incrediBILL - 9:17 pm on Jul 24, 2007 (gmt 0)

Local directories aren't competing with DMOZ; they're competing with search engines and the phone book.

Au contraire mon ami!

DMOZ contains local data, it's just that local directories have won the battle.

If you can't get listed in a timely manner in the big monolith but you CAN get listed in the local niche directory, which is being indexed well in Google, then you go with the local niche directory that works.

FWIW, I run a niche directory that branched out into local venues and I have a ton of listings you simply cannot find in DMOZ because I'm too nimble and dominate my niche as that's all I focus on is ONE NICHE.

(How many people go to DMOZ when they're looking up a local nightclub, restaurant, optician, or hardware store?)

People don't look there because nobody submits that information there although the categories and some scattered listings exist.

FWIW, Most people other than us nerds and early internet adopters don't even know DMOZ exists.

They go to Google because that's what they know.

The local niche directories have already got a solid lock in Google because they actually have more content in those areas than DMOZ.

So in effect, you're right, they aren't competing with DMOZ because they already won the battle.

Which brings me back to what I stated in my previous post that a new mega-directory service would have to be built as a series of niche directories that address the information needs of each market and not just a list of names and brief descriptions.

[edited by: incrediBILL at 9:46 pm (utc) on July 24, 2007]