Website Marketing History – NetScape Buys NewHoo

Does anyone remember the good old days of website marketing when Net leader Netscape purchased NewHoo? Or, as some of you may remember one of the first logos for NewHoo was named GnuHoo!

NewHoo was an open source directory where each category would have its own volunteer editor to review and add your listing. It was a direct rival to Yahoo who was king of the block in online portals and from day one in 1995. Yahoo had a history of taking forever to get reviewed let alone listed (although I had a secret Yahoo submission where I could list a site in 8 weeks), so NewHoo was a great place to get a listing much quicker. Or so we thought. As time went on Yahoo switched to a Paid Listing or 7 Day Listing service, while NewHoo floundered with editors who would sign up to add their own listing (I know I was one of the first editors for NewHoo in 1996). Most categories did not have an editor at all, so you would have to go up one or two category levels to find a category that had an editor and ask them to review. Many would not because it was not their category, so you were stuck waiting for an editor to come along and maintain your category listings. I knew NewHoo editors who were considered “Edit All” and they could add a site to any category. It has always paid off for GetSpecific Website Marketing to have connections on the Net in big places.

As time went on Google had their own directory called Google Directory and it was the same listings as NewHoo, which became Dmoz (The Open Directory Project) by then. It was here that having a listing in Dmoz (NewHoo back in the day) paid off big time with organic ranking as Google passed off PageRank (PR) to its search engine from Dmoz. Only problem after 1998 was that it became almost impossible to get a listing in NewHoo anymore…

Dmoz, or better known as the Open Directory Project was one of the great, first directories to use for finding other directories and other useful sites for backlinking. Overtime Dmoz became a directory that lost its luster, where every time you submitted it landed on deaf ears and it ultimately became impossible to get a review, let along a listing added. For years and years if you had a listing there it benefited you by having a solid, former Google partnered link and that helped you rank higher in Google.

Today the Dmoz listing is nothing more than a memory as it went under completely in 2017 after a long 17-year run. RIP GnuHoo……NewHoo…..Dmoz….

Greg Elam – President
Since 1994 – GetSpecific Website Marketing