Happy Birthday DMOZ

Hard to believe but DMOZ - the Open Directory Project - is 10 years old. This little mentioned icon to the web has remained the only totally free, totally human edited directory. The volunteers who review the sites are located, literally, all over the globe -over 80,000 at last count.

Yahoo began with a similar concept but, within a few years, added web search to compete with Google. The directory on Yahoo is not used as often and quickly became a pay for review service, which didn't guarantee placement within the directory. ($299 for review, $299 per year IF accepted)

The DMOZ directory is much like a library. The sites that are submitted, reviewed and approved are added to the collection under the single most appropriate category. There is no key word based, multiple indexing of the site. So imagine going through an old-fashioned card catalog. You won't find the same book listed in more than one category and there is only one copy of the book on the shelf.

The significance of this is simple. If someone likes the website - if the site has value in terms of information or being a resource - then the website is listed in the directory. Yes, many sites on the web are NOT listed in the directory. If your site is listed in the directory then you get a better ranking in other search engines because your site has already been reviewed and given a "thumbs up" in terms of relevance.

So Happy Birthday DMOZ - congratulations to the volunteers who work tirelessly and sometimes at risk of insult to be sure that the sites listed are worthwhile.

Links: The Web's Version of Election

It's an election year!  To celebrate here is a list of items to remember about links, the voters of the internet.

1. Think Election! 

Each link gives your site a "vote" in terms of good information, popularity, relevance etc.  The more links, the more votes and we all know that the person with the most votes wins!

2. Win the primaries in the best states.

Remember that it's more important to have links from relevant sites, sites that relate to your business. Don't participate in link farms.

3. Stay on the campaign trail - winners don't quit

Most people start link building then quit from over confidence (or exhaustion).  This is a mistake, you should always be on the look out for good linking opportunities.

4. Buying votes with money or favors isn't a good thing.

Anytime you buy a link or promise to exchange just to get the link doesn't help your overall goal.  These types of links aren't relevant and you'll get penalized when Google recognizes it's a paid link site. You're also at risk of being reported by your competitors.  Strive for high quality organic links that compliment your site.

5. Don't make false campaign promises.

If you've got pages on your site that have moved be sure you use search friendly redirects. These are on the server side and they are "permanent" telling the search engines to get the new page and do away with the old. This way, when someone clicks on the link they still get to the relevant content on your site and search engines will pass links to the correct address.

If you've lead your link campaign with integrity you'll soon reap the rewards of gaining the popularity vote and your site will gain status through higher page ranking.