I don’t usually like to flat out bash web services or sites as it’s not professional, but it’s the holidays, I’m stressed and I really hate DMOZ. I suppose the fuel for this fire started when I received an email this morning from esitesecrets.com a site that I signed up to receive news from, but am finding myself more and more disappointed with their lack of useful and current information. I don’t know what it is, perhaps they hired a retired SEO expert from 10 years ago who just hasn’t taken the time to update his knowledge of current trends. Bottom line is that I just cringe as I read most of their articles and think to myself, “that’s so 2003.”

This article in question really irked me, mostly because it was highlighting a nemesis of mine as a site that should be placed on a pedestal, and while it rang true in the early 2000’s, the site in 2007 lost all methods of credibility when they began to have a volunteer force made up of people who destroyed what the site was designed for. In its current incarnation the site has gone to the dark side with “The age old stuff still works at DMOZ, you need to know a friend of a friend of a friend to get your site listed fast” as many webmasters, SEO specialists and internet marketing professionals have found.

Because of this, DMOZ has not been a relevant tool for SEO for the last couple of years, and to say the site “powers Google and Bing” is a flat out exaggeration and lie.  DMOZ links have been devalued significantly over the last couple years as search engines have gone the route of making current content king, significantly valuing sites such as Wikipedia and AboutUs.org as well as well written site content. Current content is king and DMOZ listings are rarely ever updated or changed, regardless of submission editions because of its volunteer staff that will update or add sites they are familiar with at a professional or personal level, but procrastinate considerably on anything else. But you don’t have to take just my word for it…many other popular and better web tip sites agree with me.

http://www.dmozsucks.org/

http://searchengineland.com/10-useless-seo-worries-part-2-12650

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/getting-a-link-from-dmoz-isnt-worth-what-it-once-was

http://www.newswriter.us/ShowAdminArticle-17.htm

http://www.webproworld.com/insider-reports/18846-dmoz-isn-t-open-after-all-18.html

And these are just a few, you can find more in depth articles on sites like Mashable, WebProNews, SiteProNews and others.