Can a DMOZ listing be disadvantageous?

Imagine you own the website segdiw.com, which is a website that sells books online. Now you've put a lot of effort in linkexchanges where other websites link to you with the anchor text "online books", and as a result segdiw.com is doing quite well in the (Google) SERPS: ranking #2 on "online books".

Now, you haven't yet been listed in DMOZ. Could it then be that getting listed in DMOZ with the anchor text "Segdiw" would actually result in a drop in your ranking in Google on searches for "online books"?

No
Link exchanges wont get you a #1 or #2 ranking.

Sure link exchanges only don't result in good rankings, but of course having a lot of quality backlinks with your preferred "anchor text" does help a lot.

Now, if DMOZ links to you (as a 'quality website') with a not so good anchor text, I could imagine you loose strength on your #1 anchor text.

No!!!

DMOZ is good, why would you have bad anchor text? Getting in to DMOZ can be a hard process in itself, everything is reviewed, if you submit to the wrong category you simply wont get in, or if your site is incomplete or has broken liks you are unlikely to get in! Any link from DMOZ is good, it is considered an authortitive directory by Google.

A listing in Dmoz will NOT have any negative effects however won't do too much for you either, Dmoz listings aren't worth that much anymore.

Not possible. What happened was either the google algorithm changed or you changed something on your site. Period. It has nothing to do with DMOZ.

Actually I think you are all wrong -- it will have a negative affect. (could have in the noted case - depends on how reliant the "ranks" are based on the need for the title element).

Any evidence... not at the moment -- that's a guess but I do have at least '1' of the reverse of what the poster noted...

A domain that has a dmoz listing where the title of Spherica is forced over the mainpage Title Element.

Shall we take bets on rank increases when the NOOPD Meta is added?

I never bothered ranking spherica for anything and I see Seph & Aaron haven't changed much either...

Searching on Google for the title element 'SEO | Search Engine Optimization Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada' the domain shows up at around #24... I would think just by adding the noopd tag it'll be what say "top 5" if not #1.

Any takers!

I'm not going for that, never seen a Dmoz listing have a negative effect yet many of the ones I have gotten listed are listed as noted above. However feel free to test it...

That command only removes the option for Google to generate the snippet text, it doesn't change any value the link my have overall. (Although ranking may change depending on keywords)

http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/2006/07/more-control-over-page-snippets.html

I think the value of a DMOZ listing really depends upon your other backlinks. If you have many of good quality links then it probably isn't worth much to you but if you have very few good links then a listing in DMOZ would be beneficial.

depends on how much link juice you have for a specific phrase... if you have lots the meta title is more irrelevant to results -- thus not negative impact...

However "if" few links are toward the page using a specific anchor where the weight associated with the title element is full relevant to holding the page in a specific position; the DMOZ title, 'in theory', would make the page that much less wieghty for the phrase in question.

Of course it can be disadvantageous! All the time spent obsessing over your listing; over getting listed; posting messages about DMOZ in forums; etc ... is time that could be spent actualy doing something that will actually help your ranking!