Only it has a Different Name Curlie

Curlie.org the successor to the old defunct Dmoz Directory (aka Open Directory Project or ODP) has come out of hibernation and is ready to be used by you and me.  They are even accepting URL submissions and editor applications.  It looks like a lot of the old dead wood listings have been cleared out and new listings added in the categories.  And the whole site is usable and tidy.  With over 3 million sites listed Curlie is the largest human edited directory of the Web.

See, Dmoz/ODP was created as a legitimate aid for the navigation of the Web, back before search engines got good.  It never sold listings for the sake of link popularity with the search engines so it is of much higher quality than the thousands of later directories that were built with the express purpose of charging a fee for links in order to get better search engine rankings.  This makes Dmoz/ODP and now Curlie stand above the rest.

They Were Quiet

When AOL decided to shut down Dmoz a group of editors decided to use one of the last open source Dmoz data bundles and try to carry on with the Dmoz mission as a human edited directory.  Thus Curlie was born in 2017 as a successor to Dmoz.  Curlie was available but seemed dormant, you could not submit sites and there were a lot of dead listings.  But the editors were busy, getting rid of dead links and adding new ones over a few years.  This had to be a very big effort.

Now they are once again open and ready to be searched and browsed.  Browsing Curlie is fun, I suggest you explore.

I’ve said this before,  big directories cannot compete with search engines.  But human edited directories can discern quality, something that search engines still cannot do.  So there is still a place for them and I’m very glad that my favorite of all the really big directories has survived.

Good luck Curlie.  Do well.

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