After years in a coma, DMOZ/ODP is finally pronounced dead

[djbaxter]

Final Nail In The Google Directory Coffin
by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land
Jul 20, 2011

In 2008, Google removed directory links from Webmaster Tools and in December 2010, Google dropped the search box from the Google directory.

Today, Google has completely removed the Google Directory as a Google service. Going to directory.google.com will show you a notice that reads the "Google Directory is no longer available". Yesterday the directory was live but today, Google quietly and without warning removed it.

In truth, DMOZ/ODP has been of historical interest only to anyone but the increasingly shrinking in-group that constitutes DMOZ editors for years. Their claim to importance in recent years has been the desperate claim that Google still thought they had value - despite the fact that Google had pretty much stopped updating the listings in their cloned version a long time ago. Now clearly, DMOZ exists only to continue to feed the pathetic egos of its editors.

R.I.P. DMOZ. We hardly knew ye.

More from Barry Schwartz

 

[Linda Buquet]

"After years in a coma, DMOZ/ODP is finally pronounced dead"

Love that title. Bye Bye DMOZ, we'll miss you, kinda sorta.

 

[nagarmero]

Dmoz..From such high PR reduced to 7.. Kinda old style of SEOing using DMOZ.

 

[sandra20]

I think indexing in DMOZ is important but not the essential one. If you can indexed in DMOZ then it will be bonus for you for inceasing page rank

 

[djbaxter]

I think indexing in DMOZ is important but not the essential one. If you can indexed in DMOZ then it will be bonus for you for inceasing page rank

Not really. It's still just one more link when it comes to PageRank, so a listing adds to the PR of your page this way:

{PR of listing page} / .85 * {total # outgoing links on that page}

Outgoing links includes internal navigation links.

As with any directory, an average listing page may contain 10, 20, 50, 100, or more outgoing links. As an example, look at Open Directory - Recreation: Travel: Guides and Directories - how many outgoing links do you see on that PR5 page? So how much "link juice" does any of those outgoing links (remember to include navigation links) actually receive?

Would you be better off with a link on a less populated page with fewer outgoing links?

 

[Ron Killian]

Just futher proof that directories have been "out" for some time and social networking is the place to be. Directories sure don't have the linking power they use, have'nt for some time.

Many years ago I was an "editor", wasn't really a big deal. I tried getting back in a couple years later and no love from the elite crowd.