Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I have long had a feeling there was a difference between the PR displayed in Googles Directory and the PR displayed on the Google search bar but never could find out what factors influenced the difference. My guess has always been that relevance to the category was important in achieving PR indication in the Directory, but I always thought relevance was judged from site content and not so much from the site description in the Directory itself (DMOZ).
This now seems to have been a wrong assumption. Site description in the Directory (Dmoz) does have a lot to say.
One of our sites has been listed on DMOZ for years with the same description and was given a fairly high PR in Googles directory (ranked highest in its category). Recently one of the DMOZ editors have changed the description of our site and it is obvious that this has been done with the sole purpose of hurting our rank (Very lame description has been added with no relevant keywords what so ever) and like a flash from the sky our PR in the directory has dropped to zero.
Toolbar pagerank is still the same of course.
I belive directory RP is slightly more up to date than Toolbar PR. This is something that DMOZ do not control. PR is entirely down to Google. Google only use data from DMOZ.
Mack.
I am pretty sure you are incorrect here. I have seen many examples of PR shown in the Directory being permanently different from the PR shown in the Toolbar. It is not a matter of time difference.
It is mostly a matter of PR not being shown at all in the Google Directory if the site in the directory is not deemed relevant to the category.
Correct me if i am wrong.
I have been seing this happen in a couple of cases over the years:
[webmasterworld.com...]
The log base of PR is is used purely for display purposes, to approximately normalise the full range of PR to a simple scale of 0-10.
Of course, it need not be a log scale at all, there are other possibilities too.
Kaled.
Did your title in DMOZ change or is that the same?
I notice that some are listed in DMOZ in the following ways:-
i.e
1. widgetstoday.com
2. Widgets Today
3. or XYZ Limited if the site shows a different owner on the page to the domain name.
A friend of mine had a perfect keyword url which was listed as (2) above, it ranked high and then DMOZ changed it later to (3) the result was that they lost loads of anchor keyword text links as other directory sites including google changed the name the site was listed as to match the new DMOZ entry.
Your point regarding the description is very interesting if it was just the description change that effected your Page Rank.
In my case both the description and the title changed and the PR dropped to zero immediately in the Google Directory.
The Toolbar PR remains the same.
It is however fairly easy to demonstrate that PR in the directory is not the same as on the toolbar and that there is some extra factors added in the directory. Just take any subdirectory and notice how some sites that rank higher than others on the toolbar are ranked the other way around in the directory. Fx examine the following directory:
[google.com...]
You are onto something with your statement. The site name changed from:
www.domaine.com - keyword
to
www.domaine.com
But even though it still contains the URL it had same effect on the site as to your friends. Basically killed a bunch of major back links and now it is showing 0 Back links even though I had a ton that were not DMOZ clones etc.
My site is probably not a valid reference for description of this phenomena anymore since my toolbar page rank will probably be severely affected the next couple of days.
Still doesn't change the fact that there is an extra factor involved. Just look at the directory I included in the previous post.
Scary how much this DMOZ directory affects us.
Please specify who you are directing your reply to. Now that the entry you are refering to has been removed it looks like you are anwering my post.
I know that it can be tempting to link together two events that happen close together as cause and effect. But one case is just coincidence. For me to believe that Google has changed its fundamental method of calculating PageRank without announcement, just for its directory, I would need to see a great deal more evidence than that. And I don't.
Google used to use the descriptions regularly in SERPs, then stopped altogether, and has now returned to using them sometimes (apparently when the search word is included in the description). Whether it is used or not has no effect on the ranking of the site in the SERPs.
It's an useful link as any other link, but I see several sites having a PR 7 ranking fine despite the fact they are not included in Dmoz.
Dmoz should not be an obsession. Just do a submission and wait... It's better to spend the time in other ways than suffering from a no inclusion...
To be fair a number of webmasters do get concerned about being listed in DMOZ, after all without it you are not in Google directory, which is probably the most important directory on the net
Whilst i hear this point time and time again that webmasters should not be concerned about DMOZ and that it doesnt matter if your in or not - i dont agree, its ok to say this if you are already listed.
