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It has been almost three years since I talked about the Open Directory Project - DMOZ on this site. I guess it shows how much the SEO community cares for it these days.
That being said, a WebmasterWorld thread has one SEO really upset that his newly acquired DMOZ link has no apparent ranking benefit to him in the Google search results.
He said after two years of trying to get a DMOZ link, he got it, Google indexed it but he saw absolutely no ranking improvement after the fact. He feels like all that wait and anticipation, was a huge let down. Here is his post:
So I have been trying for 2 years over and over to get into the DMOZ directory as this is supposed to be the highest authority directory out there - and finally last week I got in!Now I have confirmed my listing is in the google index and - wait for it - A BIG FAT NOTHING in SERPs improvements.
What a total waste of effort that was!
Over four years ago, I ran a poll asking SEOs how valuable the DMOZ link was and the community was split.
Take my new poll today:
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Tobias Schumann
08/29/2012 12:47 pm
Maybe the effect will come later!?!? It's only been a week. Give the juice some time! And it might as well be usefull as a traffic source. So I would not call it a "total waste of effort"...
Nick Wilsdon
08/29/2012 12:51 pm
Traffic source...nice one Tobias ;-)
Praveen Sharma
08/29/2012 12:51 pm
Don't think it would effect your rankings too much.
Brijesh Bhalodia
08/29/2012 12:51 pm
Barry, here is nice post written by Dr.Pete on SEOmoz in February, 2011. At that moment, we can say that Google has already started to ignore or decrease the weightage of DMOZ links.
Stefano Gorgoni
08/29/2012 01:09 pm
:D
Chris Beasley
08/29/2012 02:38 pm
The same illogical people who thought Google gave "special" bonuses to DMOZ probably now think that special bonus or penalty was removed. This is not the case. There never was any special bonus, easily refuted a decade ago, nor has anything been removed. DMOZ is less popular than it used to be, DMOZ has less link weight to share than it used to have, DMOZ links are less valuable than they used to be, its share of the web's authority has been vastly, naturally, lessened. Would you expect a Google rank increase for any 1 link from anywhere? Not likely, not unless it a really good link, like from a PR 9 or 10 page. Getting a link in a deep subdirectory content page from an obsolete directory that hasn't been used in 10 years is not going to move you. It doesn't mean Google is ignoring, penalizing, banning, or any other conspiracy theory idea with DMOZ, it just means the link isn't worth enough to move the needle.
Ben Guest
08/29/2012 03:09 pm
Thank goodness it takes a little more than that...
klippers
08/29/2012 03:34 pm
I can't even begin to tell you how long I have waited to see DMOZ purged from relevance.
josh bachynski
08/29/2012 03:38 pm
is it a dofollow link? what was the anchor text? what is the competition like for that anchor text / query?
Drew Pokoj
08/29/2012 07:18 pm
does it help you rank... not as much as it once used to; but i'd say it would help better solidfy you as a brand.. Let's not forget all of the mini-sites that use the DMOZ database in some way or another (and dont update frequently), dont you think that will "extend your reach" on the internet? ..I'd say there is still SOME value in such link.
Peter Watson
08/29/2012 09:58 pm
With over 200 ranking factors I doubt 1 link from DMOZ will help. Wasted 2 year effort in my opinion.
Ash Buckles
08/29/2012 10:54 pm
I would still welcome a DMOZ link but I wouldn't spend more than 15 minutes submitting my site. One submission. Once. I'm pretty sure the link isn't supposed to show an improvement in ranking. That's the point of multiple rankings factors and relevant results. Right? Besides, without knowing what shape the rest of their campaign is in, it's impossible to know if any link will help.
Ross Jones
08/29/2012 11:31 pm
@twitter-1951731:disqus agreed. It's a quick submission if you know the guidelines. Write a bland, accurate submission and you've got a better chance that an editor will actually look at it sometime. But don't obsess over it & don't count on it ever getting reviewed... unless you've got a meta editor in your pocket ;)
Sheldon Campbell
08/30/2012 06:05 am
There's a lot of missing information, in order to give a decent answer, but in general, I'd say don't expect too much for a link from DMOZ. By the way, Barry... did you mean to word your poll that way.... "... ODP Removal...."?
Alan
08/30/2012 06:10 am
DMOZ link is a bonus but that's about it. How anything as arcane as DMOZ could have any bearing on the SERPS is beyond me. If Google factor it then they must be behind the times also!
SLight
08/30/2012 10:05 am
The key here is in the 2 year wait. By this time your site should have built up enough natural juice and goodness for it not to have an effect. A brand new site with minimal other links, then yes it will have more of an impact. Like all things in SEO it's a sliding scale more than a straight yes or no
newyorker_1
08/30/2012 11:52 am
DMOZ is a joke. Any company where you have to wait 2 years to get something is a joke...I hope it will become worthless in SERPs (maybe it already is).
Eric Ward
08/30/2012 01:17 pm
I was a DMOZ/ODP editor for 7+years. I finally stopped because the time it took to wade through piles of junk submissions wasn't worth it, nor did being an editor help me get sites into other categories any quicker.That said, there is more to DMOZ than you might think. It depends on many factors, and there's a way to play it, if you understand it. I do think the day will come when DMOZ goes the way of Geocities.
Farfel
08/30/2012 01:56 pm
The guy tried for....two years.... to get into DMOZ? What did he do? Send them cupcakes every Friday? Hey look! It's cupcake Friday! Good grief - where's Michael Martinez when you need him?!
Jeff Downer Indianapolis IN
08/30/2012 04:43 pm
It's street cred. Who are are you going to listen to: Somebody whose site has been accepted into the ODP or somebody whining about how it doesn't matter? Any way, last I heard PR wasn't what is used to be according to Google. Has this guy checked his Bing/Yahoo SERPs?
Mike Kalil
08/30/2012 04:54 pm
Why would you expect a noticeable ranking change from a single directory link?
Sebastian
08/30/2012 05:31 pm
The benefit I saw from Dmoz back in the day was an substantial increase in PR and when the Google Web Directory still existed I saw a huge amount of high quality traffic that converted. During the later part of 09, the traffic started to drop off as did the conversions so any benefit that Dmoz used to offer seems to have disappeared a long time ago.
Webstats Art
08/31/2012 03:07 am
Wow.. still talking about DMOZ in 2012? Google does not like directories anymore because they are trying to build their own.
Josef Holm
09/01/2012 11:04 pm
I think that you can't judge the impact of a link after just one week. Just because Google has indexed the link doesn't mean it has processed it's ranking impact yet and/or that the serps have been updated. I have seen DMOZ listings increase PR but that was a long time ago...
Wayne
09/09/2012 02:33 pm
I thought that day had already come.
Host Surf UK
09/23/2012 01:21 am
Never had one single hit from dMoz because its a pile a shit!
Mark D Worthen PsyD
01/30/2013 09:34 am
Google Trends for 'dmoz' - http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=dmoz&geo=US&cmpt=q (similar results for 'open directory project').