The Dmoz homepage cheerfully displays the following message:
"Notice. Editing is Back!! Login now for more information - Dec. 18, 2006"
Although it seems that the service has been up and running for the past month, the Dmoz directory has only fully recovered its functionality within the past 48 hours. If you have recently been trying to submit your website but have had no success, this is the perfect time to try again.
The Open Directory Project was launched in 1998 with an aim of offering a multilingual, open content directory. It is currently maintained by a group of volunteer editors.
Founded by Rick Skrenta and Bob Truel - both former engineers for Sun Microsystems - the Open Directory Project has became one of the most controversial directories on the web. First known as Gnuhoo, the project changed its name to NewHoo in 1998, before finally settling for the Open Directory Project following an objection from Yahoo regarding the use of "Hoo" at the end of its former name.
By 1999, there were more than one million websites listed in Dmoz. By 2000, it became a powerful source of new sites, maintaining a larger number of listings than other popular directories, such as Yahoo! Directory. With the increase in its popularity, it's no surprise that search engines such as Google and Yahoo! also rapidly indexed any URL contained within the Dmoz directory.
While the desire of users to submit their websites to Dmoz grew quickly, the controversy and criticism which has marked the life of the Open Directory Project has not faded, but rather increased overtime. The main criticism lies in the fact that Dmoz rely on their own editors, who could potentially be giving unfair treatment to their own websites, or even selling their editing facilities to those who are prepared to pay for it.
In October 2006, technical problems caused the service to cease - not only for submissions but also for editors. But while many forum discussions suggested that Dmoz would disappear, or at least remain inactive for years to come, it seems that the efforts of the present owner, AOL, have at least managed to recover the Open Directory Project.
