DMOZ

What is DMOZ

DMOZ stands for "Directory Mozilla." The official name of DMOZ is "Open Directory Project," ODP, and it is one of the major web directories. AOL owned DMOZ, and the community of volunteer editorial built and maintained it.

The DMOZ used the hierarchical ontology scheme in order to organize the site listings. The lists on a similar topic were classified into categories, which were further divided into smaller categories.

On 17 March 2017, the DMOZ was closed because AOL did not support the project. On that day, the website became a single landing page with links to DMOZ's static archive and the DMOZ discussion forum, where it was decided to relaunch and rebrand the directory. There was a non-editable mirror that remained accessible at dmoztools.net as of September 2017. It was declared that if the URL of DMOZ would not return, then there is a successor version of the directory named Curlie would be provided. Curlie.org is still online, serving this purpose, as of 2020.

In other words, we can define DMOZ as a manually classified directory of pages and websites which are reviewed by a volunteers' staff before addition; all DMOZ listing is free.

DMOZ is not typically used for searches such as Bing or Yahoo but performs an essential function for the user of Google because it incorporates the DMOZ list into its own directory. It means DMOZ may better rank the listed websites, as DMOZ has a crazy PageRank.

As we know that the vast part of Google's ranking algorithm is a PageRank; thus, DMOZ listings increase the PageRank of our website because we receive a link from DMOZ and the Google directory. We can also get various links from that website from where we download the directory simply by listed in DMOZ.

The time tag is the major problem with listing in DMOZ. The website seems to say that they have almost 60,000 editors (Volunteers who categorize and review websites), but actually, it is a number that reflects each editor from the time the website was founded, most of which are no longer with the project. It implies that every day hundreds or thousands of submissions take place, and some editor reviews them. Each editor can also review in their own defined categories, which implies that backlogs may occur regularly.

Although, this is not the only cause for the delay - frequently, DMOZ is mistaken to start rendering. Once you in the wrong category, it can take forever as it works in the queue; only the second editor is bounced and begins at the bottom of the stack. The process can begin again if that category is still not the right one. This implies that research and ensures that you submit to the appropriate category is essential.

It takes more time if you have multiple websites; thus, a DMOZ submission service might be a wise move for you. It gives you a surety that your website is sent to the correct category and editor and prevent you from getting trapped in a massive traffic pileup while waiting for your turn at the wrong tollgates.

Sometimes they do not find/have unique content; that's why they reject it. An SEO examines your content and tells you if it is specific to DMOZ. Due to many duplicate kinds of content, affiliates are most commonly rejected. Websites may also be terminated because the submission was not right about the description or title- these have to follow the guidelines, or the editor will throw the request out.

Advantages of DMOZ

There are various advantages of DMOZ:

• Do not optimize, rank, or promote sites, just a provider of the information.
• Better relevance than the non-human edited directories and search engines.

Disadvantage of DMOZ

The disadvantage of DMOZ is:

• Do not take more time to review your site.

Some Facts about DMOZ

Some facts about DMOZ are:

• DMOZ is in partnership with AOL.
• Provide search engine results for the Google.
• Administered and Hosted by Netscape Communication Corporation.
• Self-regulating community.
• 85,756 editors, 4,533,456 websites, on 12 July 2010, over 590,000 categories.

Why DMOZ was Important to SEOs

In the year 1998, when Google was launched, each search engine faced some problems: how can high-quality content be determined from the low-quality content?

Few solutions grew (This means the incremental cost of applying the solution to millions of pages was close to nil) but were simple to the game. There was an example of calculating the density of specific keywords on a page, ranking articles with the keyword "like" densities higher than the page with densities of the keyword "Unlike."

Other approaches or solutions offered outstanding outcomes and were tough to hack but did not scale at all. Another example was paying people to read all the pages that targeted a specific keyword and ranked the outcomes.

In the keyword densities, calculation computers are great, but the density of keywords is poorly correlated with the content's quality. Humans are great at identifying quality content, but it is costly compared to the computational power and cost of the computer. There is a hack needed by Google which enables them to harness the capabilities of the humans without needing to pay them.

There is no doubt that the solution of Google was elegant, but when the webmaster chooses to link to another resource on the web, why is that link not considered as a vote for the quality of that page. The more votes a specific website receives, the more the value of votes that it places in favor of other pages. It's obvious that this one insight applied well, provides Google its lead in the race of the search engine.

