The demise of DMOZ?

At the end of 2006, the Open Directory (DMOZ) suffered a major server crash which, combined with insufficient backup data, resulted in new submissions being suspended for at least 6 weeks. The site is now back functioning again but questions are being raised about the future of this directory.

DMOZ has long been one of the most significant web directories and it provided a valuable alternative to the Yahoo! directory, particularly after the latter started to charge for commercial submissions and then became subsumed and hidden behind Yahoo!’s main web search function. DMOZ was also an essential resource to get a site listed on, since the directory offered a free usage license to many other sites (including Google), thus helping the reach and link popularity of any site added to the service.

However, getting a listing on this directory has become increasingly frustrating over recent years, due to the declining number of volunteer editors who are struggling to cope with the volume of new listing requests and also reportedly having to cope with the internal politics and bickering.

So there are now questions being raised about the likely future of DMOZ as it fails to keep up with the growth of the web. More significantly, its parent company AOL (part of Time Warner) is restructuring, in light of falling revenues, and made an announcement in August 2006 that about a quarter of its workforce will be laid off globally. DMOZ could therefore be under threat from these changes.

So what will happen to DMOZ? Will it start charging for new listings or for the licensing use by other sites? Will it get bought up by Google, MSN or another major web property? Or will it just fade away gradually, becoming outdated, unused and irrelevant against the growing importance of new sites like Wikipedia and Digg?

Only time will tell, but we suspect that a significant change will happen by the middle of this year. In the meantime, we will continue to submit our clients’ sites to DMOZ until such time as the value of a listing here is reduced.

Leave a Reply