We get involved with various sites some are listed in DMOZ and some are not in yet/ still waiting in the pool and imo i have to say that it is a clear advantage to be listed in DMOZ.
Not just because of Google directory but because its one of the best human edited directory sites available and over time you can gain up to about 4000 back links from sites that feed off the DMOZ data.
All things considered i would say that its far better to be edited and listed in DMOZ than not feature.
The points raised about an entry being changed are something else, if others experience a change as a direct result of a description change or title change in DMOZ than webmasters should be aware of this imo
[Caveat 1: It is rumoured that other SEs use some form of link analysis too.]
[Caveat 2: The degree to which PR actually factors into the present Google algo is a matter of opinion.]
PR remains on the toolbar and in the Google Directory as a display of the methodology that made Google special. What exactly would be the point of creating a whole new system just for the display in the Google Directory? It is not important except as a display of PR.
PR remains on the toolbar and in the Google Directory as a display of the methodology that made Google special. What exactly would be the point of creating a whole new system just for the display in the Google Directory? It is not important except as a display of PR.
Take a look at the Directory example I provided. I don't know what the green bars in the directory equates to, so I have just come up with something, but it shows how the two are somewhat different when you compare the sites (By the way I used Googles sort and just included the 15 with PR):
GDPR = Google Directory PR
TBPR = Toolbar PR
Website 1 GDPR 5 TBPR 5
Website 2 GPDR 5 TBPR 7
Website 3 GPDR 4 TBPR 5
Website 4 GPDR 4 TBPR 5
Website 5 GPDR 4 TBPR 5
Website 6 GPDR 4 TBPR 4
Website 7 GPDR 4 TBPR 5
Website 8 GPDR 4 TBPR 3
Website 9 GPDR 3 TBPR 4
Website 10 GPDR 3 TBPR 4
Website 11 GPDR 3 TBPR 2
Website 12 GPDR 2 TBPR 2
Website 13 GPDR 2 TBPR 1
Website 14 GPDR 2 TBPR 2
Website 15 GPDR 2 TBPR 3
...over time you can gain up to about 4000 back links from sites that feed off the DMOZ data.
Although this will decrease now that Google appears to be removing sites that have a DMOZ fed directory as part of the site. Note, I said part and not all.
Have you considered that maybe your site has been penalized for some reason and this is why it was dropped in PR? Check out the recent threads where a website has dropped and directories being banned and javascript redirects, etc.
...over time you can gain up to about 4000 back links from sites that feed off the DMOZ data.
It is my experience that these are mostly PR 0 and not worth the effort.
RunBoy,
Have you considered that maybe your site has been penalized for some reason and this is why it was dropped in PR? Check out the recent threads where a website has dropped and directories being banned and javascript redirects, etc.
Hi Lorel
It is possible and I also doubt that the DMOZ change has anything to do with me loosing all my backlinks. It just happend at the same time. I do however find the difference in PR on all the other sites interesting.
Our site did get banned the 28th of August because we had a DMOZ clone present. After removing that section of our site we were fully reinstated, but maybe this is some new ban or maybe just a glitch.
Web Pages Ordered by PageRankUnlike other directories that can only list web pages alphabetically regardless of how good they are, the web pages in the Google directory are ordered according to Google's patented PageRank™ technology...
Furthermore if Google did decide to order sites on relevance to the category, why would they do it on the basis of the site description given by an ODP editor? That would be crazy. It would be worse in some ways than using the meta-description alone to decide relevance. And Google is smart enough not to do that.
Google indexes the content of sites. Then their algo decides relevance to searches. It would be interesting if they somehow applied that algo to the arrangement of sites in directory categories, but I see no sign that they are doing it.
MrRoy
Please specify who you are directing your reply to. Now that the entry you are refering to has been removed it looks like you are anwering my post.
yes runboy that post was removed. it was specially for that post only. infact when i posted that comment, it was still there. i dint mean it for you or for any other people in this forum.
