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I've been toying with the idea of paying for a Yahoo! directory listing and would appreciate learning about people's direct experiences.
Did you sign up for hits, page rank, spidering or other reasons? Was the strategy successful?
Thanks in advance for any assistance
I would not do it! In most categories you won't get much traffic or maybe none, not much PR will be passed if there are a lot of other links on that page (Which most categories do have a lot links) and for 200.00 dollars don't make me laugh!
I have a diametrically opposite experience.
First of all, Y! categories are generally considered "authoritative" - remember the hilltop algo.
Second of all, as an example, some of the regional directories send my clients sites 15 - 20% of the daily traffic.
Third of all, Yahoo's inktomi bot uses the Y! directory as a jumping off point for spidering.
Finally, in the US directory, the cost is $299 annually for commercial sites. If you are considering the listing for PR alone, well maybe its not worth it. If you are considering the intangible benefits, in addition to the click through traffic - it may be well worth it.
For my client's $city lodging sites, it is a no brainer.
The only possible negative is your main page shows the official title of your site, so make sure you have a prominent official title that has value for your niche.
I was fortunate in that I paid $299 and had the reviewer add my listing to three (!) separate categories. I know that my SERP performance has improved in part because of those Yahoo Directory entries. When I "link:mydomain.com" on Google, one of the first results are those Yahoo Directory back-links.
Just me 2 cents.
Sean.
This takes a legitimate and compelling result with a strong page title and content abstract, and often transforms it into a total bland zero in the Yahoo! SERPS. It sits there with a few words, while the competitors NOT paying for Yahoo directory inclusion get a rich and compelling result. (It's so ironic, especially since this is one way Yahoo! has it over Google, with its lengthier displays, often with a metag description and page phrases alongside one another. What a shame, and I don't for the life of me understand why they don't fix this, OR AT LEAST offer their customers the option.)
To see the difference, enter a money phrase likely to return a directory page -- first in Yahoo! and then in www.altavista.com. It may make you think twice about the directory, and at least ought to make Yahoo! provide the customer a choice here.
If it were not for this, I would unreservedly recommend. Earlier, Yahoo Mike and Tim said they were going to look at addressing this known complaint from directory customers. But so far, no changes and this is the real "Yahoo penalty" in my mind.
However, based on what I've read here I went into the yahoo directory and spent more time browsing some areas. Quite often I would see a lot of listings like:
!!!! #1 Company Name
!!! #1 Company Name
etc.
What a joke - I'm surprised Yahoo even allows stuff like that! Jeez - even if your company name started with an "A" you would be burried way down in the listings. I can see why some people have such poor results with Yahoo. Now that I've looked into it further I really don't know how (in my case) we would get a return on even $299 - unless doing so also helped Yahoo spider and index our site (if so...I would JUMP on it as our site still has not been indexed by yahoo). I realize it's less than $1.00 a day - but with a company name that starts 1/4 the way down the alphabet... a user would have to go through thousands of directory pages (alphabetical) in our category to find our site.
Best Wishes
Mc
Anyways, I have gone ahead with challenging this payment.
Mc
More than two years ago I had the same experience when I paid for the spanish Yahoo Directory. Eventually I got an answer. They gave me back the money and added my site to the Directory anyway!
They gave me back the money and added my site to the Directory anyway!
If that happens, hope I end up with an error message every time :)
Mc
New to the whole SEO world and this forum so hi :)
Regarding Yahoo paid submission.. im having a nightmare atm with them..
Tried to submit my site into their paid directory - got this twice - credit card order : socket read error - Operation timed out.
Contacted by bank to cjeck that nothing had been taken.. tthen they informed me that 2 payments of $299 had been debited (for no order with Yahoo)Cancelled any transcation with my bank but as they said, Yahoo can still take the payment if requested.
Sent numerous e-mails and finally 10 days later i get one saying that the order did not go through..
Now this moring my crdeit card company tell me that they have again debited my cc for another $600.. I havent even got an order with them or nothing..
Tried calling them from the UK but on hold for 40 mins abd again nothing.
The matter is now turning very serious.
Anyone know who I could possible speak to direct from Yahoo?
Thanks all
Marko
Could this be one thing that we have cheaper in the UK? Surely not.
When their search results listed directory entries first, I used to get about 50 clicks a day.
I tried to sign up as a sponsor for the category twice with one and once with the other. All three times, I got an email back saying that the price was wrong and that it would be $300 per month with a 3 month minimum. No thanks.
I've also had billing problems, which were only taken care of after considerable followup.
Anyway, is it worth while (in anybody's experience), to pay $299 for a PR4 non-commercial directory with only 2 other outbound links?
Thanks
Another category i submitted to had pr7, got a pr6 within a month of google updates... it all depends.
I have had problem with them too, first they charged me 600 dollars then they sent me email saying they have listed my site and for over a week it was not in there. I get very little hits from them and it never helped me in the search engine far as ranking goes.
When it comes to PR or getting spider by the search engines I would not do it for 299 because you can pay less somewhere else if you are that worried about PR and the same with getting the robots to come to your site.
If you are not in the search engines now and have a good amount of links to your site you most likely won't get in there for being in Yahoo's directory.
All the directory entries seem to be front-ended with a different URL.
e.g. http*://rds.yahoo.com/bunch_of_junk_here/*your_url_here
It is not Yahoo. You are doing something wrong - or not doing something right. Typically, if you learned "web site promotion 101" course, your PR jumps to >0 in within a month.
Actually, Yahoo directory goes through redirect page, and that is possible not to pass any PR at all.
To Yahoo: for $299 a year, you better start passing PR to folks!
still, even without PR it can still help SEO. count on it.
They put my link on a page buried so deep that I would be surprised if a bot ever found it let alone a person.
Yahoo ignored my request to go on a PR5 page even though it was relavant to my industry and all of my competitors are on there!
IMO - A complete scam and a complete rip off. I will not be submitting any other websites to the yahoo directory in the future.
