DMOZ is one of the oldest and also the most trusted web directories. After more than 18 years operating, it's officially closed. The move comes three days later than it was originally planned.
Known as the Open Directory Project, DMOZ was a project designed to organize the web using human volunteer editors.
The editors' job was time consuming. Dealing with constant build up of submissions and the number of broken links, sites that no longer should be listed, as well as spams. At times, the job was daunting. But at DMOZ, they were the very few individuals who tried to create a better web before search engines became useful.
DMOZ.org, while helpful in the past for SEO link building It was a place for people to find a new business that just opened up. It was a way to be seen, and was the place many websites relied on their early attempt on the web.
DMOZ in shutting down is seen as the end of an era where humans organize the web.
DMOZ was born on June 5th, 1998, with the name "GnuHoo,". It thrived in the era where Yahoo! Directory was dominant and needed, in a time when humans still had a huge role in organizing the web, not bots or algorithms.
DMOZ and Yahoo! reigned the arena of trusted and reputable Web Directory for quite a long time. But things changed when Google was born on 1998. Using algorithms, Google quickly gained the market where directories thrived
As time passed, marketers on the web, as well as digital agencies and SEO professionals started considering directories as irrelevant resources. While DMOZ had tried to keep up with the changing trend, sooner or later, it finally realized the fact that automation by algorithms is far more superior.
While web directories still exist, the closure of DMOZ is seen as an era comes to an end.