DMOZ

[JordanJCaron]

Anyone have any luck getting listed in DMOZ?

As a test I tried adding my company back March and it still isn't listed. I ask before all of my clients aren't listed and their competitors are. I see this is a big reason why they are not ranking higher and would love to get them listed, a hell of a lot faster than my company's website is taking!

 

[RobinOctane]

I tried becoming an editor but they didn't let me in.

Following, curious if there are any tips out there.

 

[djbaxter]

DMOZ was overrated 10 years ago. It's even less important today. It's a dinosaur. Move on and forget it. Matt Cutts has been saying for years that there is nothing special about a DMOZ link. And directory links in general have been significantly devalued.


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[djbaxter]

Nobody uses DMOZ except web masters hoping for another back link and DMOZ editors. You won't even get traffic from it and it won't help at all in ranking.


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[Phil Rozek]

David speaks the truth. Pretty much every site created in the last 8-10 years has missed the boat. Well, maybe it's not a boat. It's the DMOZ dinghy, adrift at sea with a few old Open Source hippies at the helm.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Actually I think there may be a couple small local related listing branding reasons to get in DMOZ potentially.

Google sometimes pulls DMOZ descriptions into the knowledge panel.

And I recently heard Google is using DMOZ for some snippets on either the G+ L page or the little snippets that show up embedded in the map.

In the past she's shown DMOZ snippets in a description overlay right in the SERPS (gone now) and of course used to sometimes replace the site description with a DMOZ description.

So this leads me to believe Google must see DMOZ as an authority citation for the business, much like it does Wikipedia.

I always say find out what she likes and give it to her. If she likes DMOZ, then I'd make an attempt to get listed.

Plus I'd rather control what's said about my business and have G pick up a nicely worded description I wrote than have her go get who knows what info from elsewhere.

Here's more info - see #3:

<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140909225549-232231100-3-branding-opportunities-in-the-local-knowledge-panel">4 Branding Opportunities in the Local Knowledge Panel | Eli Fennell | LinkedIn</a>

FYI not saying at all this a biggie or ranking factor or anything. Just saying if you have the time it would not be a waste for local, since Google seems to highly trust the data.

 

[Ben Bowen]

I had to become an editor to get listed. The ease of that probably depends on the category.

 

[sequenantial]

I honestly wouldn't worry to much about it. It can take a LONG time to get in there and with all the effort and time it takes, it can be much more rewarding to spend it elsewhere.

 

[djbaxter]

The fact the Google sometimes uses descriptions from DMOZ has always been true but I'm not convinced that means Google sees it as an authority site. More likely the DMOZ description together with the DMOZ categories in the link structure are simply a better match for that specific search term than what's on the actual website.

And there is no evidence at all that it's a ranking factor. In fact, Cutts has repeatedly denied over the years that a DMOZ link has any special significance at all.


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[travelincat]

As others have said, DMOZ is a dinosaur and has very little relevance today. We owned one of the largest independent travel websites and for over 10 years we could never get listed, most likely because the editor was a competitor. This creates a conflict of interest which I believe Google understands.

We still submit our clients to them because it takes less then a minute, but after that, we forget about it. It will either get listed, or not and there is nothing you can do to change that fact.

 

[cbpayne]

with all the effort and time it takes,

It only takes a few minutes to suggest a site! What "effort and time" are you talking about?

 

[Howell]

Getting listed in DMOZ is all about which gatekeeper is on duty and how much coffee they?ve had or not had.

Value for the link as others have mentioned is negligible at best...better things to do.



Full disclosure: I was DMOZ editor way, way back when (I'm old).

 

[JoshuaMackens]

I tend to agree with Linda.

If they're still using DMOZ data to enrich search results, what would a link hurt?

I would imagine it's still a signal but I'm basing that on a gut feeling and zero proof.

Where did Matt Cutts talk about DMOZ? I don't really listen to Cutts as he obviously has an agenda with the information he puts out but I am still kind of curious as to what he had to say on the subject.

 

[Dev]

I've been trying to figure this out for a while.. One of the primary backlinks my company aims to gain for dealerships is a DMoz listing..

I also noticed shortly after submitting my own site to DMoz I started getting around 40 more hits per day to my site.. even though my site still isn't listed there.. Probably just a coincidence but I credited my submission at the time.

It does appear the site is pretty archaic in that you have to be within a certain category to submit to that category instead of just having a dropdown on the submission page. I, too, got denied when applying to become an editor. The only reason I still bother with DMoz is because it's such a strong authority in Google's eyes.

 

[djbaxter]

But it isn't a strong authority in Google's eyes - or anyone else's eyes. The majority of editors list their friends and ignore most other submissions, especially commercial sites offering products or services. Directories of all kinds have been seriously devalued by Google. I run a human edited directory and reject about 75% of submissions. Most of the work I do ony that directory in the past couple of years is rejecting 20 submissions to find 1 that I am willing to list - and the rest is deleting listings at owners request because of a Google "unnatural listing" message. It's an archaic back links strategy that now does little good and can actually harm a site.

The extra hits you got after submitting were editors looking at your site and then ignoring it instead of listing it. They will gradually taper off to nothing.


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[Howell]

"Directories of all kinds have been seriously devalued by Google."

Not completely, in fact many in certain verticals have seen a large increase in visibility starting when the "flying rat" pooped all over the SERPs.

Legal Vertical Examples include: AVVO, lawyers.findlaw, thumbtack, Nolo, Yelp and even the lowly HG.org.

Your results may vary...

 

[djbaxter]

That's true. Niche directories for certain categories still have value to consumers and those are given weight by Google. I think that's the key: niche and consumers actually use them. Neither of those are true for DMOZ though.

For mental health, psychology today and findatherapist are good examples.


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[Tim Colling]

That's true. Niche directories for certain categories still have value to consumers and those are given weight by Google...For mental health, psychology today and findatherapist are good examples.

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For the elder care space, caring.com is similarly useful, but you have to buy a paid listing for them to link to you. Still, Google apparently likes them because Google includes caring.com reviews in your Knowledge Graph sometimes.

Two classic examples of this are the BBB and Yelp. Both are advertising schemes and Yelp is repugnantly arrogant and unreliable, but for some reason Google appears to value them as signals.

 

[djbaxter]

It's consistent I think with Google's focus on the searcher not the business. If searchers find a site useful or helpful or informative, Google likes it. If it's just a link depository that regular searchers (Google consumers) never or rarely use, Google doesn't like it.


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[Tim Colling]

It's consistent I think with Google's focus on the searcher not the business...

Yep. Otherwise searchers would go somewhere else and Google wouldn't be able to show them more ads to click on.