DMOZ listing

for some categories it takes eons to get listed that is if you'll be listed at all. for others it about a couple of weeks to some months.
i think it depends on the activity of the category in question and how many editors are there and how many sites are submitted withing a particular time frame.

Our 12 year old, white hat, unique content website was hammered by Panda beginning February 24th and several times since.

This has been my primary income source for 10 years now...producing between $60K-$110K per year and that is why I have spent a great deal of time in the last 2+ months trying to determine why "some" of the websites that are now ranking in the top 5 for phrases we used to rank in those positions for and I have concluded that in "many" (not all) instances a DMOZ listing 'and' classification of that listing is one of the factors the new PANDA algorithm has placed extra emphasis on.

Here is just one example - although the results may show up differently in your area of the world, do a search on "international business services" without the quotation marks.

The very first site that comes up should be bonbini.com - click into their site and see if you can find "anything" relating to international business services? If you do, please let me know.

Next, go to Dmoz.org and simply search on the domain listed above and you will see it comes up under that exact classification and it shows the company name as being "international business services".

I will not tell you to do the rest of research I performed on this site and domain ownership but suffice it to say in running various whois and reverse phone number checks I found this site owner and business has absolutely nothing to do with international business services. They registered their domain owner as international business services which is why dmoz has used that name as their classification.

Understandably, wellsfargo.com is listed as the 2 SERP for internatioal business services but continue on and look at number 3 - ibs-ltd.gr - a Greek domain is listed and although they do appear to be legitimately in this type of service business it appears to be more suited to Greek based businesses, not worldwide businesses. But, again, go look at Dmoz and input just ibs-ltd.gr and you will see they are in that classification.

My point in replying to those who state Dmoz does not carry any weight is to suggest you look at the top 5 sites ranked for the keyword you are trying to rank for and see if they do or do not have a Dmoz listing.

Secondly, even if you have a dmoz, look at the classification description. If it more closely matches the KW you are researching that site is more likely to outrank others that are not categorized as close to the KW.

Am I saying a DMOZ listing will ensure your ranking, NO, but what I am saying is since Panda began it appears they have dialed up the importance of a Dmoz listing and the classification of that listing.

Any you know this how?

NO ONE cannot categorically state that it does not make a difference, except a google employee and then I would probably mistrust that statement.

Have you attempted the testing suggested in my post?

There is absolutely nothing else helping the sites I have shown to rank in the top 5 positions other than they have a Dmoz listing and it specifically is categorized to that keyword phrase.

You've REALLY got to be stretched thin for time (and have a little too much money) to pay someone to do this for you. It took me about 5 minutes to research which category would be best, and to fill in their form.

It doesn't hurt to try - you might not get approved for a long time (if ever), but it might even help quite a bit (see GlobalTrader's posts).

Market Samurai still has it as a check-box for looking at the info on the top 10 Google rankings for a particular keyword. It definitely seems to help some sites get a better ranking, although I would trust the testing done by GlobalTrader than my 'eyeballing' the results over some keywords. Just that some sites with DMOZ but few backlinks and low PR have out-ranked other sites with no DMOZ but more backlinks and higher PR.

Yahoo directory ($$) helps too, but until you can justify the cost, DMOZ is worth a shot.