ODP and Yahoo Size Charts

Created: December 1, 1999
Updated: January 10, 2004
By ODP editor geniac


skip to chart for: January 6, 2004 - July 24, 2000 - March 1, 2000 - February 1, 2000 - January 1, 2000 - December 1, 1999 - November 23, 1999

Milestones - Questions and Answers



As of November 23, 1999

As you can see, I've pointed out some significant dates in these charts. ODP was started on June 5, 1998.

The projected cross-over date here is March 16, 2000. This turned out to be off by about only 3 weeks early; actual cross-over date was April 4, 2000.

The projected date here for ODP reaching 2 million is April 29, 2000, 107 days earlier than the actual date of August 14, 2000.

Most of the figures for ODP on this chart courtesy of newwave.

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As of December 1, 1999

On November 8, 1999, Yahoo's size was calculated in a different way than ever before, explaining the manufactured spike on the chart.

The projected cross-over date here is May 10, 2000, 36 days later than the actual. Also pointed out is the previous projection of March 16, 2000 for comparison.

The projected date here for ODP reaching 2 million is June 26, 2000, 49 days earlier than the actual.

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As of January 1, 2000

This one gives a far more accurate depiction of the size growth of each directory over time, and the projected segments are far more easily identifiable, with the use of different colours.

Projected cross-over date here is May 8, 2000, only 2 days earlier than the previous date of May 10, 2000, but still 34 days later than the actual.

Projected date for ODP reaching 2 million here is July 3, 2000, a week later than the previous date of June 26, 2000, and 42 days later than the actual.

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As of February 1, 2000

This graph doesn't look too different from the last one, but the dates are quite different.

The projected cross-over date here is April 15, 2000, nearly a month away from previous projection of May 8. I'm not sure how this could be, especially considering Yahoo's average daily rate of growth was half of the previous month's, and ODP's growth rate went up a little. April 15, 2000 is only 11 days later than the actual.

The average daily growth rates for the time frame of this chart (June 5, 1998 to January 25, 2000) for each directory are: Yahoo - 1,170 and ODP - 3,484

The projected date for ODP reaching 2 million here is June 30, 2000, which is not too far from the previous date of July 3, 2000, but 45 days earlier than the actual.

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As of March 1, 2000

There was a slight dip in ODP listings in late February, due to a big clean-up job by ODP editors. The pace quickly recovered to normal levels. Yahoo's size also dropped a few thousand sites in late February. Somehow I doubt it was due to a clean-up effort by Yahoo editors. :-|

Projected dates are now April 11 for cross-over (7 days off), and July 10 for ODP reaching 2 million (35 days off).

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As of July 24, 2000

There's a huge gap since the last chart because I was slightly busy moving halfway around the world at the time.

The cross-over date was on April 4, 2000, with ODP having 1,636,849 sites and Yahoo, 1,636,313.

The projected date of ODP reaching 2,000,000 was August 9, just 5 days off the actual.

The average daily growth rates for the time frame of June 5, 1998 to July 24, 2000 for each directory were; Yahoo - 528 (nearly half the previous calculation of 927) and ODP - 3,444 (still on the rise; up from 2,722 as of the previous calculation).

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As of January 6, 2004

There's a huge gap since the last chart because I was slightly busy being employed and updating other pages at the time. The incentive to do an update came when I noticed ODP had just passed 4 million (December 3, 2003)

The projected date of ODP reaching 4.5 million is August 19, 2004 and 5 million on April 28, 2005. The projected date of Yahoo reaching 3 million is September 17, 2005. Hey, that's my birthday! :)

The average daily growth rates are now; Yahoo - 707 (up 133% from 528) and ODP - 1,985 (down 42% from 3,444).

