The Goal of the Open Directory Project
As the Internet grows at a staggering rate, automated search engines and directories run by small editorial staffs are unable to cope. Search engines are finding it increasingly difficult to provide useful results to search queries, while commercial directories are suffering from link rot and less comprehensive site listings as a relatively few editors struggle to keep pace with the growth of the web.
That's where the Open Directory Project comes in. The goal of the Open Directory Project is to produce the Internet's most comprehensive directory by relying on a vast army of knowledgeable volunteer editors.
Working Together to Organize the Internet
By encouraging the Internet community to work together, the Open Directory Project has found a way to bring organization to the chaos.
Rather than rely on automated web crawlers to find and categorize web sites, Open Directory depends on people.
Open Directory editors are simply Internet users who are knowledgeable about a particular category, who volunteer to organize small portions of the web.
The editors cull out all the irrelevant or useless links, keeping only the best content, and then present their work back for everyone on the Internet to use.
The Open Directory is organized by category, with links to hundreds of thousands of web sites. Besides being the world's fastest-growing directory, the Open Directory strives to provide the most pertinent information, rather than simply the most information, for those who don't have time to weed through irrelevant search results.
Becoming an Open Directory Editor
You have the opportunity to contribute to the Internet of the future: Will it be a morass of mediocre information, or a powerful resource for the truly informed? If you care and think you can contribute, find a specific category in the Open Directory that matches your area of expertise. At the top of that category page, click Become an Editor and sign up.
Editing categories is a snap. The Open Directory Project offers a comprehensive set of tools for adding, deleting, and updating links easily and quickly. With just a few minutes of your time, you can help make the Internet a better place, get recognition for your work, and meet others who share similar interests.
Learning More About Open Directory
Located at www.dmoz.org, the Open Directory Project is identified by Mozilla, our dinosaur mascot. To remember the URL, just think of "D' Moz"!
It's called "Open Directory" because it is just that - an open resource for everyone to use. The free use license lets you take copies of the directory for crawling, archiving, and using on your computer.
Here are several ways you can use the Open Directory:
Here's how to learn more about the Open Directory:
