The Value of DMOZ Links, Less in 2008?

Posted by admin

I have studied DMOZ links in the past somewhat (see “wizards of DMOZ“) and being a long term professional SEOer I have probably submitted more sites than most to the open directory project (DMOZ).  Yesterday while checking the Alexa details of one of my sites I noticed that the description that Alexa uses had changed, to one that I did not recognise - quickly coming to the conclusion that this must have meant that I was now listed in an appropriate category at DMOZ I quickly checked.

I am happy to report that the site was indeed now DMOZ listed, and I quickly followed up with a few checks of my other sites and was pleased to find that a further two more sites had also gained that holy grail of the backlinks, an ODP listing.  I did have other sites already listed in the directory so I started to delve deeper into the ramifications of having a site listed and came up with a few interesting things that I either hadnt noticed, or has recently changed.

The DMOZ link did not (does not) appear in my google webmaster tools at all, and not just for my newly added sites, also for a few sites that I own that have had a listing for nearly 10 years.  To be fair there isnt much activity on those sites and not many other backlinks so Im not 100% sure if google has stopped counting DMOZ links in its webmaster tools,  if so then I wonder what about the other directories that “feed” off the information dumps from the ODP,  surely they will count towards backlinks.

A quick check ensued, and as an example the Alexa Directory did NOT appear as a backlink in the test sites I looked at either in Google’s webmaster tools. So this begs the Question:  Has Google Now Discounted DMOZ from its algorithms?  

In short I can not answer that question immediately but I will certainly do some more investigation and come back to you folks when I know more!

Anyway, off for my cafe con leche!

MM