Someone asked me about DMOZ recently. It was like hearing about an old classmate. DMOZ or Open Directory Project is a volunteer-maintained directory of web sites. http://www.dmoz.org In its day, DMOZ was a great search engine and it gained relevance by letting other directories and search engines gain access to their database of links. So getting listed on DMOZ was very beneficial to your overall search engine rankings. A long time ago I was a volunteer editor for DMOZ.
The trouble with DMOZ is and always has been the wait to get listed. You can submit your site for free – but you are reliant on a volunteer getting and processing your submission. I don’t think a link from DMOZ has the same impact now as it did 5 or 10 years ago – but it’s still nice to try. Here are my quick tips to submitting your site:
- Search the database to make sure you aren’t already listed.
- Find a category that fits your site
- Make sure that category has an Editor (if there’s a note at the bottom saying “ Volunteer to Edit this Category”, there’s no Editor)
- If your first choice category doesn’t have an editor, find another category
- Follow their instructions: http://www.dmoz.org/docs/en/add.html They are pretty specific and straightforward
- Submit, wait, and don’t lose any sleep over it
- If you really want to get listed – wait six months and try again – maybe with a different category
I hope that’s helpful. Again a link from them is nice – but not worth more than 30 minutes of your time anymore.
Byte of the Week 
That’s interesting to read the pov of an ex DMOZ editor. I’ve tried listing sites on there before and just gave completely. Surely they should try automating listings, they should be able to search for what category to put you in based on your websites content?
PS: I liked your SEO article about Google no longer sharing as much info 🙂
Thanks for the kind words. I think DMOZ is losing ground with their inability to keep up. Maybe there are editors and topics that are still up-to-date, but many are languishing.