It is the only directory that I would use for organic SEO, and for local, search for the top directories in your country/city and industry related directories. However, just by being listed in the DMOZ nowadays won't give you anything, just a green flag for Google that your site has been listed at a trustworthy directory which manually approves websites but in terms of ranking, you sure wouldn't expect to get any link juice from DMOZ and move up the SERPs from a single link

When was the last time you saw a DMOZ page turn up in the search results? Don't let the redesign fool you: DMOZ is dead, a relic of how the Web was used 15+ years ago. Most submitted sites worthy of inclusion won't ever be listed because there's a shortage of editors, and the backlog must be enormous. Nobody cares, basically, and the majority of visitors to dmoz.org are more likely to be interested in attaining a link (further increasing the backlog) than in using the directory as intended. Link building often comes with a certain degree of uncertainty, depending on your strategy, but with DMOZ you can be pretty sure it's a wasted effort, and there are probably better links to be had.

DMOZ is a link building visualization tool
DMOZ is a great starting point for understanding what niche your site truly belongs in. Once that's done, DMOZ allows you to visualize where in a niche organized hierarchy (aka taxonomy) your link opportunities are going to be.

DMOZ is not a seed set of targets for obtaining links. DMOZ can be a visualization tool that allows you to see how the web is organized and give you ideas for what kinds of sites are relevant to yours.

as martinibuster and robzilla say, DMOZ no longer carries the "value" it once did. The taxonomy is a valuable resource if you're structuring your own urls.
However, if you like a DMOZ description in Google, then it's worthwhile. In my experience, the noodp route is often the best option.

The following 2 messages were cut out to new thread by martinibuster. New thread at: [webmasterworld.com...]


12:37 pm on Oct 20, 2016 (utc -5)

[edited by: martinibuster at 5:39 pm (utc) on Oct 20, 2016]
[edit reason] Off topic. Moved to Google SEO Forum. [/edit]

I was a DMOZ editor waaaaay back when, before a number of power struggles erupted which sent many editors away, and DMOZ didn't recover.

The comments by martinibuster, robzilla and engine are valid. And the only things I'd add, is that I *suspect* that parts of the DMOZ database are used by some web sites that could end up being flagged by Google's penguin algo., so from that point of view, having a link in the DMOZ database just isn't worth the effort.

Better to look for local directories and reciprocal links from local "social" web sites like churches and schools, which will bring local targeted traffic, and also be far more effective as a signal to Google, of your validity.

Very good advice for the local search businesses. Thanks for sharing, jpalmer! :)

Simply put,,, DMOZ is the past. Great idea, but people (bots too) ruined it. Move on from it.

As of today (Mar 17, 2017) DMOZ has been shutdown. Blame AOL. It's the end of an Era