DMOZ – Is it Really That Important?

Yes, another post about DMOZ. I have noticed so many people seems to get so upset at DMOZ. It seems many people believe that not having a dmoz listing is the end of the world. i am here to tell you that is not the case at all. A dmoz listing is not as important as it was three to four years ago. I mean don’t get me wrong, if one can get their site listed every backlink helps. However, it is no the superlink it once was.

In fact, recently there have been numerous claims made citing corruption in the Open Directory Project among the editors. I believe there is some corruption in DMOZ. however, there are some good honest editors over there as well. As people we must remember, at EVERY chance a person put in a position of authority is allowed to abuse that authority with no consequences, that person can and will at every opportunity. This is just human nature.

The Open Directory Project has operated under a veil of secrecy for a very long time. They are not as open as they need to be, and this has given a perception of corruption among their ranks for a very long time. Since the Open directory was intended to be a Open Source volunteer group of editors, the aspirations of the project were intended to be quite Open in nature. In the early days of dmoz, it was very open and friendly, but today that is not the case. In fact, most of the nice polite and helpful editors are lower on the food chain of authority. The Open Directory meta editors weild extreme authority in the directory, and many webmasters, blog owners, and others are afraid to voice their opinions for fear of what “the great DMOZ” might do to their site.

I am here to tell everyone straight up, don’t worry about it. It is not a big deal if you are not listed. The dmoz model is in fact outdated in the world of web 2.0. this is the year 2009, and social networking, bookmarking, sharing, and etc are much better avenues to drive traffic to your web site. A person cna use these services and reap massive rewards from them without the headace of worry about a dmoz listing.

The Open directory project is given itself enough rope to hang itself, and that is exactly what they are doing. Everyday, more and more SEO’s are just disregarding it all together, and opting for directories like the Best of the Web(BOTW), the Yahoo Directory, JoeAnt, and others that Google, Yahoo, and other search engines hold in very high regard.There are many other options availabe to you, and folks should not get so upset about dmoz.

The facts of the matter are, complaing to dmoz editors, or complaing to the open directory is not going to do you one bit of good. As you may or may not know, most of the editors in the ODP for the very competitive categories have been editors for a very long time. They have taken control of those niches in the directory, and deny their competitors from being listed. Thi is just the nature of the beast. I personally believe that ANY COMMERCIAL category should not be allowed to be edited by a person who was a vested economic intrest in that particular category. For exmaple, an employee or member of an SEO firm should not be allowed to edit an SEO category, but this goes on every day. There is nothing you can do about it. If you cna’t ever get listed, and your site is commercial in nature, then most likely your competitor is an editor and there isn’t anything you can really do about it. I say just move on.

If you visit dmoz’s forums such as resource-zone, you will see that most of the meta editors active very condescending, and downright rude and unprofessional towards others. In my opinion this does not reflect well on the reputation of directory itself, and it shows that many of the meta editors most likely have a serious inferiority complex. I have dealt with quite a few of these types in my lifetime, I know the behavior when I see it. This holds especially true when it is typed. Also, another thing to consider is the garbled and confusing/don’t make sense answers that meta and dmoz editors will give you. Ask the same question 3 times to 3 different editors, and get three different answers. There is absolutely no organization there at all.

Back in 1999, I had a personal homepage on Geocities that was listed on Dmoz until 2001 when i closed it. back then, dmoz was a fine directory, the pinnacle of the internet. today however, the current group that is running it is ruining that great directory. I want you to understand, listing a site or not listing a site is not my gripe. my gripe is “purposely denying competitor’s web sites” that is the most unethetical practice that there ever could be. That is a practice that should not exist in that directory.

So the moral of this post is:

Don’t fret so much about a dmoz listing, you don’t have to be listed to have a good web site or blog. It is not required to be successful. Happy web site building!