# Do Website Directories Exist?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 3, 2001, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-website-directories-exist/67378 "2001-06-03T01:36:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Courier2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5fc32e/32.png) [@Courier2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Courier2)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-website-directories-exist/67378/1 "2001-06-03T01:36:35Z")
Are there directories for websites, instead of mindlessly prowling the Internet to see what is there? I mean, you either get an address from somewhere, or you just start randomly running words into search engines and seeing what comes up. I’d think there would be a directory somewhere, like a phone book or something. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-website-directories-exist/67378/2 "2001-06-03T01:41:23Z")
> **[Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos](https://www.yahoo.com)** > > Latest news coverage, email, free stock quotes, live scores and video are just the beginning. Discover more every day at Yahoo! ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-website-directories-exist/67378/3 "2001-06-03T01:42:05Z")
god, have you been asleep ? welcome to the SDMB. No, Wait! Welcome to the 'Net. > **[Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos](https://www.yahoo.com)** > > Latest news coverage, email, free stock quotes, live scores and video are just the beginning. Discover more every day at Yahoo! [http://www.altavista.com](http://www.altavista.com) and endless others…they’re all search engines as well as directories… ---
**Author:** ![Purd\_Werfect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47c2d/32.png) [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-website-directories-exist/67378/4 "2001-06-03T01:46:40Z")
The web is far too dynamic and large for directories to be comprehensive and accurate. I suppose you could go through name registries to get addresses, but then there’s also front end ISP’s, such as Geocities, which have thousands upon thousands of users, and the InterNIC registry (or whatever it’s called) would keep track of the registered names, but nothing about what the content is, or who’s publishing to the address. Even if there was some way to capture a large portion of active addresses, unless the directory was updated constantly, it would quickly lose usefullness as sites died or changed. It would be nice, but I don’t see how it could be done. I kind of like the randomness of search engines though. You start out looking for one thing, and end up engrossed in a totally different subject. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-website-directories-exist/67378/5 "2001-06-03T01:48:49Z")
If you’re going to use a directory, at least use the best ones. [http://directory.google.com/](http://directory.google.com/) -The best directory, powered by the best search engine. [http://www.dmoz.org/](http://www.dmoz.org/) -The Open Directory Project can’t be beat for some things. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-website-directories-exist/67378/6 "2001-06-03T02:06:55Z")
[http://www.google.com/](http://www.google.com/) [http://www.goto.com/](http://www.goto.com/) [http://www.lycos.com/](http://www.lycos.com/) ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-website-directories-exist/67378/7 "2001-06-03T02:08:28Z")
Doesn’t the Google directory use the Open Directory Project as it’s source? So it’s kind of the same thing. It is good though. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-website-directories-exist/67378/8 "2001-06-03T02:22:31Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SmackFu \* > \*\*Doesn’t the Google directory use the Open Directory Project as it’s source? So it’s kind of the same thing. It is good though. \*\* From [http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/Open\_Directory\_Project/Sites\_Using\_ODP\_Data/G/](http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/Open_Directory_Project/Sites_Using_ODP_Data/G/) : > [@](#): > > Google Directory - A popular search engine with many features. It uses the ODP RDF dumps in the directory section. So, **Smackboy** is right. Google is the best because it uses the best. ---
**Author:** ![Chas.E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e99b99/32.png) [@Chas.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chas.E)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-website-directories-exist/67378/9 "2001-06-03T03:00:29Z")
I saw a project documenting the earliest days of the web, and the earliest versions of yahoo and Netscape’s “What’s Cool” list. Wish I could remember where it’s archived. It was a wonderful thing, seeing how the directory lists grew from almost nothing to thousands of pages, and beyond. ---
**Author:** ![Courier2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5fc32e/32.png) [@Courier2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Courier2)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-website-directories-exist/67378/10 "2001-06-03T18:49:55Z")
I see. Thank you all. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2001, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-website-directories-exist/67378/11 "2001-06-03T19:07:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SmackFu \* > \*\*Doesn’t the Google directory use the Open Directory Project as it’s source? So it’s kind of the same thing. It is good though. \*\* Google maintains a ODP directory ( [http://directory.google.com](http://directory.google.com) ) but its searches ( [http://www.google.com](http://www.google.com) ) sort by number of links to a site. The more other sites link to ‘site x’ the higher ‘site x’ is rated. See this for a description of how it works: [http://www.sciam.com/1999/0699issue/0699raghavan.html](http://www.sciam.com/1999/0699issue/0699raghavan.html)