Yahoo to Shutter Its Website Directory

Posted on September 27, 2014

Yahoo has announced it will be shutting down the Yahoo Directory. The directory helped make the company famous and was the most popular website directory during its peak. The name Yahoo stands for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle." As Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land explains directories eventually faded as search took over.

Directories are still very useful. If they are maintained and well-organized sometimes they can be faster to use than search for some subjects. If you are looking for websites sometimes a directory of only websites (no tweets, photos, news articles, etc) works best. Unfortunately, Yahoo has decided it is time to shut down its directory.

Yahoo says in an announcement that the directory will close on December 31, 2014. The post by Jay Rossiter says, "Yahoo was started nearly 20 years ago as a directory of websites that helped users explore the Internet. While we are still committed to connecting users with the information they’re passionate about, our business has evolved and at the end of 2014 (December 31), we will retire the Yahoo Directory."

In addition to a huge database of websites, the Yahoo Directory also had an extensive blog directory with blogs in dozens of categories. The directory also included links to other blog directories, blogging software, awards and more. The blog directory can be found here, although it is currently not loading or loading slowly. It is supposed to be available until the end of the year.