DMOZ Facts for Kids

The DMOZ logo, showing a friendly face.

The Open Directory Project (ODP), also known as dmoz, was like a giant, organized library for websites. Instead of books, it listed good websites based on what they were about. Imagine a huge list of websites, all sorted into different topics, like "Sports," "Science," or "Games." This project helped people find useful and interesting websites easily.

What Was DMOZ?
- How DMOZ Worked
  - Why DMOZ Was Important
The Story of DMOZ
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What Was DMOZ?

The Open Directory Project was a special kind of web directory. Think of it as a human-powered search engine. Instead of computer programs finding websites, real people called "editors" looked at websites and decided if they were good enough to be added to the directory.

How DMOZ Worked

DMOZ was unique because it relied on thousands of volunteers from all over the world. These volunteers were experts in different subjects.

They would review websites to make sure they were high quality and safe.
They would then place these websites into specific categories.
These categories were organized like a tree, with bigger topics branching out into smaller, more detailed ones. For example, "Sports" might branch into "Football," "Basketball," and "Swimming."

Why DMOZ Was Important

In the early days of the internet, finding good websites was harder. DMOZ helped people discover reliable and useful information. It was a trusted source because real people checked every site. This made it different from regular search engines that use computer programs to find and rank websites.

The Story of DMOZ

The Open Directory Project had an interesting journey from its start to its end. It changed names and owners a few times.

Beginning as GnuHoo

DMOZ started in 1998. It was created by two people, Rich Skrenta and Bob Truel. When it first launched, it had a different name: GnuHoo.

It was a new idea to have a web directory built by volunteers.
Soon after, it changed its name to NewHoo.

Joining Netscape and AOL

Later in 1998, a big internet company called Netscape bought NewHoo. This is when it became known as the Open Directory Project (ODP) and started using the name dmoz.

Netscape made the project's data available for free to anyone who wanted to use it. This helped many other websites and search engines improve their own listings.
When Netscape was bought by AOL, DMOZ became part of AOL. It continued to grow and list millions of websites.

The End of DMOZ

After many years of helping people find websites, the Open Directory Project officially closed down in March 2017.

By this time, search engines like Google had become very advanced. They could find and organize websites much faster than human editors.
Even though DMOZ closed, its huge collection of website links and categories was still valuable. Some of its data was preserved and used by other projects.