In some recent news we can confirm that as of 14th March 2017, DMOZ has stop working as an entity after nearly two decades.
DMOZ was a directory which was special because it used humans to try and organise information. Now the emphasis is very much on machine organisation and as we move further into the future this will come with the inclusion of artificial intelligence aswell.
When someone mentions of searching or search engines, most will think of Google straight away and so it is hard to think of a time when Google as a search entity didn’t exist. However there was such a time, and this was back in 1990’s. DMOZ originated in 1998 as an alternative to the Yahoo directory. At the time this was big and it was seen as extremely difficult to appear on Yahoo’s search results. Search results back in those days were ones in the ‘basic’ sense of the word, rather than the complicated algorithms and the like which occur today. DMOZ was created to try and provide an alternative to this. Quite quickly, Yahoo changed to using machine orientated results and as the years went by through competing with Google, Yahoo faded as a search entity until it was eventually stopped in its original form.
Despite all the above, DMOZ continued to exist and some would argue that they were surprised it has taken this long for its closure to be announced as it faded in popularity and usage a long time ago.
If you were a fan of DMOZ then you will be pleased to know that it has not been totally taken down and will still live on in some form. For now the homepage still opens up with a shop sign saying it has closed, and there is also another link which gives a ‘mirror’ of the original site before it closed so existing and historical entries can still be found and be available.
The complete demise of DMOZ now further reflects the changing behaviour of users who engage with search engines and how they have come to expect different things. What will be next?
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