There has been a lot of speculation and apparent confirmation (as per Shoemoney’s recent blog post) that Best of the Web Directory (BOTW) may be buying The Open Directory (DMOZ). If this goes through, the combined directories (assuming they are combined) would rival the Yahoo! Directory in size and scope making it the largest web directory on the Internet.

I could understand why AOL would want to drop the DMOZ as it really generates no direct revenue and requires a lot of resources to manage and maintain. Based on all the corruption allegations and the lack of feedback from the volunteer editors, I think now is a good time to try and save the DMOZ by selling it and BOTW is probably the best suitor.

BOTW has the opportunity to turn the DMOZ around and make it into an organized and functional directory much like their own directory, offering full support and reasonable review timeframes. This leaves many questions for the search marketing community including:

- Will Google still use it as a data resource for their own directory – Google Directory?

- Will Google still value the ‘link juice’ that the DMOZ currently provides (BOTW was not hit with the Google web directory penalty as many of the other web directories experienced, so it is possible that Google may still value these links after a merger)?

- Will the two directories be run as two separate entities or merged?

- Will all current listings remain? Will they be updated? Will the structure change?

- Will it remain free (unlikely)? If not, what will it cost?

It will be interesting to watch if and when a merger between these two industry giants happens and what new opportunities this may provide for the online community. In the end, I believe the overall result will force the issue of what the real value of a web directory (no matter what size) is, in today’s search engine world.