Zeal was a volunteer-built

web directory A web directory or link directory is an online list or catalog of websites. That is, it is a directory on the World Wide Web of (all or part of) the World Wide Web. Historically, directories typically listed entries on people or businesses, and the ...

launched by Brian Goler and Kevin Berk in 1999, and then acquired by

LookSmart LookSmart is an American search advertising, content management, online media, and technology company. It provides search, machine learning and chatbot technologies as well as pay-per-click and contextual advertising services. LookSmart a ...

in October 2000 for $20 million. Zeal combined the work of Looksmart's paid editors with that of volunteers who profiled websites and placed them in a

hierarchy A hierarchy (from Ancient Greek, Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy ...

of subcategories. The resulting categories and profiles were downloaded at intervals by LookSmart and its partners, other search companies such as MSN,

Lycos Lycos, Inc. (stylized as LYCOS), is a web search engine and web portal established in 1994, spun out of Carnegie Mellon University. Lycos also encompasses a network of email, web hosting, social networking, and entertainment websites. The company ...

, and

Altavista AltaVista was a web search engine established in 1995. It became one of the most-used early search engines, but lost ground to Google and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, which retained the brand, but based all AltaVista searches on its own sear ...

, for use in their own systems with or without modification. Paid editors attended to commercial sites and oversaw the voluntary work on non-commercial sites. Volunteers worked under a defined set of Guidelines and were required to pass an introductory level test on those Guidelines before submitting site profiles or edits. As points and experience were acquired, volunteers could elect to take a further exam which allowed them to "adopt" and create topic categories of special interest. They could then move up the organizational structure from Community Member to Zealot to Expert Zealot, acquiring additional tools and oversight responsibility at each level. Expert Zealots, who could move or delete some whole categories, monitored the day-to-day operations of the non-commercial portion of the directory and acted as mentors to new members. Active volunteers were found in many English-speaking countries (particularly

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

) and some other countries such as

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. By March 2003, Zeal had passed the 250,000 listings mark; eventually it passed the 400,000 mark due, in part, to the Zeal Charity Drive contest of October 2003, which saw over $25,000 distributed around prominent charities such as the WWF. After Looksmart's acquisition of Zeal, its internet traffic as measured by

Alexa Alexa may refer to: Technology *Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by Amazon * Alexa Internet, a defunct website ranking and traffic analysis service * Alexa Fluor, a family of fluorescent dyes * Arri Alexa, a digital motion picture ca ...

fluctuated considerably; after MSN withdrew from the related partnership, Zeal traffic declined from "usually better than 2000th" (mid-2003) to "about 5000th" (mid-2004). Branch offices in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom were closed in about 2004, and the corresponding directories were said to have been sold but/and were gradually merged with the main directory. The Zeal directory closed on March 28, 2006{{cite web , last=Baker , first=Loren , title=Looksmart Closes Zeal, Concentrates on Furl.net , website=Search Engine Journal , date=March 22, 2006 , url=https://www.searchenginejournal.com/looksmart-closes-zeal-concentrates-on-furlnet/3161/ , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070513122228/https://www.searchenginejournal.com/looksmart-closes-zeal-concentrates-on-furlnet/3161/ , archive-date=May 13, 2007 , url-status=live and was sold in October 2007 for $50,000.

References

External links

Alexa Traffic Chart

Search Engine Journal article
- commenting on how search engines changed approach, making directories relatively less useful

Guest Obituary for Zeal, by Alice Swanberg
- detailed history by a former staffer Web directories Defunct websites 2000 mergers and acquisitions Internet properties disestablished in 2006