Mozilla has launched a new directory with the goal of providing a one-stop shop for open web tools and resources for developers. It is called the Open Web tools Directory.
The reason Mozilla says it decided to start this directory is simply because there isn't one like it. "There's no central index of these tools," the company says in a blog post.
As you may know, Google's Matt Cutts frequently answers questions from Google users on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube channel. There are a couple recent ones in which he addresses questions about directories and how they contribute to a site's rankings.
The first question is:
Will Google consider Yahoo! Directory and BOTW (Best of the Web) as sources of paid links? If no, why is this different from another site that sells links?
Twellow has made it easier to find Twitter users you are interested in following. That is what Twellow has been about from the beginning, and this simply highlights the fact that our Twellow team is always looking for ways to improve the service.
DMOZ has now officially been around for 11 years. AOL is honoring this birthday with a blog post on the AOL Search Blog. It says:
From its humble beginnings 11 years ago, DMOZ has grown to be the largest human-edited directory on the Web. Today, on the websites anniversary, we take a look at DMOZ's influence on the web.
Dmoz.org, also known as the Open Directory Project, is widely considered to be the mother of all directories. Well, that was the case at one time, anyway. Dmoz has dropped significantly in popularity over the years, and is the subject of much criticism by webmasters looking for inclusion. What do you think about Dmoz these days? Is it still valuable? Tell us what you think.
Google is no longer suggesting that you should be listed in relevant directories. In fact, they've even removed the suggestion from their webmaster guidelines, as Brian Ussery noticed. The page used to have bullet points for:
Web directories don't exactly have the reputation of being helpful resources for finding information. Most have become endless pits of links, and wading through them to find anything useful is next to impossible. Then there are the human-edited ones that tend to be more useful, but are aimed more at the submitter promoting their business than they really are towards the user who is there to find information. Often times these directories offer paid links, further proving that they are really there for promotional purposes.
Of late there's been speculation that Google's going to buy Yell, whether or not this is true only time will tell. Yell is an international directories business which operates in the classified advertising market in the UK, USA, Spain and Latin America.
SEO techniques typically linger long after their "good til" dates. 2008 should be no exception, but if you're paying attention it's time to move onto the stuff that works.This useful review of techniques that Google clamped down on this year included:
The recent slap a handful of directories experienced was unaccompanied by an explanation from Google, though the general consensus (maybe) was that Google's webspam team was sending a message. Weeks later, WebProNews has wrangled a response from Google's Webmaster Central team – sort of.
iEntry 10th Anniversary
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