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I understand that having a listing in DMOZ isn't necessarily a 'good' backlink to have due to the 'weight' of links from fully categorized listings, but I was wondering if anyone could give any solid information on whether or not the directory is still actively reviewed?

Last time I read up on the subject, there were xxx,xxx entries awaiting review with problems of 'corrupt' editors favouring their own listings and what not. Is the directory dead? Or just terribly slow at sifting through the large amount of new submissions.

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  • I believe Google believes Google +1 / buzz / plus / whatever will cover for that. human factor dmoz provided. ...let's all start socializing with plus nerds as a SEO practice O_o
    – ZJR
    Aug 20, 2011 at 14:51

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I think only an editor can give you a true answer but, from my experience, DMOZ has been awful quiet since Google dropped them in July 2011.

Let's see what the public thinks about DMOZ though...

Is DMOZ...

Ouch.

Update: As of Mar 17, 2017, dmoz.org is no longer available. The editors have set up a static mirror here.

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    I'm glad, I won't waste time anymore submitting sites to such a useless place.
    – Marco Demaio
    Aug 20, 2011 at 15:33
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    rofl, you know your site is dead when...
    – TheLQ
    Aug 24, 2011 at 17:23
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DMOZ directory is dead for various reasons

  1. Web has grown too big to be listed in a web directory. Too many sites.
  2. Favours by corrupts editors have diluted the impact
  3. Site gets updated often, while DMOZ is most of the time once listed forever thing.
  4. Traffic to DMOZ has gone down considerably. Less people use it.
  5. Most of the older DMOZ editors have moved to other interesting projects or are very less active. Its more easier to become a DMOZ editor today than ever before.
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  • Do you have any evidence that traffic to DMOZ has "gone down considerably"? According to Alexa it's still ranked #519 in the world. Even though Alexa is not always accurate that's still incredibly high.
    – DisgruntledGoat
    Aug 22, 2011 at 11:43
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    I don't know how accurate Compete is either, but it shows a big fall-off in traffic: siteanalytics.compete.com/dmoz.org
    – Ciaran
    Aug 23, 2011 at 4:44
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    If there's one thing you can say about DMOZ, they've been pretty consistent since 2004: google.com/trends?q=dmoz
    – Ciaran
    Aug 23, 2011 at 4:47
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DMOZ is shutting its doors on March 14, 2017. This from an announcement currently on the front page.

There's not been any other public declaration of the reasons. From what I can glean from the editors forum this was pretty much a surprise and was announced with very short notice.

So, the answer to the original question is: Yes it is.

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I recently had a somewhat related discusison about this with the owner of a very large tech forum which took a massive hit after the Google Panda update -- the latest change where they pretty much cracked down on link and article farms (although many forums also fell victim as collateral damage -- but Google tweaked the algorithm soon after) and while I'm not an SEO expert myself, I gathered from the discussion that Google and Bing are now shifting the focus towards social metrics rather than just link counts.

As for as DMOZ and other directories in general, those pretty much fall ;under the linkfarm category to Google so while the site might be up for nostalga purposes, just like the Keyword META tag in HTML, Google and Bing will disregard those.

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