What Is DMOZ?

Aaron Haynes
Nov 14, 2021
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DMOZ is a widely recognized domain name that provides directories where websites are classified. The world wide web contains billions of pages and services like DMOZ attempt to help users find these pages.

Using keywords, it helps you find what you are looking for quickly. This article looks at how DMOZ has evolved over time and what its current status is. It also explains the changes that have been made by Alexa, Inc., the company behind DMOZ.

What is DMOZ?

DMOZ (Domain Name Mozilla) was created in 1997 to be “the encyclopedia of the internet” or the “directory of the web”. DMOZ began as the open directory project. Its aim was to be a directory that helped internet users find websites they wanted – much like search engines do (such as Google, Yahoo, and other algorithm-driven platforms).

DMOZ has had several different versions of its software. The first version contained directories by country, which was released in September 1997. A new version called DMOZ NG (for the next generation) was released in November 2001, with its content divided into continents.

The fourth version of DMOZ was released in February 2012. It featured 13 countries and had more than 30 million listings. Unlike the other versions, it did not feature categories for each country.

DMOZ is currently one of the largest human-edited directories on the Internet, with over 7.5 million pages. It contains listings for more than one million sites and is visited by more than 27 million users every month. It is maintained by a group of editors, many of whom are volunteer editors.

Source: DMOZ

Why is DMOZ Important?

DMOZ has become a household name across the web. It is important for several reasons.

It was the first directory that allowed users to select what they want to find. While other directories were mainly read-only, DMOZ was also editable, which made it even more appealing to most users.

DMOZ did not contain advertisements and all its content was free. Although the site did not always get it right, it did not force people to pay for its directory. This made it easy for users to find what was on the internet and create new content.

DMOZ is a major search engine used by millions of people every month. It features a blog which is an excellent source of information for most webmasters, especially beginners. Even though DMOZ has been around for a long time, it is still a major force in the search engine market.

It has been able to adjust to the changes made by other search engines and still remains a major player. It is difficult to predict what will happen to DMOZ in the future, but it is clear that the directory will play an important role for many years to come.

It can be used to get a backlink to your website. However, the quality is debatable. If you ever become concerned about your website’s backlink profile, consider performing a backlink audit.

DMOZ FAQ

Is DMOZ dead?

Quite the opposite. DMOZ is still alive and well. But, it is not the same as it used to be.

DMOZ was always different from the other top-level domains (TLDs) in that it was just a directory of websites. The most significant change is that DMOZ now features links to user-contributed reviews. These are reviews of services, products, restaurants etc., by people who are not registered domain owners. The reviews are written by ordinary people who have used the products they are reviewing.

DMOZ is now more of a loose collection of websites containing links to several thousands of different categories which can be found on the internet.

What replaced DMOZ?

There are several different websites that could be considered as DMOZ replacements, including:

Alexa has taken over the development of DMOZ and now calls it “a free and open directory of the global internet”. It is now a commercial resource and is not completely free. However, it is still an excellent resource for website owners and continues to develop as the Internet expands.

Based on word count, Wikipedia can be considered as a replacement for DMOZ. Some people may disagree, but it can be a useful reference point for a wide range of topics. It also enables anyone to add to its database. Wikipedia has been criticized because it is not completely accurate, but it is still a useful resource for information that would take a long time to verify.

It won’t be easy for any one website to replace DMOZ because of its long history and the fact that it contains over 10 million pages of content from the internet.

From a true digital marketing perspective, however, Google, Yahoo directory, and other major search engines that use artificial intelligence and automation to rank results via pagerank are what replaced directory mozilla.

Don’t forget: check out the other definitions (over 200) in our growing SEO glossary.

Summary

Hopefully this article has given you a better understanding of DMOZ.

An alternative to other better-known directories and search engines, users might find some very interesting websites through DMOZ.

Consider our SEO packages and see how we can help you rank in other search engines, particularly Google.

Written by Aaron Haynes on November 14, 2021

CEO and partner at Loganix, I believe in taking what you do best and sharing it with the world in the most transparent and powerful way possible. If I am not running the business, I am neck deep in client SEO.