The ODP effect on search engines

You can get permanently non-listed based solely on persistence.

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I was semi-joking and trying to be innapropriately coy...

yet by added such things as a discussion forum... the ranking was achieved -- and achieved fairly quickly.

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Agreed - those methods help tremendously as engines work harder to keep on top of feeds, blogs, and bulletin board sites.

I'm a stubborn graphic designer in that sense. My images speak words with little need for text. I don't want to sacrifice my design by adding on components - rss, newsfeeds, blogs, etc. Unfortunately, search engines cannot read what's within pictures cause that would involve an advanced form of artificial intelligence. So I'm 'stuck between a rock and a hard place' for now trying to look for other ways to communicate.

I have a genealogy website that is not listed in DMOZ, yet is #1 in Google for one of the two most important search terms.

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Then that it is proof that it can happen without a listing here. Especially considering how many geneaology websites there are out there. I'm glad to hear that.

This is a good thing, a good thing for you, really.

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I see your point in manipulation - it makes complete sense. I also don't think spammers would be the type that would go through the process of becoming an editall editor (I forget what DMOZ calls them) - but I could see someone in SEO attempting to do so to list a few of their clients. Again - is there any proof that manipulation occurs? No. And it would be extremely difficult to track down or offend without pointing fingers.

Personally I think that the Google/ODP myth is spread by so-called SEO'ers who charge their clients money for promotion and fail to achieve results.

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No doubt that definitely occurs to some degree. I do however think a listing helps tremendously as it populates to many other directories and search engines which glean/partner with ODP.

So I modified one page of my international folk dance site to promote one of the firm's key words and, lo and behold, I was UK #2 on Google for that product in two days

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It is an assumption that Google puts some emphasis on 'authorative' websites on a topic - mainly universities, public services, and major industry-leaders. It makes sense that a search engine would want to provide someone with the most useful/relevant information instead of sites out to strictly sell something. You can see various sites 'importance and popularity' to some degree in their PageRank stats (altho this is not always representative of what's considered an 'authority'): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_with_a_high_PageRank

A direct link from one of these authority websites could boost rankings tremendously. If there's too many unrelated links, than that site can be penalized rank-wise for spamming or unrelated content. I'd also assume that your engineering company wasn't suffering rank-wise prior to your addition as the two are not really related - but it helped push it over the edge.

When I launched my international folk dance club website last year I read lots of stuff on a lot of forums about SEO, SERPS and PR, realised it was totally confusing and, with experience, not at all accurate. The problem with evaluating any one factor is that you need to discount all the others in order to draw a valid conclusion and for that you need a test sample.

In the folk dance world, most people have better things to do than muck about on the Internet and there were quite a few UK international folk dance sites that had 0 back-links and were not in Google until my site appeared linking to them. I knew that none of them were doing any promotion for themselves, so I promoted them along with my site. After a month or two all these sites got ranked and all the sites 'settled' in Google.

The one place that none of these sites had was a listing in the ODP. However when I gained editing privileges in the appropriate category, I listed all the International folk dance sites and sat back to see the results and... nothing happened.

None of the 'virgin' sites increased their PR or changed their positions compared to others which already had an ODP listing. In fact the only noticeable change (after 4 to 5 months) was that the national organisation site (which had lots of natural back-links anyway) at #2 supplanted my site at #1 for our key words. This would be as expected if one site gets the extra link it did not have before.

The biggest 'boost' any of the sites got seems to have been my site linking to them in the first place before my site even ranked. I'd almost believe Google was ignoring back links apart from the ones that introduce the site to them.

Over same period, I have launched web-sites for 7 other folk dance clubs on my domain none of whom have an ODP listing and, though they only have a fraction of the links that my own club site has, they all appear at #1/2 or 3 for their keywords and, most of the time, have the same PR as my site (probably because they are folders on the same domain).

My conclusion FWIW, leave SEO alone and spend the time saved in carrying out some form a healthy exercise like folk dancing that will improve your quality of life.

regards

spend the time saved in carrying out some form a healthy exercise like folk dancing that will improve your quality of life.

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So very true, although my dancing skills will get me killed.

