, then the most meritorious sites should be dominating the SERPs. If the ODP is working the way it ought to, then the most meritorious sites should be listed in the ODP. Logic 101. Correlation does not necessarily prove causation. And, you may have causation backwards. ODP editors also list list sites they find on their own. Search engines are often used to do this. It may just be that ODP editors are listing the highest ranking sites on Google that also qualify for an ODP listing per the guidelines because these are the easiest to find.
I have survived Austin and Florida etc. I have watched ( and spoken with competitors ) who have fallen and it usually ended up being they did something that was ' close to the line '.
This is business. If large sites such as amazon do well it reflects what happens in the real world , supermarkets closing small shops etc. Soon we will have anti globalisation protestors outside the walls of google..
Another thing is that Google is free. It doesnt owe us anything , especially number one slot. Expecting a listing is like wanting a real world shop rent free. While i rank in number one for my keywords I also buy the number 1/2 slot in adwords for them and many that i dont rank in. The fact that im ranked for many is a ' bonus '
I looked to buy a cd online the other day. I was served an amazon result. I could buy the CD and have it delivered to my house in 2 days. Simple for me , the buyer.
I think what will happen over time is that users of google and any SE that becomes strong in the future will ' learn how to find what they want ' .
I have been analyzing a group of sites since the NeverWas non-update trashed all but one of them. I kept looking for the magic bullet that saved the one. YOU CALLED IT! Yep, it's the only one of the group that's listed in DMOZ.
The plot thickens. This particular site got into DMOZ a couple years ago. Then it changed hands and got loaded up with all kinds of spammy stuff some time ago. But it's still there, so I guess the overloaded editors never came back around to see if it still passed the muster.
Wasn't there a drive a while ago to scoff up abandoned sites that were in DMOZ? Scoff them up for their page rank and stuff them with spam ... that's what was happening.
I rest your case, stcrim!
You'd all be wise to listen to rfgdxm1 on this one. No one's offered any evidence that all or most ODP-listed sites are in the first page of search results; instead, they're offering evidence that most of the sites in the first page of search results are listed in the ODP. There's a big difference there!
The fact that most of the top results are listed in the ODP doesn't actually suggest that getting your site listed there would help its rankings a bit. You are looking at self-selected results. ODP editors would have to be quite incompetent not to add any appropriate pages found in the first few pages of a search engine result while they're out looking for sites. It's one of the first places I always check when I get a new category. Google also gives high rankings to sites that have lots of incoming links, which is another way I find new sites to add.
If GoogleGuy explicitly stated that ODP links are being treated just like any other link, they probably are. It's silly to flatly accuse him of lying over "evidence" that doesn't support what you're saying. There are plenty of sites listed in the ODP that don't enjoy any top listings in Google. Getting your site listed there wouldn't help you any more than any other pair of medium-PR directory links would. IMHO, anyway.
Adding to the above, any site that has managed to get high rankings in Google for a big $ SERP without an ODP listing very likely has a webmaster that knows about SEO, or the webmaster has paid a SEO that is good. Anyone who is knowledgeable about SEO would know enough to submit a site to the ODP if it was listable per the guidelines as soon as it qualified. Thus even if an ODP editor didn't bother to find sites using search engines, they'd find it in the unreviewed queue. Or, have found it in the unreviewed queue long ago. Typically sites ranking high for big $ keywords have been online for a substantial period of time.
If GoogleGuy explicitly stated that ODP links are being treated just like any other link, they probably are.
I believe him (or her).
Google is looking for quality links to your site. Does ODP link count as a quality link?
In my view, it is considered to be of about average quality - much better than free-for-all reciprocal links, on par with or slightly better than other large directory links because of its non-monetary nature, and worse than expert sites related to the keyword field.
If my site deals with a legal issue, I will prefer a single link from the U.S. Supreme Court to multiple links from the ODP. :-)
Also, can't convince me that people in ODP are better web developers or SE optimizers therefore making their sites rank better. I am a former DMOZ editor - trust me the junk and the jewels reside together there.
The original post was about getting a boost from DMOZ and with every important term having DMOZ listings at the top, it's a hard one to dispute. It's possible that's how the chips just fell, but I doubt anyone in Vegas would take odds on it.
Google may also consider other human edited directories very valuable sources for filtering...
For now it doesn't look like Google wants to offer their two cents worth on the subject.
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