Midnight Oil

Update (2007/07/11): It seems that I was pretty far off on this one. I have been suspicious for a while, and should have updated the post with some of my thoughts, but I didn’t. Lucky for me, Zoom, in the comments, took me to task.

Apparently, at some point about two years ago, Google decided to stop refreshing the Google Directory and updated the PageRank algorithm to discount any gains from DMOZ. However, this seems only to affect sites listed after they did this. The end result is that getting listed on DMOZ now seems to have no effect on your score.

Part of the reason my findings were so skewed is that the categories I was looking in were pretty static. They had not changed much in the two years that Google was not updating. So, I never checked the PageRank of a DMOZ listed site of less than two years. In my defense, there seems to be no direct way to see when a site was listed on DMOZ. However, using a more dynamic category might have helped.

Bottom line: DMOZ seems to have absolutely no effect on your PageRank score for newly listed sites. Unless you have a time-machine, it won’t do anything for you. I’d still submit your link, as someone might just stumble upon it by browsing DMOZ, but definitely don’t stress over getting in. There are more important things to worry about.

Original (and flawed) article follows:

While looking for ways to promote our Dungeons and Dragons website, I stumbled upon the Open Directory Project, also known as DMOZ. I had heard from an SEO expert (see my earlier post on Atlanta Web Entrepreneurs) about submitting a link to DMOZ. However, he just sort of mentioned it in passing. Luckily, I happened to jot down the 4 letters. I guess he just assumed we all already knew about it.

While following up on those notes, I went to the DMOZ site and started browsing around their Roleplaying section. Most of the links are good, and some are excellent. On the other hand, there is a sprinkling of sites that are just plain dumb. Not that I’m in any position to judge anyone else, but seriously folks, an entire site devoted to discussion of how to roll a d3? Funny? Yes. An unbeatable resource for RPG players worldwide? Um, no.

On a whim, I decided to run these sites through a PageRank checker. Imagine my surprise when they all turned up a PageRank of 6! This is equal to the score for The Wizards of the Coast homepage. Sit back a moment and process this: a single page with an ugly background and a crappy poll devoted to how to roll a d3 has the same PageRank as the homepage for the publisher of Dungeons and Dragons, the most popular tabletop RPG ever.

Don’t believe me? Then check it out for yourself:
PageRank Checker
How do u D3?
Wizards of the Coast

For fun, I decided to compare the sites in Alexa. Now, Alexa is totally separate from PageRank, and there is no reason to expect any sort of direct correlation. However, it’s reasonable to expect an indirect correlation. After all, high traffic probably implies that there are a lot of links pointing to you, and the more traffic you receive, the more likely you are to receive new links. Reasonable, right?

Anyways, according to Alexa, wizards.com has a reach of 0.03%, meaning that of all the users measured by Alexa, 0.03% of them visited wizards.com. If you think about it, that’s a perfectly respectable number. Predictably, the d3 poll site was not even ranked. Basically, they are orders of magnitude apart in actual traffic. A candle against the sun.

So, what’s the catch? How can they have the same PageRank? The PageRank algorithm is based on the number of incoming links and their respective PageRank scores. If you have highly ranked incoming links, then you are blessed with some of the value of those links. The more you have and the better they are, the higher ranked you are. So, maximizing PageRank is a fairly simple process (in theory): get popular people to link to you.

DMOZ matches up perfectly with this, for one main reason: a single link on DMOZ translates to dozens, perhaps hundreds of links elsewhere. This is due to the fact that DMOZ publishes their directory freely as an RDF feed. Websites are encouraged to pick up the feed and repackage or republish it as desired, with very few restrictions. So, get a link on DMOZ, and you automatically (with patience) get a link on all the sites that pick up their feed.

I checked the d3 website’s incoming links according to Google. To do this, just go to Google and type in link:www.somesite.com. Looking at the results, it’s easy to see that pretty much all of the highly ranked incoming links are repackaged feeds from DMOZ.

While a bunch of free links is already a great thing, there is one massive cherry sitting on top of the pie: Google itself republishes the DMOZ feed as Google Directory! As you can probably imagine, a link from Google to you is a massive PageRank boost, due to Google’s own maximized PageRank value. It’s like getting Batman as a character witness at your trial. His word carries a lot of weight.

Unfortunately (or luckily, depending on which side of the fence you’re on), getting a link in DMOZ is not exactly easy. It’s not hard, either, but it seems to take a while. As of writing this, I have yet to actually get Obsidian Portal listed. Still, if you’re looking for a way to get your site noticed, I can think of no better way to spend the next half hour than by browsing DMOZ, finding the perfect category., and submitting your site. If you’ve got quality content and your site is truly worthwhile, then all you have to do at that point is wait.

Good luck getting listed

Update (2007/05/29): From what I’ve been reading, expect a very long wait to get listed. Apparently it can take months or even years to finally appear in the DMOZ listings, mainly due to a huge backlog of submissions and very few editors. Still, there are worse ways to spend a half hour of your time than taking a long-shot at what could end up being the perfect link for your site.

Update 2 (2007/05/31): I have been accepted as the editor for the Games – Roleplaying – Software category! My first order of business was to list Obsidian Portal along with the other two sites that were included as part of my application. I had to apply twice in order to be accepted, but the entire process took under a week. So, if you have a site that you want listed, and the correct category has no editor, then your first order of business should be to apply for that category. Otherwise, it will probably take several months in order for someone to get around to actually reviewing your site.

Note: I was completely honest about my affiliations, as well as my intentions, and they apparently did not penalize me for it. So, be honest, be sincere, and good luck!