47 replies to this topic

[cbp]

The ODP site itself may have enough backlinks to get deep content crawled but 3,999 of the rest probably don't or ever will have

It surprising just how many of those ~4000 do have PR in some of the deeper categories (not necessarily the deepest cats) and are indexed in Google --- they show up in backlinks to my sites.

[Jill]

If a site is a valuable resource, DMOZ wo't remove it, no matter how many times or how aggressively you ask

LOL...guess I'm stuck with it then!

opcis, seriously dude, just move on. You submitted, now forget about it. Don't waste your $350.

[ziandra]

A site with no other inbound links at all that gets into DMOZ gets a PR3 from google after 3-6 months. That's about it.

A site with no other inbound links that google finds from a blogspot blog gets a PR4 or PR5 after 4-6 weeks. It drops to a PR3 after 3-6 months.

Yeah, I tried both.

Honestly, I don't see the fascination with DMOZ. Sure, it is a useful directory, but it is not THAT useful.

And, once DMOZ gets their teeth into your site, they don't let go. Ever. Their robozilla doesn't even honor robots.txt to stay away and declare it dead. Too bad, I don't like the description they put on my genealogy site either.

[cbp]

A site with no other inbound links at all that gets into DMOZ gets a PR3 from google after 3-6 months.

No even close to being true.
There are many deep categories in DMOZ that are PR 1 or 2 --- how does that add up to Google giving site a PR3 if a site is listed in one of them?

[Jill]

how does that add up to Google giving site a PR3 if a site is listed in one of them?

You are correct -- it doesn't.

[projectphp]

Yes and no. It made a link from DMOZ more valuable back when those 4,000 sites grabbed the RDF, but how many update their listings monthly, yearly, or even ever?? Not many I would wager.

So, is a DMOZ link good? Yes. Is it vital;? No. How much more is a site listed in DMOZ worth, than one not listed in DMOZ with all else being equal? I'll give you a buck fifty, heck, make it two fifty

IMHO, if you have a use for the domain, want to kill off a competitor or have some other business use for the domain, go for it. If not, there are plenty of other ways to get results.

[ziandra]

No even close to being true.
There are many deep categories in DMOZ that are PR 1 or 2 --- how does that add up to Google giving site a PR3 if a site is listed in one of them?

You are correct. Deep categories with PR1 or 2 won't give you PR3. A single link from PRn page without too many outbound links "usually" gives the enough rank to get PRn-2 (I hope I put enough fiddle words in there for you folk). So a PR5 link such as you get from the 5th level category in DMOZ I used gives a PR3. Two PR5 links (dmoz + directory.google) still leaves you PR3. None of which changes what I was saying that DMOZ, while a useful resource, isn't worth spending big bucks to get into. Even more so if your category is so deep that you won't get any (questionable value) page rank from it.

All of which supports what I and most folk have said. In fact you reinforced what I said by showing that my experiment showed better results than others may experience. Sure, DMOZ may be good for quick backlinks, but in the long run, quality really is better than quantity. Don't waste good money trying to get it.

[opcis]

Now I see why the dmoz directory isn't worth as much as I thought:

1. While 4,000 sites use the ODP many of them use it for a search engine or only use a specific category.
2. Sadly most of the sites that use the entire directory use dynamic pages with arguments to look through the categories, which doesn't appear to pass on any PR.
3. My category is 3 clicks away from the home page, which for the sites that did it correctly a home page of PR 6 relates to a PR 2 for my category.
4. Now the only sites who would give me above a PR 2 are Google and DMOZ, which both have a PR5 for my category.

To conclude, a listing in that category of DMOZ would get me:
* 2 PR5 links
* 5-10 PR 2 links
* and a whole bunch of PR 0/1 links, which probably don't help much.

So I'm not so sure if it's worth it for the PR. The domain is decent and I could use it later on, but may not be worth the $350.

But what about for escaping the sandbox. I read a few articles that state that many seo professionals believe that you can escape the google sandbox by acquiring enough quality links from what they referred to as authority sites. A link from DMOZ' site (PR 9 home page) and a link from Google DIR (PR 8 home page) sound like quality links. What's your take on it? Is there any truth to this theory?

[Jill]

Is there any truth to this theory?

Nope, I don't believe it. The only thing that can get you out of the sandbox is TIME. It's not a sandbox...it's an aging delay. Others may disagree, but I firmly believe that.

[kctipton]

I'm seriously thinking of asking dmoz to REMOVE my site because I do not like the description from there that Google is using. 

Which of www.whois.sc/dmoz/highrankings.com don't you like ?

[Jill]

It's not that I don't like my listing there, it's that I don't like that description at showing up at Google as it doesn't look right amongst the sites that don't have the description. It's not a dmoz issue, but a google issue.

[Debra]

Question for you cbp- of the 4000 partial/clone sites, how many of them duplicate the entire DMOZ directory? I've never seen one that does this entirely. Portions yes, the whole thing - no. Just curious.........

IMO, if you're listed in the ODP and your cat is picked up in a topical directory or listed on a category specific site, you're ahead of the game without even trying. For that, being listed is a great thing.

If you think about the aging delay and the time it takes to get into DMOZ you can certainly draw a parallel - and many do, but I wouldn't say the correlation is concrete. Until Google sends the ODP packing, I think it’s worth the time and trouble to submit there.

Besides..... I’ve noticed it’s been taking less time lately. I recently had a site listed in three days!

[cbp]

There is a list of 300 sites here:
http://dmoz.org/Comp...Using_ODP_Data/

I have no figures of which proprotion of the ~4000 or so sites use the full directory, but most that I look at do (I get alerts when Google indexes a page that has link to one of my sites) - I get a few every few days.

(Please don't ask me how I come up with the figure of ~4000 - editors have access to internal data in ALAV (please don't ask me to explain) - add them to the 300 above and another few hundred not listed, then is about 4000)

[Artie]

I can't stress enough that you are simply worrying waaaaaay to much about dmoz.  Most sites on the Internet are not in dmoz.  Most sites that rank highly are not in dmoz.  Dmoz is just a link like any other.  Submit and forget about it.  Your scheme will waste you time and money that you could be putting towards something that will actually make a difference to your site, like building more content, starting a newsletter, or pretty much anything else besides thinking about dmoz.

Jill,

first of all I really value as a professional but I'd like to tell you my point of view about Dmoz. I believe we can't be so strict about Dmoz as it's not about Dmoz itself it's about a web site topic.

Here is the sample - we run photo rating site and my research shows me that the virtually all competitors have been placed at Dmog and its clones:-). Virtually - no other places to place the site, perhaps except Yahoo, but invest 300/y. isn't the best idea for photo rating site:-))

Right now the site has only several hunrdreads pages and it isn't an easy job to get the site popularity boost and high rankings so I've submitted to Dmoz...hm what I'd like to change with its Dmoz clones so they stop cloning Dmoz and work separately:-) so I don't need to wait ages...

[water cooler boy]

Hi Artie

While I agree that Dmoz is important and it is indeed very frustrating to see other sites listed when your site is not, especially when one or two of the other sites are (note to self, stop taking it personally)

You are making a mistake if your just copying what your competitors are doing, yes by all means have a look and try to get listed where they are, but there are a lot of directories out there, many of which will be able to list your site.

See: http://www.highranki...?showtopic=1102

Hope this helps

Justin