Happy Birthday DMOZ

Hard to believe but DMOZ – the Open Directory Project – is 10 years old. This little mentioned icon to the web has remained the only totally free, totally human-edited directory. The volunteers who review the sites are located, literally, all over the globe -over 80,000 at last count.

Yahoo began with a similar concept but, within a few years, added web search to compete with Google. The directory on Yahoo is not used as often and quickly became a pay-for-review service, which didn’t guarantee placement within the directory. ($299 for review, $299 per year IF accepted)

The DMOZ directory is much like a library. The sites that are submitted, reviewed, and approved are added to the collection under the single most appropriate category. There is no keyword-based, multiple indexing of the site. So imagine going through an old-fashioned card catalog. You won’t find the same book listed in more than one category and there is only one copy of the book on the shelf.

The significance of this is simple. If someone likes the website – if the site has value in terms of information or being a resource – then the website is listed in the directory. Yes, many sites on the web are NOT listed in the directory. If your site is listed in the directory then you get a better ranking in other search engines because your site has already been reviewed and given a “thumbs up” in terms of relevance.

So Happy Birthday DMOZ – congratulations to the volunteers who work tirelessly and are sometimes at risk of insult to be sure that the sites listed are worthwhile.