You are correct, the sites weren't "ranked" the same way that Google ranks sites now. But there were preferred sites, and each site had a description written by an editor who could be fairly unpleasant if they wanted to.

I had a site that appeared in DMOZ, and the description was written in such a way that nobody would want to visit it. But it was one of only a few sites on the internet at the time with its information, so it was included.