SEO Tips: The Open Directory Project and Google organic search results:

Ok, this blog won’t be getting nominated for any brilliance or amusement awards, BUT, this can be a stumbling block to ranking well in Google under the key terms you are after….. Way back when, the Open Directory Project or DMOZ.org was the place to submit your website.  Getting into DMOZ was a big deal, it was a volunteer human edited directory with a Utopian vision.  Google saw value in DMOZ and would put some weight on your web site in their listings if you were listed there.  It was always a challenge to get the perfect title and description as the human editors would change it 9 times out of 10.  The more that the volunteers hacked away at your submitted title and description tags, the lesser the possibility that your website would be found in Google under your desired search terms, that was reality.

Today, the open directory project (in my humble opinion) has lost a lot of steam.  We have waited well over a year on certain sites on getting them accepted or indexed in DMOZ.org. Volunteers have lost interest, corruption has reared it’s ugly head etc., BUT, if your web site has been around the block for quite some time, it is quite possible that Google is using DMOZ’s title and description for your web site and ignoring any customized titles and descriptions that you have installed.  How can you see what title and description that Google is using for your web site? Google your company domain : yourwebsite.com and observe what title and description is being used.  Browse to your web site and glance at your own title tag (you should see your title tag in the very top of your browser).  If the title tags match, Google is pulling the title directly off of your web site (which is good.) If the titles don’t match, it’s a good possibility that Google is still using the DMOZ title and description for your web site….. here’s the fix:

Add this line of code in the head portion of your web site home page:

. This tells Google and other crawlers to ignore the open directory project listing and to pull your own title and meta description. It may take some time for Google to start displaying your custom meta tags in the search results, so patience will be key here.

Have any SEO questions? Give me a call, I’m happy to help.  Call 407-830-4550 or visit my web site for more information on SEO / Search engine optimization.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Tags: seo