DMOZ penalized by Google

**Honeycomb Properties** · 09-26-2007, 08:58 PM

If you haven't heard, apparently DMOZ has been removed from Google.
Google has been preaching for a while not to buy links and rumors abound about corrupt DMOZ editors.

If you've ever tried to get a site listed in DMOZ then you know they get around to your listing when never rolls around. Several other pages than their homepage are still being indexed, but the news on the street is Google isn't happy w/DMOZ. Google may be using this to try and scare everyone away from paying for links.

**Mike Taylor** · 09-27-2007, 04:31 AM

I didn't hear about this...G is really trying to crack down on paid links and shady directories. It was recip. links before now it is directories. I don't know about you, but it kind of has me paranoid about getting new links.

**Mike Taylor** · 09-27-2007, 04:36 AM

Did you see their official response to this? I don't know, but I tend to believe it. I just searched for DMOZ, and they came up as #1. If their were really penalized they would nowhere to be found.

**Greg** · 09-27-2007, 04:49 AM

For the last couple of years the best I could do on the big g was #5 for my main keyword phrase. The top 4 spots went to sites that had a dmoz link and nothing else. Now those sites are falling of the first page and I am #2.

I knew g had to devalue dmoz sooner or later, not because of paid links but because it represented such a small percentage of the internet and it listed a lot of poor sites and excluded good sites.

I had 100 pages of original content and I wasn't good enough for them but they would accept 10 page canned framed sites.

**dbar** · 09-28-2007, 03:16 PM

I agree with Mike Taylor, I don't think there is a penalty. With AOL owning DMOZ now and the fact that Google uses the DMOZ to populate it's own directory I still think there is value in trying to get your site listed. I wouldn't cry if I didn't get a site listed, but it's still worth taking the time to submit your site.

**Honeycomb Properties** · 09-28-2007, 04:32 PM

I'm not saying a company would be penalized by Google for being listed in DMOZ, I was just stating that the buzz on the net was that Google had removed DMOZ itself from the SERPS. It may have been a glitch in the system or the 2 worked things out because DMOZ is back in Google now, but earlier this week if you searched for DMOZ in Google- it didn't show up, only other pages about DMOZ.

I submit all my sites to them and was also complaining that it can take months and months to finally get listed...

Sorry, must have posted at a bad time- I normally try not to complain.

**Greg** · 09-29-2007, 04:14 AM

G could have devalued them without giving them a penalty. At one time a link at dmoz was worth it's weight in gold. Not anymore.

**PEscobedo** · 11-02-2007, 01:24 PM

So how do we get around these problems

**Jade456** · 11-05-2007, 06:43 PM

LOL, that is the million dollar question. I look at it this way, if you can get a DMOZ link, then why not?

**bluefrog59** · 11-08-2007, 09:19 PM

I think Jade is right. Google can't punish the millions of links that already exist in DMOZ, the worst they could do is to give the link less weight in their algo. Either way - there is an advantage to being in DMOZ: Many smaller engines suck data out of DMOZ to seed their own SE's and your site might actually be found on one of these engines.

Honestly - how many times do you run to DMOZ to find something? Most of us run to our favorite search engine and try various search strings until we find what we are looking for.