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Lycos Wants You to Rank the Web

Lycos embraces Netscape's Open Directory, with site rankings done by volunteers rather than paid staff.

By Tom Spring, PCWorld   

Starting Monday, Lycos says it will add the Netscape Open Directory at both its Lycos.com property and its search site HotBot.

Netscape's Open Directory project relies on the contributions of volunteer editors across the Web rather than relying on a small staff at a company like Yahoo or Excite that rank sites for visitors.

Lycos says the move will add features and drive traffic by embracing an open philosophy it likened to the success of the open-source operating system Linux.

Last year Netscape joined the trend when it said the source code for its Communicator software suite, including the Navigator browser, would be free.

The Netscape Open Directory project is run independently by Netscape, now a subsidiary of America Online. Netscape's Open Directory was launched roughly six months ago when it acquired NewHoo, a user-generated Web directory. NewHoo, and now the Open Directory, closely resemble Yahoo in style and organization.

Volunteering for the Web

Lycos says the project has attracted 8800 volunteers to create lists of links to pages they believe offer the best information on subjects. So far, more than 435,000 Web sites have been organized into 66,000 categories.

Open Directory competes with similar pushes to organize the Web. The Mining Company also uses volunteers (who are paid a small stipend) instead of its own staff to edit, organize, and write about Web sites relating to specific topics. Compaq-owned AltaVista says it will give more prominent display of search results to sites that pay it fees for the optimized listings.

Enlisting the help of Internet users for such projects helps to deal with the Web's enormous range of information and lack of organization. Netscape maintains that such volunteerism is a necessary part of online culture and is at the root of what makes it unique.

However, such public efforts recently have come under fire. Last week seven AOL members who have been acting as "community leaders" for certain areas of AOL complained to the U.S. Department of Labor that they should be paid for their work. The agency says it will be looking into the matter.