Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
So I wonder if Google still considers dmoz inclusion "a must" or still assign high importance to that fact.
DMOZ is one of the factors that causes high ranking in the SERPs, but is not the only one. It seems that Google is not counting a DMOZ listing in the same way as it did a few years ago. At that time the SERPs showed the DMOZ category for every site listed in DMOZ, but now not anymore.
Having a DMOZ listing is also benificial in an indirect way. All the DMOZ copies that are around provide links to your site, adding (some) value to your PR.
The benefits of a dmoz listing include links from all the sites that draw from the dmoz database. The link on the dmoz page may even be worthless if deep enough in the directory hierarchy.
I did notice, over the past 2 years, a steady decline in dmoz clones. This may be only an impression. "Clones" nowadays seem to prefer to draw their data from search engine result pages. I've been seeing an exponential growth of these SERP clones + AdSense pages.
These are my personal observations.
Perhaps when your site is on the first SERP, your "weight" (I won't say PR) increases even more because of the SERP clone effect.
Come to think of it, this could explain why sites that show up on page 1 are so difficult to displace. The "Trust Rank" illusion.
That it can be done doesn't mean the directory is not worth your consideration. It is one of many available tickets, but it is not automatically the golden ticket.
As for DMOZ, first make sure you're not already listed, as many listings result not from submissions by webmasters, but by editors finding sites via other means.
If you're not listed, suggest the site (whether it's your site or some other site you feel ought to be cosnidered) with a guidelines compliant title and description to the best fitting category (which more often than not won't be the category highest up the tree.
Once you submit your suggestion, move on to your next goal in your link development plan. To paraphrase Ron Popeil, submit it and forget it. Once you submit your suggestion, the rest is outside your sphere of influence.
I for one, receive 20x more traffic from scrapers than from directory listings. Including the "google/dmoz-clone" directory.
Some scrapers are doing very well in my little corner of the web.
I receive insignificant traffic from dmoz and its many clones. None make it into my top 100 referrers.
To give you some data, in the last 5 days:
4 visits from dmoz and clones out of 32,753 visits.
I'm too pathetic even for scrapper to bother. ;-))
I did notice, over the past 2 years, a steady decline in dmoz clones. This may be only an impression. "Clones" nowadays seem to prefer to draw their data from search engine result pages. I've been seeing an exponential growth of these SERP clones + AdSense pages."
My take exactly. There is absolutely no value in a dmoz listing...other than all the clone links you pick up. To get the same number of individually worthless backlinks (that, in total, add up and are a powerful boost) WITHOUT a dmoz listing, simply create a lot of content and wait for that content to get picked up by adsense scraper sites. Voila, there's your ton of individually worthless, yet cumulatively powerful backlinks----just like dmoz.
What does this, or should this, say to webmasters? That google doesn't care about where your links come from, as long as you get them. Spam the articles sites, spam the free and PFI directories. That's all you have to do to get high in google. Forget the myth about google being able to discern "quality" sites from sites that have simply had the drive to build massive backlinks that propel them to the top. Because it is just a myth.
DerekH
well, yeah, unless that subpage is some lonely little orphan page with no link anywhere on it back into some other page in your domain (and if that were true, neither the presence nor an absence of a dmoz link would be at the top of my personal to-do list.
It is impossible to distinguish whether either can affect your ranking.
I would rather they didn't, since most dmoz categories are scandalously neglected.
Googleguy claims (and I believe it) that links from the ODP aren't treated differently than any other links. (Sure, there are lots of clones including two or three high-PR sites: but I believe they aren't treated any differently than any other kind of near-duplicate content.)
So the real question is: if a LINK points to a subpage on your site, does it benefit the domain as a whole?
And the answer is: it depends altogether on your site navigation. The PR given by any link to a page is dribbled over all the pages that can be reached from that page through Google-visible links.
As to the original question, "can you rank without an ODP link?" I could give you the same answer as everyone else has. But I won't. I'll tell you to look for yourself: pick any interesting search, and look to see how many of the top ten sites have ODP listings. I'd be really surprised if you found a search that had no non-ODP sites in the top ten. I've never seen a search like that (and I probably perform more varied searches than most people).
I'd be really surprised if you found a search that had no non-ODP sites in the top ten.
And that proves... nothing.
Nothing at all.
I could come up, on the top of my head, with at least 10 good reasons why it doesn't follow that having an ODP-listed site amongst the top ten of any search is a consequence of extra weight being assigned to an ODP link.
Just link back to the DMOZ page/category your link is on from your home page. Instant ban from google!
