What Will The Future Hold For DMOZ?
Best of The Web, DMOZ Directory, DMOZ.org, Jeremy Schoemaker, Search Engine Optimization, ShoeMoney.com, The Open Directory Project
In my opinion, I think DMOZ could be a really great place, thousands of people actually already do, but make no mistake, I am not one of them. Granted, I think the whole system that makes up the whole DMOZ picture is great. In fact, I think DMOZ is one of the better known directory systems online.
The problem I have with DMOZ is with the administrators and editors of the system. In my experience — both as a previous editor myself and as an end user — I think the volunteer editors who operate and maintain the system, 1.) suffer very badly from “Big Head” syndrome. They have a huge power trip thing going and, 2.) They really don’t do their job very well.
Now, I know that these folks are volunteers and some people could say, put up or shut up… (don’t complain about something that is provided to you for free) but here is the thing, I would have absolutely NO problem putting in some of my time and helping volunteer. However, guess what? DMOZ doesn’t want me as an editor, nor do they want any of the thousands of other people who apply.
With that said, I feel that I then have room for complaining about the poor performance from volunteer help. DMOZ is a system that could be very useful to thousands of people. Unfortunately, the power hungry and corrupt editors who operate and maintain the DMOZ system poorly are the root cause for DMOZ’s inability maintain public interest in the ever growing digital world we call the Internet.
In June of 2008, DMOZ celebrated their own 10th birthday. Recently, Jeremy Schoemaker let the cat out of the bag explaining that there is a possibility that Best of The Web (BOTW) might purchase DMOZ from AOL. “I now have official confirmation that BOTW and AOL are in discussions about selling the directory and a deal could be reached fairly soon.”, said Schoemaker. Jeremy Schoemaker explains that he is very close friends with the owners of BOTW and that they share quite a bit of information with him that isn’t available anywhere else.
I have often wondered why there is still such a considerably large following on DMOZ. Ironically, the interest in DMOZ isn’t just from end users. Companies such as Google still place a lot of value in DMOZ. Personally for me, I think Google should de-rank and de-value DMOZ. If you’d like to learn more about DMOZ, check out the recent article titled, Everything You Should Know About DMOZ, which was published by Ann Smarty, author for Search Engine Journal,
And so now we have someone who wants to purchase DMOZ. That is fine; however, in my opinion, if BOTW has their eyes on DMOZ, it is because they have a plan and want to do something with the directory. What they do with the directory once they own it I guess could be debatable and whether it would be perceived to have the public’s best interest in mind would be soon seen.
I guess things couldn’t get much worse. To be honest, there is no excuse for DMOZ being in the current state it’s in. Right now, my opinion of DMOZ is that it is a very corrupt place. If it was properly run and maintained, I think it could actually be a very decent place to troll around and find things.
All in all, if BOTW were to purchase DMOZ from AOL, I couldn’t foresee things getting any worse for the directory than they currently are. Only time will tell. What do you think the future will hold for DMOZ?
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Date/Time: 9-15-2008 04:31:34 Comment #22412
I am gonna have to agree with all that you said Garry. Although I have only visited DMOZ maybe a total of 3 times since I have been online. I am not too sure what all the hype is about it other than the fact that Google values it’s information.
With that said, I just headed over there after reading your post to check it out and see what was so special. Wow……will I ever get those 5 minutes of my life back? DMOZ is a joke, why the hell would I want to sift through 3-4 categories only to find that the category that I am looking for doesn’t exist?
Plus, I can just go to Google, type in what I am looking for and I am instantly presented with highly relevant information about my search query. Hell I could even go to Yahoo and MSN and get better service then DMOZ. I believe DMOZ should be deranked as well and I may even go so far as to say de-indexed?
I have heard that it takes up to a year or more to even possibly get your site listed (unless you want to get down on your kneeds). Also, it is just one single link to your site, granted DMOZ has a PR of 6 on a random category that I just looked at but how much value does Google really put on that one link compared to 10 links from sites with lower PR?
Not to mention that by the time it takes to even possibly get your site listed you could have built up a massive amount of backlinks to your site. I don’t really see a use for it now and I never have in the past.
Great post though, never knew you were an editor over there. Too bad they don’t want you there, they all know that you would whip em into shape and show them whos boss
Enjoyed the post and your insights as always and good to see a new post up, the John Cow post was getting stale.
P.S. How I am the first commenter on this? C’mon people, Garry writes some great content and you can’t even leave him with a short comment on your thoughts when he asks for it? I saw this post go up about 5 hours ago and I didn’t have the time to respond right away because I was busy. I skimmed over the post just to get an overview and wanted to come back and see what other comments were left.
Date/Time: 9-15-2008 10:01:00 Comment #22425
Greg and Brian rank QUALITY as their number one priority. I have noticed that DMOZ contains more and more dead links, misspellings, bad grammar, etc. over the past year or so.
I will be contacting you about the Blog Starter Kit. I have a small non-monetary blog thing going on with about 100 visits a day, but want to change things up so I can build traffic up and monetize.
Date/Time: 9-15-2008 11:09:28 Comment #22428
Who is this BOTW that you speak? Why no link in the post?
Date/Time: 9-15-2008 11:15:07 Comment #22429
One of the main links on this article is one that points to Jeremy’s post where he expands on that. Did you not read that?
Date/Time: 9-15-2008 17:52:55 Comment #22451
I agree that you get what you pay for, but even something for free won’t live for very long if it refuses to change and fix what’s broken.
Date/Time: 9-15-2008 18:43:24 Comment #22457
Hi Garry,
In my opinion DMOZ is a complete waste of time & has been for a number of years now. I’m surprised Google place so much weight in it, if they really still do?
I got a few sites in 4 or 5 years ago which did definitely help at the time but then things went down hill for me at least.
I only try about once or twice a year now to get sites listed but none ever seem to get added.
The only reason I’d ever go back now is to see if things have changed but they never seem to…
Personally, I have never used DMOZ to search for anything & I’d place a bet on it now that If I asked any of my day to day buddies what they thought of DMOZ they wouldn’t have a clue what I was talking about, they would be well versed in using Google, Yahoo, MSN & so on but a mention of DMOZ & they would be thinking what is it, why bother, I get my search results from the well known search engines.
If it takes DMOZ to be sold to remove the corruption involved, I’d say all the better…
Check out dave’s last blog post..Zion House
Date/Time: 10-13-2008 15:27:10 Comment #24048
I realise that such a tip is not necessarily a ‘basic’ one, but it is a very important one