Impact On Google Of Being Removed From The ODP

Is This Possible?

[austtr]

Several months ago a site dropped from a top 10 to page 26 or thereabouts in Google. Nothing had changed on the site which is is quite straighforward with no "seo enhancements".

Never could figure out what caused such a huge impact... then a few days ago I found that the site had been removed from ODP because it was now seen to be a subset of a bigger site already in their index..... that is not at issue here.

I don't know if the timing of the two are related, but I have this question bouncing around in my mind whether a deletion from ODP, for whatever reason, would trigger such a big imapct in Google.

Any definitive info available on this?

[Shakil]

surely the fact that an inbound link from Dmoz had been removed (and probaly from google directory if it ever was there) would have quite a big impact.

You fail to mention how many other inbound links there were along with PR of the site.

Shak

[heini]

>definitive info
Without an indepth analysis of all circumstances? No.
But one thing to look at is the backlinks and PR of the site.
If the ODP link was important in the overall linkage of the site, then that's obviously quite possible.

Things to look at:
- how high was the PR of the cat, how many links in the cat
- how many other links poiting to the site
- did the PR change after being dropped from the ODP

[austtr]

Shak/Heini.... geez, you guys were quick. Having a quiet day?

In answer to your questions...

there was/are only a handful of inbound links (10-12) so the relevance of the ODP link was probably high.

The ODP cat is a small regional which usually have a low PR in the 2 or 3 range

Site's PR does not seem to have been affected. Now PR4 and pretty sure it has been that for some time.

[rfgdxm1]

Is it possible that for this SERP the ODP was the only link that used the search term in the anchor text? Otherwise in this case losing the ODP link shouldn't have made that much difference. Only case I'd expect something this drastic is if the site were in and ODP PR8 or PR7 cat.

[Krapulator]

Another thing to remeber is that the Google Directory has not been updated from DMOZ for a bloody long time.

So if it was only recently dropped from ODP in the last few months, I doubt that this was the cause of the change in the SERPS

[martinibuster]

krapulator makes a good point.

I'd also like to add that an algo tweak can throw your site down too, even if the tweak has nothing to do with your site in particular. If the tweak affects an important inbound link/s, then this will have an effect on you.

Also, if the site in question has a PR 4 or low 5, then I think it can be prone to jumping up and down in the serps.

You have to remember that Google follows links to find you, and judge you. And many around here feel that an ODP link/vote is the same as any other link/vote.

That's a topic of much discussion, which seems to occur once every two months. Does it taste great? Or is it less filling?

:) Y

[The Contractor]

Another thing to keep in mind is that a link in ODP is viral. When you lose that link you can also lose dozens of others that use the ODP data.

[skibum]

I don't know if the timing of the two are related,

For a site without many other links, I say a resounding yes! To go from page 1 to 26 it sounds like there may have been something else at work, but that ODP link can be very critical in the early stages.

[rfgdxm1]

The contractor does make a valid point. Most notably, it will get you a Google directory link. I just checked and found something surprising. The ODP cat my 2 sites are listed in is PR5. The Google directory version of it is PR6!? Obviously, an extra PR6 link is gonna give me a boost except with respect to other sites listed in that ODP cat. I dunno if those ODP mirrors help much, but I gotta figure the additional Google directory link can mean a lot. My 2 sites only have a rather small handful of links from other related sites on the topic. Thus, that PR6 Google directory link has gotta be relevant in my case.

[skibum]

The Google and ODP links are the ones that would have the most noticable effect. Many of the smaller ones that may show up as backlinks update their version of ODP data once in a blue moon after the initial pull. It takes a long time for all those listings to go away.

[Stefan]

rfgdxm1

After I read your post, I had a look at the PR for my cat in the Google directory, (never even occured to me before). PR7 with Google compared to PR6 in DMOZ, both having 23 links in the category.

I sent a happy New Years note to the DMOZ editor... glad I did.

[rfgdxm1]

In the past, the PR of the ODP and Google directory seemed the same to me. Looks like now Google's version has the higher PR. Obviously a plus against any site not also listed in that cat.

[WindSun]

"Another thing to keep in mind is that a link in ODP is viral. When you lose that link you can also lose dozens of others that use the ODP data...."

That is only partly true. Most of those links are zero PR, so don't do much, if anything, for you.

How much effect a DMOZ listing has depends. If you only have a few links in, then it might have some effect.

On the other hand, one of our sites has several hundred incoming links, and when we were dropped from DMOZ we saw no effect at all - in fact we went up a few notches (though probably not related to that).

Also, on those "viral links", unless I am missing something here I think their importance might be overstated. If I do a link check on a site that is listed in DMOZ, I do not see any links from those other sites - only from DMOZ. Not sure if that is because Google is filtering them out, or?

[The Contractor]

Also, on those "viral links", unless I am missing something here I think their importance might be overstated. If I do a link check on a site that is listed in DMOZ, I do not see any links from those other sites - only from DMOZ. Not sure if that is because Google is filtering them out, or?

They show up fine on sites I know of/check regularly :)