New Article: DMOZ Description Showing In Google

[thejenn]

Authored by: Jill Whalen

Full Text: http://www.searchengineguide.com/jil...-in-google.php

A Snippet:

It appears the text Google is now showing [for a particular keyword phrase] is from our DMOZ directory listing. Until very recently (and while our listing position was as good as it is now) Google was showing the first few words of text from the body of our home page. Should we leave everything as is and enjoy the good listing position, but put up with the less than ideal text in the search results?

[2kl]

It's a natural fit as Google was employing DMOZ before and it was only a matter of time really.

[PressureProsInc]

Which, to me, seems like some pretty strong evidence of how, contrary to what many will say, that being listed with DMOZ is a strong factor in your ranking. I'm not saying you can't rank without it but being listed gives you a big head start in the Google SERP's.. no?

[Logan]

Hi Ken, my opinion is that the weight of a dmoz link isn't given a special boost - but it is a very good link. Inherent to dmoz is that it is used by others to seed their own directory listings. So one listing in dmoz can in turn result being included within many other directories also. Many years ago, I think google wasn't as good at filter out this duplication and a listing in dmoz did have a much larger impact - but today my experience is that the weight of a dmoz listing is good but not something that is treated as special and above the rest.

It's a natural fit as Google was employing DMOZ before and it was only a matter of time really.

This isn't a new thing, but instead an article about how to manipulate the descriptions that do show in google such as using the noodp tag and meta descriptions. I tend to modify the text/content within my site's instead including text that I want to appear near the keyword phrase that I am targeting.