My quality of life will also be improved even further if I can somehow manage to cover rent this month for the 72nd time (and I'm not joking about this.) It's put alot of gray hairs on my head.

* Update. #11 in the category today. Still no DMOZ.

Also came across this article which does bring up some questions of trust/relevancy between links which may be interesting to some people:

http://www.google.com/librariancenter/articles/0512_01.html

That is an excellent article, which I read when it was first posted. Note that the helpful Matt Cutts does not go so far as to admit that Google is using TrustRank. He got asked how Google decides which sites are trusted. This was his reply:
http://www.google.com/librariancenter/articles/0601_03.html

Search engines

The problem is, that most search engines work like that:

- Someone is looking for a specific website
- The search engines looks for the relevant DMOZ categories
- The search engines shows the busiest/most popular websites from that category using Alexa data which only knows website that do have DMOZ categories.
- Them the remaining results are determined using own search engine algorithms

it is not only a matter of a pagerank which you also get automatically by all directory websites using DMOZ data, but also of being a "known" website on statistical website such as Alexa telling most search engines how busy those websites are.

No DMOZ, no Alexa. No Alexa hardly any chance.

You're assigning waaaaay too much importance to both Alexa and the ODP when it comes to search engines.

I have a site that isn't listed in the ODP and has no data in Alexa but it will still come up in search engine results for specific keywords.

>The search engines shows the busiest/most popular websites from that category using Alexa data which only knows website that do have DMOZ categories.

Welcome to planet earth. The search engines work differently here.

I think you're mistaking cause for effect. Alexa lists the sites that are most popular. It doesn't make those sites popular.

motsa said:

You're assigning waaaaay too much importance to both Alexa and the ODP when it comes to search engines.

I have a site that isn't listed in the ODP and has no data in Alexa but it will still come up in search engine results for specific keywords.

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Ok, then look for a similiar website, listed on DMOZ and look at the Alexa stats. Then click on the category for all websites in that category and you fill find your website is not listed.

Sometimes editors of magazines, newspapers or tv shows use Alexa to decide which websites to test or to show (e,g, review of websites etc.)

They will never review your website as they do not appear on Alexa or the directory and as they are not listed on DMOZ in the first place.

And if you are not included you receive less visitors who read the magazine or see the tv show.

Sometimes editors of magazines, newspapers or tv shows use Alexa to decide which websites to test or to show (e,g, review of websites etc.)

And if you are not included you receive less visitors who read the magazine or see the tv show.

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Again, I reiterate -- that's got little or nothing to do with search engines (which is what my post was addressing).

hutcheson said:

>The search engines shows the busiest/most popular websites from that category using Alexa data which only knows website that do have DMOZ categories.

Welcome to planet earth. The search engines work differently here.

I think you're mistaking cause for effect. Alexa lists the sites that are most popular. It doesn't make those sites popular.

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Of course not......but it is more convenient if a website is listed on DMOZ if you use Alexa.....and additionally you also get more traffic due to all the related effects.....of course the website itself must be good....but all the links from various dmoz based website and alexa and the search engine algorithms help websites...and they are disadvantaged if they are not listed....especially new websites.

in between the lines i always read:

"we have nothing to do with it, we are just a bunch of editors reviewing website. it is not our fault search engines work the way they work"

it slightly sounds like "we are just producing guns.....it is not our fault if people use them to kill people"..
you could either ask people not to kill each other or avoid guns being produced.

the same here..you could either blame the search engines and tell them not to rely to much on dmoz data or to tell dmoz to be more fair with adding websites.

ok slightly out of topic..but you know what i mean ;-)

in general search engines should never count links of dmoz related directory websites and alexa should not use dmoz data either.

it slightly sounds like "we are just producing guns.....it is not our fault if people use them to kill people"..
you could either ask people not to kill each other or avoid guns being produced.

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You might as well say "people die in car accidents so we shouldn't make cars. It's a silly statement to make. We assume no control (nor should we) over what people do with our data. To do otherwise would be wrong.

