Forum Moderators: open
note: no bashing or flaming of the ODP or Google.
Just your view of how the world of Google and SERPs in your sector of the industry would change?
In mine's it would be massive, especially for companies who have enjoyed an extended relationship within the ODP only. There is thousands of them.
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I doubt they'd discount PR altogether from what's still in ODP itself, and overall the recognized topicality of those links can't hurt long term at all.
How it would affect SEO-ed strong divisible specific content structured sites with the necessary backup reciprocal linking strategies, i have to agree would be minimal. I only know my industry to a degree, though i would have to presume there a several hundred's of thousands of site's that would feel something across the commercial world, in what respect is the question i suppose that i am asking?
certainly not for my sites - give me a little justice, but there are a lot of sites are dependant on it.
Yes, I agree with caine that in quite a number of areas, the loss of two of the only four links that make some small businesses/informational sites visible would have a quite dramatic effect on the rankings for them. Especially with the effective "unofficial link farm" that one sees in some small areas, such as hobbies or towns, with people redistributing their ODP/Google Directory wealth. Many of them probably wouldn't even realise what had happened.
No, they're not "pathetic", they just don't realise where their web visibility comes from - some of them have the belief that people come to their site just because they have created one and it's relevant. After all, that's what Google tells them, if they ever find Google.
Having said that, many of the areas which would have their SERPS affected tend to have other sources for custom than pure SERPS-driven traffic, which makes them doubly un-"pathetic".
Look closely at the ODP and Yahoo directories and go figure why sites discussing identical subjects are listed in such widely varying places. A few seem to get those PR7 links in high level cats, while sites discussing the same subjects and of equal quality are in PR3 cats.
I'm not suggesting "manipulation & conspiracy" here, it is more likely the editors are simply lazy and have no clue what impact they have on the economics. Scary to think these folks control billions of dollars.
This issue is huge, Google needs to think about it. While Google spends all its time trying to stop hidden text and duplicate pages it encourages people to seek bogus links from a few directories that are way to powerful.... fundamental flaw in PageRank if you ask me!
A vote should be a vote, not log10 more important because it is a vote from a dubious Yahoo or ODP editor.
But, dearest Google, if you want to play by these dumb rules we will simply create nonsense sites that sit nicely into these nonsense directories and from them we will create nonsense links to our real sites so we can artificially boost our PR.
A daft and pathetic game you have driven us into.
Of course once Inktomi has the lion's share we can forget all about this, it understands democracy!
Bottom line, Google should ditch the ODP and re-evaluate the real importance of the Yahoo directory. While at it re-evaluate how PR is passed.
From what I see SERP's generally would be much better, SEO tactics would need to change, and the Google user might just benefit ;)
Now what would happen if G decided that the ODP wasn't up to scratch.
As far as I am concerned my clients would not take much of a hit ;)
On the contrary, ODP links should be worth significantly more in Google's ranking of sites than links from anywhere else.
Google directory is a PR7, with 51 links.
ODP is PR6 with 59 links.
My home page is a high PR6 (I can tell because all my second level pages are now PR6)
This would probably change me to a high PR5 *given the current scale*, But the scale would totally change around without these two directories.
The other place that would cause a hit is that it would affect all the other links to my site, especially those that get a large part of their PR from the ODP. But that would also be affected by the rescaling of the PR base.
My site lists 1360 backlinks in google and 2200 on ATW. I would still have plenty of PR, even with all the changes. And lots of incoming links with whatever link text that they wanted to use.
I think that in the final talley, I would come out ahead if the 2 copies of ODP were dropped. Everyone that depends on those links would sink like a stone in the SERPs, while all my other links would support me.
I honestly think that there is a much bigger danger of the yahoo directory being pulled than ODP, and there isn't much danger of that happening either.
Google started using the ODP for its own benefit, not for the ODP's. And if it is to Google's benefit to stop using it, they will. If they want a non-commercial-driven directory, there is no real alternative. And Google may think that's some benefit to its users. After all, if you want commercials, you can pay Google for them.
Which AFAICT is due to the fact Google links to the ODP at [directory.google.com...] and the respective ODP ODP categories. In other words, the high page rank of dmoz.org is almost totally due to the Google directory links to it.
I'm not suggesting "manipulation & conspiracy" here, it is more likely the editors are simply lazy and have no clue what impact they have on the economics. Scary to think these folks control billions of dollars.
Accusing the editors of being lazy because they don't edit their directory with an eye towards revenue for the sites they look at is kind of weird. It's not their job to worry about webmaster's profit making businesses, but to worry about providing valuable resources to users of the Internet.
It is also not to help Google rationalize PageRank. If Google dropped ODP, ODP would go on. There are thousands if not millions of sites that use ODP data, and Google is only one of them.
Look closely at the ODP and Yahoo directories and go figure why sites discussing identical subjects are listed in such widely varying places. A few seem to get those PR7 links in high level cats, while sites discussing the same subjects and of equal quality are in PR3 cats.
Percentages, I agree with you. I think it's one of the hazards of a multi-person project done over time. Some editors don't know what they're doing in a particular cat. Also, some links got listed before there was a subcat. And some links are just in the wrong place.
I've run into this annoyance myself, and there's little you can do about it except become an editor yourself.
Dude, your reality checked just bounced at the clue bank. If you honestly think that ODP editors control billions of dollars, you are so out of touch with the truth of the Internet I fear for you.
Google could easily enough put up it's own directory structure or integrate someone elses into its site. The directory, I wonder how much people use it currently, only google would know. Without the DMOZ structure it would be a longer process to get in Google at the rate its currently at or Yahoo would get more money from submission but I doubt the big G! would want something that fun to happen!
>.. or integrate someone elses into its site.
True enough. But whose? Looksmart pays people to host it. But it's definitely third horse in a two-horse race.
>The directory, I wonder how much people use it currently, only google would know.
A fair question. There are directory users, and search users, and I think they are genetic predispositions to use one or the other. For the "hoi polloi," searching is easier: and marketroids who targeting loosely held discretionary spending, will always want to go after the easy marks. People looking for information may tend to spend more time in directories....
It is clear enough that the people who run internet portals think it's important for every portal to have its own directory, and before the ODP, they were willing to spend hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of dollars to build their own. It's not so clear whether there was valid reason to believe that.
Anyone else hosted on the mid-atlantic coast (isabel) having server problems?
oops are we not supposed to bash....OH WELL.
Links from the ODP are not that significant, forget about it and get more worthy links.
I cast my vote for ZEAL!
Secondly, if ODP were one day dropped from Google, it would be unfortunate and PR all across the board would drop slightly for some...a lot for others, but it wouldn't be a big deal as far as the SERPS go.
But I feel that massive directories like DMOZ(And Google's version) are good for the 'net.
Can't help but agree with that. There are certain things that are easier to find using a directory than with any search engine. A good directory has certain functions that simply can't be replaced by a search engine and never will be.
Exactly. There are sites having excellent content that have no optimization at all: you can hardly find them using search engines. For example I found sites having titles like page1, page2.
On searching niches or specialized directories DMOZ is very useful.