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ODP and Yahoo Size Milestones (as of January 6, 2004)

Date Milestone ODP Size Yahoo Size
February, 1994 Yahoo created (stated in press release) - unknown
November, 1997 Yahoo's first known figure - 730,000
June 5, 1998 GnuHoo created unknown 927,126 (calculated)
June 18, 1998 GnuHoo's first known figure 27,000 938,990 (calc.)
July 1, 1998 GnuHoo renamed NewHoo 31,000 950,854 (calc.)
August 25, 1998 Yahoo reaches 1 million 61,035 (calc.) 1,000,136 (calc.)
November 17, 1998 Netscape purchases newly
renamed Open Directory Project
100,000 1,077,709 (calc.)
April 1, 1999 Yahoo's famous "1.2 million" 411,831 1,200,000 (assumed)
April 16, 1999 Lycos starts ODP use 437,000 1,254,592 (calc.)
May 9, 1999 ODP reaches half a million 500,000 1,333,068 (calc.)
July 8, 1999 ODP reaches 50% of Yahoo 710,973 (calc.) 1,422,093 (calc.)
September 14, 1999 Yahoo reaches 1.5 million 932,019 1,500,370 (calc.)
October 5, 1999 ODP reaches 1 million 1,000,000 1,524,835 (calc.)
Febuary 12, 2000 ODP reaches 1.5 million 1,500,221 1,639,016 (calc.)
April 4, 2000 ODP passes Yahoo 1,636,849 1,636,313
August 14, 2000 ODP reaches 2 million 2,000,186 1,813,053
January 3, 2001 Yahoo reaches 2 million 2,211,411 (calc.) 2,000,309 (calc.)
March 22, 2001 ODP reaches 2.5 million 2,501,586 (calc.) 2,138,030 (calc.)
November 18, 2001 ODP reaches 3 million 3,000,028 2,328,794 (calc.)
June 21, 2002 ODP reaches 3.5 million 3,500,495 2,394,256 (calc.)
June 4, 2003 Yahoo reaches 2.5 million 3,943,643 (calc.) 2,500,212 (calc.)
December 3, 2003 ODP reaches 4 million 4,000,000 2,555,626 (calc.)
Date Future Projections... ODP Size Yahoo Size
August 19, 2004 ODP reaches 4.5 million 4,500,131 2,722,120
April 28, 2005 ODP reaches 5 million 5,000,351 2,900,284
September 17, 2005 Yahoo reaches 3 million 5,282,221 3,000,678
December 18, 2005 Yahoo levels out 5,464,841 3,066,813
June 13, 2009 ODP levels out 7,991,746 3,068,086



Questions and Answers

Question: How do you get size counts for the ODP?
Answer: The number of listings, editors and categories are listed at the bottom of the page at
http://dmoz.org/. These figures are updated every 10,000 sites.

Question: How do you get size counts for Yahoo, considering they don't publish their figures?
Answer: By going into each top-level category and adding up the numbers given for each second-level subcategory. Thanks go to ODP editors ederd, donjuan46 and karim for going to the effort to do just that. Karim has now created an automated script to do this job.
Search Engine Watch reported that Yahoo had 1.2 Mil listings "in April of 1999". I took creative license and presumed that meant April 1.
On November 17, 1999, ODP founder Rich Skrenta said "We recently crawled Yahoo to determine the size and composition of their directory. The raw URL count was 1.67 million sites, vs. 1.15 million for the ODP."
The closest figure to 1.15 million that I saw the ODP have on the front page was 1,148,000 on November 8, so I put the 1.15 million figure there, thus making sense to put the 1.67 million figure in Yahoo's spreadsheet cell for November 8.

Question: I work at Yahoo. Need some help with accurate sizes of our directory?
Answer: I thought you'd never ask. Really. Please contact me to prove me wrong when I say that humans don't work at Yahoo.

Question: Where's your wife's page?
Answer: http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Breakers/9364/
That's a pic of her in her bridal gown below. :)

Humans do it better.
Help build the largest human-edited directory of the web.


[ Geniac.Net ]
Last Updated: 1:23 PM 11/01/2004