How important is DMOZ for SEO today?

Is the DMOZ "Open Directory" still important for search?

First, let's begin with what a directory is. Web-based directories were initially created to help organize the information on the Internet. They would group websites into various categories, ranging from arts to sports. There's tons of directories on the Internet, but many of them are unreliable, not kept up, or they require payment, which defeats the whole purpose of having a directory, as quality sites not willing to pay won't be found in it.

An "open", user-contributed directory

The DMOZ directory at dmoz.org attempted to do away with all this by establishing a human-edited directory, functioning in a fashion similar to today's Wikipedia (Wikipedia is more than a directory - it's an online encyclopedia that adds new content to its various definitions and categories all the time as users volunteer to edit and maintain pages - within specified guidelines). The purpose of DMOZ was to gather together only the best sites. You could (and still can) submit your site to DMOZ by visiting the directory itself, and browsing its various categories until you found one that fit the topic of your website. You would then fill out a submission form, providing details for your website such as name, description, and a contact email address, and your submission request would be submitted to the editor in charge of the DMOZ category you submitted your website to. This sounds fine, but why the big deal for search?

DMOZ supported by Google and other search engines

Before the turn of the century, DMOZ was highly touted by Google and other search engines. They would harvest information and links to websites directly from the "Open Directory" and list them in their search results. For website owners, this meant a listing in DMOZ was a huge plus in getting your site listed higher in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). How did Google do this? It created its own directory.

The Google Directory

In 2000 Google decided to create its own directory, the Google Directory. It would use DMOZ as the source, and then organize all the websites by PageRank (read how do search engines find my website? for an explanation of PageRank). An entry in the Google directory was paramount to a successful search marketing campaign. But nearly a decade later, is that still the case?

DMOZ is outdated, and it can take years to get indexed

DMOZ, while a novel and useful concept, is still prone to human error. And as it has grown over the years and the ratio of website submissions to editors that can approve the submissions has grown, the quality of the directory has come in question. In particular, if you look at the Alexa graph of visitors to dmoz.org, you'll notice the downward trend, just over the past year (select "max" for the graph range to see a full year back). The downward trend has continued for several years, which means fewer and fewer people actually make use of the site. Had you heard of it before reading this article? Had you ever made use of it to find a website of interest? There's always been plenty of people ready to submit their websites, but the purpose of the directory is muted when no ones uses it to actually find anything. Notice on the Alexa page that only 16% of visitors visit the search portion of the directory - ie. search for a website.

Content is king

Google and other prominent search engines such as Yahoo and MSN ("Live") are constantly updating their search algorithms to make searching more efficient and beneficial to the searchers. One rule that has always stood paramount over the others in the search community, and now is playing a larger role than ever, is the fact that content is king. No matter how much or well content is marketed, and no matter how many tactics or tricks website owners use to get their content indexed, the bottom line is that the searcher is looking for quality content. If you have that, and you update it regularly, you will be found.