DMOZ Link SEO Benefit Dead in 2014?

Question

I am considering buying a site listed with same niche as mine that is linked in DMOZ. It is a site dedicated for region. The link is 9 levels down from the root. I check the page rank of the page at

  http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php 

There is no page rank of the the page. Is there benefit of buying this domain and doing a Apache 303 redirect? I check the domain for other old backlinks. They all seems to be from legit not banned neighborhoods.

I just wanted SEO communities opinion on this if by buying this domain and doing redirect will it hurt or my existing domain? IF so, by how much? Will there be future benefits when Google makes update to search algorithm?

Answer 1

I generally peg the approximate value of a topical, low-Pagerank, non-spammy link at about $200 USD. I wouldn't pay more than that for the site in question.

There is no clear advantage to DMOZ links compared to other topical, non-spammy links. Google no longer uses them to power the Google Directory or appears to give links from the site any special status. Because the directory is not updated, most new sites don't get included and still can rank in Google just fine.

I've never bought a domain domains for the backlinks. Google knows when domain changes hands and gets new content. I believe that they negate or discount any Pagerank from links created before this happens. Most successful domain acquisitions continue to operate the site as is or with additions after the sale.

Your plan of using a 303 redirect isn't great either. As far as I know, only 301 redirects pass link juice. If your site isn't a good enough replacement for the site you might buy such that you feel you could use a 301 redirect, then I question whether the topics overlap enough for your scheme to make much sense.