makemetop - 5:02 pm on May 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

>$299 for a review and inclusion in their directory..

What has that got to do with ranking in web pages? Are you in the directory? Approval for the directory means that a human reviewed your site for legitimate content and they couldn't give a nuts about cross-links, hidden text, spammy keywords or a zillion other things that could make a site fall foul of crawler algos. The directory review means that they looked at your site like a human - and judged it accordingly. Web page penalties mean that your site is looked at like a search engine to see if you are trying to blatantly over-influence the results. The $299 directory review is a red-herring in this argument, IMO.

>SiteMatch...

Now, that's different matter. I agree that you have cause for complaint and would take it up with the provider.

Doesn't get away from the substance of my post though - Yahoo Search is now a pretty important provider of results, MSN will come on with another engine soon and we'll start to see moans that people rule on Google and Yahoo but are nowhere on MSN - and that it is MSN's fault not theirs :)