What role does being in DMOZ play in rankings?

What role does being in DMOZ play in rankings? I see some websites in my niche ranked No. 1 and the only reason is because they are in DMOZ as their content is at best poor. Getting into DMOZ is impossible nowadays, so why does Google still use it? Flo, Spain

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• Category

  Science & Technology

[Jordan Greve]

DMOZ is trash and all of the editors are SEO's or IM's

[DanCentury3000]

1) DMOZ is horrific. The section curators I've tried to deal with are either ignorant in their subject matter, or they're squatting on behalf of corporations. Google should ban the site like it went after JC Penny.

2) If I exclude a page with robots.txt, please be respectful Google, and ignore the page, and don't try to describe it using decrepit text pulled from DMOZ.

[Hans van der Graaf]

June 5, 2013, the 15 birthday of DMOZ, I launched zomdir.com, the world's most flexible directory. Reverse the letters and you get ridmoz. re-invent DMOZ! Hope you appreciate the result.

[polesawguy]

you aint alone 

[antalyahomes]

I beleive DMOZ is the best directory. It helps google to find relevant sources.

[Jessica Sideways]

DMOZ has it's faults. But I wouldn't say that it is "trash" all the same.

[Jessica Sideways]

I used to be a DMOZ editor. I knew a number of great DMOZ editors who took their work at DMOZ seriously. I'm not a SEO nor an IM and I had a pretty sweet category upon leaving DMOZ (I was the former editor of Arts:Animation:Anime).

However, there were 10,000+ greens (or pending submissions) in that category and by the time I left, I got it down to 5,000 greens - and it was hard work. People don't put their site in the right area, write bad descriptions, bad links, you name it!

[Summer Mote]

I was on DMOZ years ago for an ecommerce site I had. It helped a little. Now in 2012 it has been almost impossible for me to get my clients' sites on - even though they provide highly relevant content with proper on-page SEO. I just don't get how DMOZ works I guess.

[Smartin Paul Joseph]

Thanks for the clarification. 

[Linx759]

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[Faizan Ahmad]

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[GamesnBrains]

I applied to DMOZ 5 years ago ... Still waiting.