The Effects of a DMOZ Listing
DMOZ, also known as the Open Directory Project (ODP), is the largest human-edited open content directory on the Internet. The acronym DMOZ derives from its original domain name, directory.mozilla.org. Anyone can apply for free listing on DMOZ, but some categories have large backlogs and it can take months or even years to get listed. Despite this difficulty, many webmasters feel it is worthwhile to apply for a DMOZ listing.
Other People Are Reading
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Reputation
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DMOZ has a policy to include only sites with unique content. They reject sites with content that mainly consists of affiliate links or that might be considered filled with spam. Because of this, one effect of a DMOZ listing is that the site will be considered as reputable and meeting a minimum standard. This can help a web owner who wishes to sell a website or who is trying to attract direct advertisers.
Page Rank
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Many factors are used to determine where a website will rank in search engine results. One part of Google's ranking algorithm is known as PageRank. The importance of PageRank changes constantly as Google constantly refines their algorithm, but a page with a higher PageRank generally will appear higher in search engine results than one with a lower PageRank. Simply being listed in DMOZ can increase a website from PageRank 3 to PageRank 4, due to the number of incoming links the DMOZ listing brings.
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Inbound Links
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A DMOZ listing creates two significant inbound links to a website, one from DMOZ and one from the Google directory. Google's directory uses a download of the DMOZ directory. Because both of these sites have a high PageRank, they give a boost to the site linked. The site will also get links from the thousands of small sites that have downloaded and use the DMOZ directory, which is also beneficial.
Post-Panda Effects
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DMOZ was started in 1998 and for many years it was considered essential for a website to get a DMOZ listing for good visibility in the search engines. From about 2007 it was felt that the web had changed so much that a DMOZ listing had very little effect, and a website could become very successful without one. In February 2011, Google rolled-out major changes to its algorithm, referred to as the Panda update or the Farmer update. Since then, it appears DMOZ listings once again have been given increased weight in search engine rankings.
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References
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