Have you ever heard of D-Moz?

I’m sorry I don’t listen to hip-hop…

Dmoz isn’t some bling covered rapper from across the Atlantic, I’m sure most people actually assume this when they hear the word…No? Just me then.

If you’re just starting out in the world of SEO (as I was a couple of weeks ago) then you may be unsure as to what Dmoz is.

Dmoz is actually an abbreviation of the original domain for the Open Directory Project (ODP), the largest human-edited directory on the internet.

In brief, Dmoz is a global directory with a vast number of categories, including websites regarding:

• Technology museums.
• Welding and soldering.
• Sporting eyewear protection.
• Bowling for gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
• And, much, much more.

I don’t think I’m dabbling in hyperbole when I say Dmoz contains directories of every imaginable thing, and every unimaginable thing!*

If you speak a couple of languages why not help Dmoz out by translating a directory or two into one of the many languages used.

To keep the behemoth from collapsing under it’s own volume a dedicated team of editors (somewhere in the region of 8,000) trim the fat and keep the system operating as smoothly as possible.

Although the site is free it’s owned by Netscape who are committed to a social contract which aspires to keep the site free and give back to the (internet) community.

With regards to SEO, a listing on Dmoz is essential, it’s a given, a standard for websites.  If your site isn’t on Dmoz then you’ve never heard of it until now or…I can’t think of another reason without insulting people, so let’s just leave it at one reason.

Google acknowledged Dmoz’s importance allowing it to command a high PageRank, therefore giving weight via backlinks to listed websites and making it vital for websites to be listed.

This is from the about page on Dmoz, and sums up the project more concisely than I could: “ODP editors are Web searchers creating a directory for other Web searches”.

Dmoz is for the people, and by the people.

Written By Robert Greenhill, Creare’s newest SEO recruit

*Yeah, fine, I dabbled