The problem is, that most search engines work like that:

- Someone is looking for a specific website
- The search engines looks for the relevant DMOZ categories
- The search engines shows the busiest/most popular websites from that category using Alexa data which only knows website that do have DMOZ categories.
- Then the remaining results are determined using own search engine algorithms

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No search engine operates in this way, to the best of my knowledge. You may possibly be thinking of Yahoo! in the old days, before it had its own search engine. As I recall its search would serve up results from its directory first and then further results came from whichever search engine it was in partnership with at the time. (Am I right? - My memory is not my strong point.)

You may possibly have assumed that because Google uses a branded copy of the Open Directory as its directory, that it followed the same pattern. But no. Google has never, ever served up ODP-listed sites first for every query.

You will quite often see ODP-listed sites coming up on the first page of results for queries. That's not too surprising. We list about 5 million sites. And we try to list the best. But there are plenty of sites not listed in the ODP that do well in Google and other search engines. Examples have already been given in this thread.

As for Google using Alexa statistics - where's the proof? I personally don't believe that Google would do so. If Google wants to factor site usage into its algo, it can generate its own statistics for it. But I see no consensus from search engine experts that Google is actually doing that.

Alexa has three different and distinct modes.

(1) Information on site popularity. It displays the most popular 500 sites, whether or not they are listed in the ODP. It seems to use ODP descriptions, so you can EASILY find MANY non-ODP-listed sites in that list -- just look for the sites without description.

(2) Directory. This is a copy of the ODP, and it lists sites (whatever their Alexa rank is). It does allow you to sort a category by Alexa rank, if that's what you want to do.

(3) Search engine. Search results for PAGES are shown with no apparent regard for whether the SITE has a listing -- and again, you can look for yourself: Alexa search does return pages from "popular" sites that aren't in the ODP (I picked three sites off the top-500 at random to check this.)

This cannot be emphasized too much. All of this is Alexa's choice and the sole responsibility of the ODP. If Alexa wants to use ODP data, they can: that Alexa chooses to do so, is an indication that the ODP priorities are set correctly, and that ODP editors are succeeding at providing a value to surfers. In other words, that ODP editors are fulfilling the responsibility they took on.

It is not, not EVER, a sign that ODP editors should be looking for someone else to tell them what responsibilities they should have taken on, instead of doing what has been proven to work.

I should add that the folks over at Alexa are extremely helpful and kind. It took a couple weeks but my site was added. Also, they took the time to manually add my site to their directory independent of ODP and were clear to point out a listing in their directory would not carry over to ODP.

My site hit #6 today in a popular art/business category today - and it is still not listed in ODP. I have no doubt that it helps to be listed here, but there are many alternative ways to go about search results.

I'm so glad that you have found out the truth of what I've been telling you.

Unless they have changed, Alexa's rankings are based on results from the Alexa toolbar (which afaik only works under IE). This means that only those surfers, a small minority though larger proportionally in the past, using the toolbar are contributing those figures.

That was my understanding Callimachus and the reason why I don't believe that Google would want to factor Alexa's data into its algorithm.

Well, Alexa is like Google. They get the best information they can (in their judgment, of course.)

The ODP provides the best information WE can. And that is, of course, based on OUR judgment.

If someone like Alexa or Google decides to use the ODP data, what would that be?

Would it be:
(1) A confirmation that someone else -- someone, in fact, with professionals looking at website quality -- thinks what we are doing is good.

(2) Evidence that we should stop what we are doing, ignore not only our own experienced judgment but also the recommendation of the expert, and take on a responsibility imposed by some third party? A third party with neither our experience nor Google's reputation as site critic?

Folks, this is just flat NOT a difficult question.

Alexa rankings and stats are crap - there, I said it.

As stated, the traffic stats are soley based on patterns of those who've chosen to download the Amazon dataminer .... er, toolbar.

I have a site with listings in DMOZ and it gets nearly 20,000 visitors a day - most of which are from Yahoo and MSN; so much for Google giving such high weight / trust to DMOZ - they're a link like any other.

The fact that other online entities choose to use the ODP data is the added benefit, not weight soley because of its origin.

My site that gets thousands of visitors a day - its Alexa ranking hovers around 80,000; sites with a fraction of the traffic that have Alexa traffic rankings in below 10,000 ...