Opinion

A Proposal for Reforming
the Open Directory Project (ODP)

May 1, 2010

The Open Directory Project (ODP), also known as DMOZ, is a mainstay of SEO on the Internet. The ODP describes itself as “the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web.”

The Open Directory has historically been highly valued by SEOs because, as the ODP site states, it “powers the core directory services for the Web's largest and most popular search engines and portals, including Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others.” Thus, the ODP is thought to have an important influence on a site’s search engine rankings.

Founded in 1998, the Open Directory Project is now owned by Netscape.

In the spirit of the early Web, the Open Directory operates as a free registration service for all those who wish to submit their site for review and potential inclusion in the directory. Site submissions are reviewed by anonymous volunteer Editors who are supposedly experts in a certain subject category, such as an industry, technology, sport or hobby.

Over time, the Open Directory Project became so well established that it is now SEO best practice to immediately register with ODP when you launch a new site.

But, alas, all is not right with the ODP, and a firestorm of discontent is spreading across the Internet.

As an SEO consultant, I registered clients with ODP for two years without incident. Then in December 2009 I registered a client with ODP in the standard way … and nothing happened, no listing appeared.

Ironically, this client was the largest I had ever submitted an application for. This particular client is a global outsourcing services company, and ranks among the top ten in the industry worldwide. The firm has somewhere under 2,000 employees and recently reported $85 million in annual revenue. This is quite a substantial company, and counts a number of Global 5000 companies as clients. Naturally, since my client is such an established company, it never occurred to me that it might not be granted a listing by the Open Directory volunteer Editor.

It is now five months since I made the submission, and my client is still unlisted. Since there is never any communication from ODP about the status of a site submission, I have no way of knowing whether my client’s application is still in process after five months (!), or has been denied inclusion outright for some unknown reason.

Then I turned to the blogs, and I discovered that my situation is by no means unique. It turns out that there is a vast amount of discontent with the ODP registration process – many, many people have been waiting fruitlessly for months to have their sites registered. To be sure, the Open Directory has its defenders on the blogs, but these tend to be people who automatically assume that an unregistered site was rejected because it is a small affiliate site, a badly constructed site, or a “black hat” site guilty of some (unidentified) infraction.

Since there is no communication from ODP regarding registration status, and the identity of the volunteer Editors is unknown, conspiracy theories instantly arise. Many of the frustrated assume that their application has been denied by a competitor who volunteered to be an ODP editor in order to keep other similar companies out of the directory.

Clearly, the Open Directory’s submission process is badly broken. In no other industry would such shoddy service and lack of communication be tolerated.

Here are four steps that should be taken to reform the ODP registration system today:

1. Charge a fee for submitting a website registration. Companies would gladly pay $35 to $50 or more to be considered for the directory. This does not mean that all submissions would be accepted; submitters would have to be warned that registration with the ODP is not guaranteed.
   
   
2. Hire Editors who are content experts, and name them publicly. Today’s force of perhaps 5,000 volunteer Editors could be substantially reduced, and many new employees might be drawn from among the volunteers. This is an important step in bringing transparency and accountability to the registration process.
   
   
3. Publish and stick to service standards – including standardized communication – with registrants. This is perhaps most important. Application status needs to be clearly communicated to registrants, and a reason needs to be provided if an application is rejected.
   
   
4. Finally, the Open Directory needs to establish a Board of Appeal and publicize a transparent and smoothly functioning appeal process.

If these changes are made soon, the ODP can begin to repair the damage to its reputation and eventually return to respectability.

The Internet is no longer the domain of hobbyists, and it is long past time to reform this antiquated volunteer-based organization. The longer the Open Directory refuses to reform itself, the more it will be left behind by the inexorable growth of commerce on the Web. Time is running out for this venerable Internet institution to re-make itself.