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Thanks in advance for any responce!
No. You paid for a review.
>didn't I paid to be included in the directory?No. You paid for a review.
Right, but if the site was refused after the review, the webmaster should have been told about it, and should have a means to appeal.
Or has anything changed lately?
At least they used to - and still do?
The thing that I've noticed is that with the one in the yahoo directory, it has very low rank in the serps in yahoo and msn. I do however get approx. 30 times the amount of traffic from google than yahoo and msn combined.
The one that isn't included in either directory gets a little more traffic from yahoo than google. However The placement in yahoo is much better by not wasting the money to get into there directory, I've been trying to get the other site unlisted for about 3 months so far.
The point I'm trying to make is, am I crazy, or has anyone else noticed that yahoo is trying to punish websites that have paid them the money.
[edited by: tedster at 2:19 pm (utc) on Mar. 13, 2005]
[edit reason] remove specifics [/edit]
has anyone else noticed that yahoo is trying to punish websites that have paid them the money.
to me thats just wrong!
I noticed this as well. I was slowly climbing in the Y SERPs on my main KW, 160...90....80...79...78 then the DAY I was approved for the directory my listing dropped to 78 - 177.
What I think is happening is since Y uses their directory listing for your page info instead of your page's title tags and description or content it makes the link less relevant in the search for your keywords. While your competitors have a title with relevant keywords in it and a description with a keyword or two, you are stuck with a directory listing SERP result that shows nothing.
They listed my site in their directory as MyDomain.com instead of using my page's title. They also are using a one line small blurb instead of content of my page or meta description. Who is going to search for my site using MyDomain.com? That's why they are searching... to find urls :P
While it maybe easy to see what my site sells while in my own category, when it pops up on the SERPs it does not really give much clue.
I even spoke with a Y customer service guy on the phone, when I asked about it he said he thought it must be an error because he can see exactly why a directory listing would make you LESS likely to show up in SERPs since you can't have the title or descriptions that other sites have. Now this was just a CS guy, but at least he saw what I saw as well.
Not saying it hurts or improves listings one way or the other, this is just my 2 cents. But in my case it did hurt me or it's a BIG coincident I dropped the DAY they listed me.
has anyone else noticed that yahoo is trying to punish websites that have paid them the money.
nope, not me. My site was in some kind of a sandbox until it got included in Y directory. The same day it was included, it got out of the sandbox and placed on 1st page of serps. This is the quote from their e-mail:
While inclusion in the Yahoo! Directory does not guarantee search result placement, your site may appear in Web Results due to its increased relevance.
That appeared to be true for my site. Though it's kinda weird: before you pay 300 bucks a site is not relevant, but after you pay it immediately becomes relevant :)) I think, the searchers don't really care about our 300 bucks, sandboxes and all that crap, they need a result!
What I think is happening is since Y uses their directory listing for your page info instead of your page's title tags and description or content it makes the link less relevant in the search for your keywords..
I've heard this theory several times on this site, and that was the main reason why I hesitated to pay for Y directory inclusion. But thank God it didn't happen. In my case, everything was in reverse. My site with its original title and description with a keyword init never appeared anywhere close in serps. Yahoo editors also changed my site's title and description and eliminated my keyword from it. But oddly enough after submission my site shows in Y serps on 1st page EXACTLY by this keyword, though it's not present in my title and description anymore. As well as my competitors on 1st page of serps: they also don't have this keyword. I think Y spider still "sees" your original title, it's just Y visitors that see something different.
to me thats just wrong!
It does sound wrong at first, but consider that Yahoo! only employ a finite number of staff to review submissions and only want a finite number of quality sites in their directory. The $299 price point is basically a resource and quality control mechanism.
Or to put it another way; if submission were, say, $50; i'd bet that the factor by which the number of submissions would go up would be way higher than approximately 6 ($299/$50), and would result in Yahoo! needing to employ thousands more staff on the review process and either result in bloated directory of lesser quality sites and many hundereds more webmasters annoyed that they paid $50 and didn't get in.
It's just business i'm afraid.