I tried it and it works great! HAHAHA!
Could it be possible that all of the low quality IBL's (200-300) that get picked up after a DMOZ listing could cause a filter to be applied to a site due to "unnatural link patterns". Perhaps the sandbox?
All of the links have identical anchor text and come from very low quality sources. The only way I couldn't see this hurting a brand new site is if GOOG has hard-coded something in their algo.
Anyone have comments on this?
Also, this was prompted from the launch of 2 sites in 2 similarly competitive industries. One got a DMOZ listing and a "spike" in links and the other didn't get but a few links early on. The site without DMOZ ranks first page, and the other is still in the box.
Rubbish. There are 100's that have not.
Just link back to the DMOZ page/category your link is on from your home page. Instant ban from google!
Totaly wrong assumption! I have a site that links back to its DMOZ category from its home page and enjoys top rankings for the last year.
Could it be possible that all of the low quality IBL's (200-300) that get picked up after a DMOZ listing could cause a filter to be applied to a site due to "unnatural link patterns". Perhaps the sandbox?
I very much doubt it. The DMOZ reviewing process is so sloth that the probablity of a site being listed within 9 months of its inception is near zero.
Under these conditions, it is impossible to test your theory that DMOZ listings are responsible for the sandbox. I would be very surprised if it had anything to do with it.
Just link back to the DMOZ page/category your link is on from your home page. Instant ban from google!
Sounds like a coincidence to me.
You get all these BL's from crappy spam sites, and when Google kills them in the SERPS, your BL's fall dramatically all at once - triggering an automated penalty... sending your site into oblivion.
That's one theory.
From what I see, if your site is in oblivion, a hijack is a more likely culprit. Merely my observations.
We cannot know for certain whether downgrading of dmoz clones by Google has any effect at all.
There are a few dmoz clones that engage in massive, automated link request campaigns, and may gather some steam, parerank-wise. But the vast majority consists of extremely poor sites of no consequence. Losing links from such sources probably has no effect on your ranking.
Despite talks of DMOZ corruption it is still 'the daddy' when it comes to directories. An IBL from DMOZ is (on face value) a big vote of confidence.
But even if you weren't assuming the "assembly-line-robotic-suggestion-processor" model of editing, the statistics would still be irrelevant. All that matters is the number of listings added daily. If the site is good, NOW, it's worth listing NOW. If it's not, then what it was five years ago, or might be next year, matters not.
How many spam suggestions have to be rejected, how many irrelevant Google search results have to be skipped, how many URLs in magazine advertisements are dead, all that is just invisible overhead. How old and established and stable, or new and lacking in track record the sites are -- is all irrelevant.
And, so far as I can tell, the number of listings added is roughly comparable to the number of good, findable websites to be listed.
Two facts:
(1) Comparing Google results with ODP listings, it is pretty rare for a ODP-listable but unlisted site to appear in the top 100 Google results for a category search, and not be listed -- I count myself lucky to find 2 or 3 new listings from the top 100 results.
(2) Comparing webmaster-self-submittals with ODP listings, 90% are unlistable.
Nobody else on the net can offer you selectivity of that quality.
My site is in the top 3 results for numerous retail searches including one where it is number 1 and 2 for a search returning 89 million results. All of which has been achieved sans DMOZ.
I struggled for ages to get in to DMOZ and finally thought, why am I bothering?!
I was merely replying to some points that were made that a dmoz listing might result in a ban of your site by Google, should you reciprocate it, and another point that a dmoz listing might "sandbox" your site.
That site review is sloth is a matter not often disputed.
My argument is that we cannot really be certain if Google considers dmoz inclusion important. I certainly hope that it does not.
I was an editor, but I no longer contribute due to the amount of internal corruption. You add a site, an editor bumps it because he doesn't want competition. The whole system is a farse. The last draw was when I tried to contact the editor of a sector other than my own - to advise them of a couple very high quality sites that were waiting to be added.
After multiple attempts to get this persons very authoritive site added, I realized that the sector is far too corrupted by greedy publishers. DMOZ is NOT quality.
I'm disappointed that I spent so much time in the past seeking out and adding authoritive sites. What a waste of time. I thought DMOZ would amount to something... but like anything that grows without structure; scandal took over.
My point is that IF you get any early DMOZ listing and the 200-300 low quality IBL's this could look unnatural right (large spike in links w/identical anchor)? The only way it could not is if Google has some hard-code exceptions for DMOZ listings.
very much doubt it. The DMOZ reviewing process is so sloth that the probablity of a site being listed within 9 months of its inception is near zero.