However, there were various other issues that humans were better able to solve than the computers and algorithms available in 1998. For example:

• What was the best page' summary? (It is the meta description that each savvy webmaster optimizes)
• In which subject category should a specific website be placed?
• Who can trust you to link to the websites based on the sites' merit instead of who was willing to pay the most?

For Google, DMOZ was vital because it enabled them to answer these questions so that humans could not be appointed to answer them. As it was necessary to Google, DMOZ.org was important to SEOs.

Reasons DMOZ, The Directory of the Web, is Dead

There are various reasons DMOZ, the directory of the web, is dead:

1. A Virtual Boa Constrictor Slowly Cut off the Future of the DMOZ Blood Supply

The DMOZ was limited by host or base-level classification - that never addresses the path-level content.

2. You Get What You Pay for

It is not always good to have a free open source. Historically known as the ODP (Open Directory Project), a global community of volunteer editors had maintained DMOZ. There was no suitable incentive found for unpaid labor to do a great job.

3. You Snooze You Lose

DMOZ updates have not been made often enough.

4. The Industrial Revolution is to Manufacture as Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning are to Automation

DMOZ is a human-edited web directory and is not a scalable business model for the Internet's size as it still exists today. The latest technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, can actually charge turbo data analysis.

5. Left in the Dust

The DMOZ did not keep up with the times and remained imprecise, with a number of false positives reporting. To put it more simply, DMOZ has become increasingly extraneous.

6. Did not Bring its Bloodhound to Sniff Out the Bad Guys

DMOZ did not offer a level of identification of malicious URLs- the web's bad stuff. The malicious web pages can be phishing web pages that can be asked to download malware and confidential information.

DMOZ' Controversy and Criticism

It has long been alleged that volunteers' DMOZ editors provide favorable treatment to their own websites while simultaneously their competition's great faith efforts. The ODP staff and meta editors, who have the authority voluntary editors suspected of engaging in offensive editing practices, make such allegations.

The DMOZ introduced a new public abuse report system in the year 2003, which enabled the general public's members to monitor and report the allegations of abusive editor behavior using an online form. Uninhibited discussion of the alleged deficiencies of DMOZ on mainstream discussion forums became more common.

However, as of October 2007, the policies of the site suggested that only one category should be submitted to an individual site; there was an aggregation site named Topix.com, operated by the DMOZ founder Rich Skrenta, listings more than 17,000.

Early in DMOZ's history, its employees provided editing access to representatives of selected companies, like CNN or Rolling stone, the editing to list specific pages from their websites.

Until 2004, Links to individual CNN articles were added, but in January 2008, they were removed entirely from the directory because the obsolete and maintenance effort was not considered worth it. Since then, there have not been any similar experiments with the editing policy.

1. Blacklisting Allegations

The senior DMOZ editors were capable of attaching "warning" or "don't list" notes to different domains, but no editor could block the listings of some sites unilaterally. Sites with these notes may still be listed and noted and sometimes deleted after some debate.

2. Hierarchical Structure

By around 2005, criticism of the hierarchical structure of the DMOZ had arisen. Many think that hierarchical directories are too complicated.

3. Editor Removal Procedures

The employees and meta-editors of DMOZ oversaw the editor removal procedure of DMOZ. According to the guidelines of the DMOZ official editorial of the DMOZ, editors were deleted for uncivil behavior or abusive editing practices. Discussions that could lead to disciplinary action against the volunteer editors took place in a private forum accessible only to meta editors and staff of the DMOZ. The volunteer editors who were under discussion were not notified that such action was taking place. Few people thought this system uninteresting, instead of wishing that a discussion like the one held in the U.S. judicial system could be further enhanced.

4. Ownership and Management

Some of the controversy surrounding DMOZ was based on its ownership and management. Few of the original volunteers of GnuHoo felt that they had been tricked into joining a commercial venture. These complaints have continued until the present to varying degrees. At the time of the founding of DMOZ, little consideration was given to how DMOZ should be handled, and there were no official forums, FAQs, or guidelines. In short, DMOZ started as a free for all.

As time passed, the editorial forum of the ODP became the DMOZ parliament. When a staff member of the DMOZ would submit an opinion on the forums, it would be treated as an official decision.

Even so, the staff of DMOZ began to offer additional editing privileges to trusted senior editors with the capability to approve the application of new editors, that ultimately led to a stratifies hierarchy of duties and privileges among the editors of the DMOZ, with the paid staff of DMOZ having the final say about DMOZ's procedures and policies.