Why your web site should be listed in the Open Directory Project (ODP)
By Matthew J. Cook
As more and more sites arrive on the Internet, it has become particularly important that webmasters and web site owners promote their sites in a vast sea of information. Long gone are the days of putting up a web site and automatically attracting an audience. Search engines and the Internet have become so large that finding a site you are looking for is increasingly more difficult. This article discusses how the Open Directory Project (ODP) can be used as a tool to drive more traffic to your web site.
What is the ODF?
The Open Directory Project (http://dmoz.org), also know as DMOZ (acronym for Directory Mozilla), is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. Not yet 3 years old, the ODP has risen to become a significant player in the Web directory arena by making its data freely available to other web sites. The ODP powers core directory services for some the most popular portals and search engines on the Web, including AOL Search, Netscape Search, Google, Lycos, DirectHit, and HotBot, and many others. As of writing this article (January, 2002), there are over 200 English language web sites and over 75 non-English using live or dumped ODP data to add value and content to their web sites.
The ODP is a Web directory, not a search engine. Although they offer a search query, the purpose of the ODP is to list and categorize web sites. They do not rank, promote or optimize sites for search engines. The ODP is simply a data provider.
The Open Directory was founded in the spirit of the Open Source movement, and is the only major directory that is 100% free. There is no cost to submit a site or to use ODP data, which is a major plus recently for smaller sites with little or no budget given the rising popularity of pay for inclusion and pay-per-click search services. Anyone can download and use ODP data at no cost provided they comply with the ODP's free license agreement and attribution.
The Open Directory Project (ODP) has single handedly reminded people that the true heart and soul of the Internet is one of community giving, interaction, and socialization. The remainder of the Internet has become commercialized and jaded with most sites having covert or overt commercial sell you something agenda. The ODP represents our best hope for an open and honest segment of the Internet free from excessive monetary influence. Additionally, the ODP is an excellent tool to use in your web site promotion arsenal.
Sounds great…but what has the ODP done for me lately?
The beauty of the ODP is that it is easy to submit to, usually has speedy listings, and its fair. Unlike other major web directories like Yahoo!, the ODP is not run by a small paid staff. It is instead run by over 22,000 volunteers dedicated to improving the ODP. These volunteers help to speed up the submission process by approving relevant sites into appropriate categories. The ODP also is another resource for getting your own site exposure on the vast Information Highway.
Sounds great but you're saying to yourself, so what? Well, in addition to sending you traffic directly, the Open Directory allows other web sites and a large number of the major search engines to download and serve ODP data as part of their own sites. Many major companies have abandoned their own directory projects since they were extremely costly to maintain -- Free is much better than most things at any cost.
For a webmaster, these two points, allowing other sites to download ODP data and large search engines adopting ODP content, are the real gem in the ODP's cap as a web promotion tool. As mentioned, over 250 different sites use ODP data as part of their site's content. What this means for you as a webmaster or site owner is 250 or more free links to your web site. You don't even have to go around and submit your page to these 200 plus sites, you only need to submit it to one, dmoz.org under an appropriate category.
Links Sminks! Who cares?
Establishing links with other websites is a strategy of web site promotion that must be pursued aggressively at all costs. Strategically-placed links are a proven source of increased web traffic particularly from sites with related content. Like getting listed in a search engine, links are a means for other people to find your site.
Moreover, links are a gauge of your web site's popularity. A growing number of search engines use link popularity in their ranking algorithms including Google, HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Northern Light, Inktomi, Excite and others also use link popularity in their formulas. Eventually every major engine will use link popularity, so developing and maintaining it is essential to your search engine placement.
Search engines use site popularity as a means of gauging how useful it is and how "important" the site is. Sites with lots of links to them are more important than those with few links. Both quantity of links and quality of links are important. For the most part your listing in the ODP won't necessarily help with quality, however it will most certainly help with quantity of links.
Links and site popularity is particularly important in Google, one of the largest search engines. Google relies on link popularity more than any other factor when composing its rankings. It uses link popularity more than any other engine, and has developed quite a sophisticated formula for measuring it. For instance, it incorporates the description of your site used by a linking site in its ranking of your site. It also ranks links from large, prominent sites higher than links from small ones.
Content Used By Major Search Engines and Portals
Because ODP data is freely available, many of the major search engines have begun to incorporate some of the ODP data in their algorithms.
The single most important factor in AOL Search listing is your inclusion in the Open Directory Project's index. AOL is the largest Internet Service Provider and its search can be used to leverage a large amount of AOL user traffic. AOL gets all its information from ODP and Inktomi (another search engine data provider), but it only uses part of Inktomi's index, so an ODP listing is paramount. If AOL Search gets your site from ODP's directory, it re-ranks your listing according to how well you use keywords in your site's title and description.
In Summary
The Open Directory Project is a "win, win" situation for webmasters and web site owners as a web site promotion tool. It costs nothing to get listed in the ODP other than the small amount of time required to find an appropriate category. It increases your site's popularity since ODP data is used on over 250 other web sites and links mean more traffic and higher search rankings. And finally, major search engines and portals like AOL with its huge user base utilize ODP listings to supplement their own site listings and content.
About the Author
Matthew J. Cook is the President and CEO of Web Design by Cookie (WDBC), a full service web site design and Internet consulting firm located in Hartford, CT. He has been designing web sites for over five years and maintains over 15 different sites on the Internet. Visit WDBC at www.wdbc.com or Matt's personal site at MatthewJCook.com. He can be reached via e-mail to matt@matthewjcook.com.
Links
|
