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Recently Google changed their guidelines in reference to web directories, especially the Yahoo! Directory and the DMOZ (or Open Directory). These directories have long held a lot of credibility with Google (Google even uses the DMOZ data for its own directory – Google Directory – just reorganizes it based on PageRank), but recently they appear to have lost that credibility. Google has updated the copy within their Webmaster Guidelines.

Below is the before and after as to how the text read and now reads:

Used to say:

* Have other relevant sites link to yours.
* Submit it to Google at http://www.google.co.uk/addurl.html.
* Submit a Sitemap as part of our Google Webmaster Tools. Google uses your Sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to
increase our coverage of your web pages.
* Make sure that all the sites that should know about your pages
are aware that your site is online.
* Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open
Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

Now says:

When your site is ready:
* Submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html.
* Submit a Sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools. Google uses your Sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your webpages.
* Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are
aware your site is online.

The interesting part is that on a recent posting in Google Groups – Google Webmaster Help that John Mueller (from Google) posted a reply to this change. His response as to why it was changed is below:

I wouldn’t necessarily assume that we’re devaluing Yahoo’s links, I
just think it’s not one of the things we really need to recommend. If
people think that a directory is going to bring them lots of visitors
(I had a visitor from the DMOZ once), then it’s obviously fine to get
listed there. It’s not something that people have to do though .

What do you think – does it make sense?

What else should we change / add / remove?

John

In addition, he later posted to the same thread:

This line was removed because we feel that you should not “force”
other sites to link to yours. Obviously it’s good that sites link to
each other, it’s fine to encourage that on your sites to link out and
to make it easy for them to link to yours. However, I don’t think we
need to make it a part of the guidelines that you should “have other
sites link to yours” — they should be willing to do that on their
own, it should be their decision not yours.

I hope that makes sense.

John

What does all this mean? Well, it basically boils down to the idea that web directories still have SEO value, but Google is slowly distancing themselves from them as a quality back link source. When will this happen? The reality is that it will not happen anytime in the near future and is really just a long-term strategy for Google. So until then – keep submitting.

Accoona started out in the search marketplace in 2004 with a boom and a lot of promise. Heck, they even had Bill Clinton as their pitchman for the new engine. Today when I went to visit the engine I saw this notice (may have been up for awhile as I don;t visit all that often):

Dear Accoona search users,

Due to an overwhelmingly competitive search market, Accoona.com and Accoona.cn will no longer be active.

We thank you for your previous support.

Sincerely,

Accoona Management

This news saddens me as I believe we need more competition in the search space as Google becomes more and more dominant. While I do not believe that any single upstart search engine may beat Google in the in the near future, I do believe that some of the larger players (i.e. Yahoo!, MSN and Ask.com) could acquire these smaller engines and integrate their best technologies and add their smaller market shares to increase the overall market share of the larger engine.

Not that Accoona ever achieved that much marketshare, it is just representative of a larger trend of search engines with a lot of potential, like WiseNut becoming a casualty in the search engine wars.

To check out Accoona’s final goodbye visit the site here – Accoona