odp

ODP most commonly refers to the Open Directory Project, a multilingual, volunteer-edited web directory also known as DMOZ. It was launched in 1998 as a community-driven effort to organize the web into a hierarchical taxonomy, allowing users to browse topics from broad subjects to more specific subcategories. The project aimed to provide a human-curated alternative to purely automated search results and was widely used by search engines to improve result organization and discovery.

Editors contributed by selecting and organizing sites into appropriate categories, with submissions open to anyone and subject to editorial review for relevance and quality. Each listed site included a short description and a link to the source. The directory covered a broad range of languages and topics and depended on a global community of editors to maintain its structure and accuracy.

In 2017 the Open Directory Project was shut down by its maintainers, ending active editing. The directory’s content remained accessible through mirrors and data releases, and copies have been archived for historical and research purposes. The project’s data were released for reuse, and its model of volunteer-driven curation influenced later efforts in human-edited directories and the broader web-navigation ecosystem.

ODP can also stand for other terms in technology and science, including references to Open Data Plane in networking and other domain-specific acronyms. Context usually clarifies which meaning is intended.