DMOZ Globe

For or Against Bothering with DMOZ?

This post picks up a little from the last post on DMOZ as looking online we noticed a debate going on about whether having a DMOZ listing was still worthwhile. So we decided to do a quick post discussing the points for bothering with a listing and those against it as a summary round up of the views being put across on the subject by big players like SEOmoz who we would like to thank for their inspiration on this post. If you have a point of view on this subject we would love to hear it.

As stated in the last post, DMOZ was once seen of the mother of all Directories, The queen, the must have important link to obtain and many people still hold this view. The point for having a listing as discussed in various articles and forums are as follows:

1. Google had the directory copied originally as the Google directory, which was once linked to from their home page, it is still listed but now you have to find it in their large service list – but it is there

2. DMOZ brings direct traffic as their pages ranked well for search queries and were used directly by web visitors before Google basically cornered the market in search.

3. DMOZ received many new inbound links on a regular basis making it extremely valuable in the eyes of the search engines

4. DMOZ was an active place that was regularly used to add, review and modified links making it relevant and up to date.

5. DMOZ is still regarded as desirable by many as it seen as a status symbol, badge of honour for your website.

However the people who are not so thrilled with DMOZ arguements are equally compelling as many feel it is outdated, out of date and rendered practically useless. Below are the points made by the against camp:

1. DMOZ is practically inactive – The basis of this arguement is that many new sites aren’t being accepted and those listings that do exist are typically quite old and many just do not exist any more.

2. Big players like SEOmoz have listings in DMOZ and are not receiving more than 10 visitor a day, which only goes to prove how few people are using DMOZ.

3. The number of inbound links has dropped as people use different sources to gain links.

4. The number of people who no longer regard DMOZ as a worthwhile place to link to has increased with many companies doing very well using other link strategies with less wait time and restrictions, this includes paid directory submissions.

5. The shear number of failed submissions, due to any number of reasons including, no one to review that category and the fact that many editors are now worried about accusations levelled at them for reasons from being bribed to keep people out to bias.

6. The ROI in terms of time and effort to get a listing with DMOZ is not worth it.


These are the arguements for and against, we would love to hear your point of views on it now.

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