Does Yahoo Directory Listing Hurt Ranking in Yahoo?

We Rank # 3 - 4. Would Dropping the Listing Help Us?

[customdy]

Hi, we have ranked #1 in google, MSN, AOL, and a few other for our top two search terms for years. Our home page is always the one that ranks #1 in these engines.

In Yahoo, we are ranking #3 to #4 but the result is always our directory listing that is not that informative.

My question is would we rank higher in Yahoo if we dropped the directory listing and just went with the natural results?

Thanks

[Johan007]

I am in the same boat as you. My smaller sites rank number one but the main website in the Yahoo directory ranks very low. Common sense would say this cant be related becuase its a stupid idea!? There are other factors we may not be considering like may main site has loads of pages?!?

We need feedback from more people.

[customdy]

I am thinking of dropping the directory listing and see what happens, I can't imagine it will make things worse in Yahoo search, atleast the web results will be more descriptive than the directory result.

[customdy]

Anyone else have any advise? Thanks

[Erku]

Well,

Guys just last week I paid 299 hoping to rank higher in Yahoo and in other search engines. We are a new portal on a particular broad subject and got linked from a directory page with some great sites that has a PR 7.

I was hoping that paying 299 would increase our ranking overall, but here I hear something else.

I can't drop it, since I just started last week, I guess I will try for a year and see what will happen.

[customdy]

You can drop it if you need to, but of course you will not get your money back.

[financialhost]

Think about how the directory decription works... then your understand why...

It is a silly move by Yahoo but most people don't notice.

;)

[steveb]

Dropping the listing would be foolish. This is too oversimplified, but why do you think you rank #1 in the others?

Being in the Directory is a great thing. Now think about other stuff.

[customdy]

Hi Steveb, when a user searches for our main keywords, we come up 3-4, which certainly is not bad, but not as good as other search engines like Google, but the main problem is that the result that is display is the directory results with a short 7 word description compared to our competitive that has the full description. If I was a user I would probably skip right over our page. I wish Yahoo would either not use the directy results or allow a full description for the directory results.

[ramachandra]

I too got feeling that Yahoo Directory Listing plays important in Yahoo Ranking but not sure, my site description is also too short and I am ranking on 5 postion.

Two weeks back I noticed Yahoo SERPs showing page Title and Meta Description for a day or two and that day I was one level up i.e., 4th postion.

I am thinking to modify the description in Yahoo Directory, but worried will this make a bad effect on my SERPs.

Has anyone over here have modified Directory Listing for their site, if yes, please share your experience.

Thanks

[Gwinck]

I'm going to pay to be listed in Yahoo Directory, but as you I fear I could lost my actual good results.
Seems they came from my title/description (my ranks change a lot when testing some changes here) and as far as I have understand it's yahoo who choose your title in directory and description is maxed at 7 words?

Seems that's really a boost to be in directory but if I loose my keywords... I don't care to be first only on my site title even if I'm very very first lol

[Erku]

Is it true that Yahoo really values Meta Abstract tag?

[ownerrim]

re: "I was hoping that paying 299 would increase our ranking overall, but here I hear something else."

I paid for a yahoo directory listing for a site that enjoyed good rankings. Now, within 2 days of the listing going up, that site is nowhere to be seen in yahoo. It goes without saying that I would never give yahoo a dime again.

[Gwinck]

You think it's directly linked to the new title/description for your site?
I bet you were using your keywords in title/desc before and lost those in new title choosed by yahoo!? :(

[Gwinck]

Btw can I pay with paypal, epassporte or anything else than credit card? Can't see such information directly on yahoo directory submit form... :(

[ownerrim]

Could be. I also just noticed that they listed me for one category but my site can't be found in that category. Have sent an email to yahoo re: this. My recommendation on yahoo directory is now and forever more: don't waste your money.

[Rollo]

I had a very bad experience with the Yahoo directory. The problem you mentioned which would have been enough, as well as I lost ranking for my numerous sub-pages (though it could have been a coincidnce, but I have deep suspicions). I got the site unlisted by asking Yahoo to modify the listing by changing the URL and title (essentially I swaped sites). Within a very short time, my important site began performing well in Yahoo again and I was back to where I was before the directory fiasco.

The Yahoo directory is virtually useless as it gets almost no traffic. If you want to buy links, you can get anywhere from 30 to 50 links from indepedent sites/directories for the price of one usless and perhaps dangerous link from Yahoo.

Don't just walk away from the Yahoo Dir, run.

[customdy]

Good Luck getting out of the Directory.
Here is what we have done
1) Cancelled our Yahoo Express Directory Listing (several weeks ago) However, we still show up.
2) Sent an e-mail to Yahoo stating the problem, they replied with an e-mail stating on how to cancel the directory listing, well we already did that so we replied and told them that. They then reply with a link on how to cancel a local listing, we do not have a local listing
So my question, anyone have any luck getting out of the Yahoo directory?
Thanks

[Rollo]

There is no way official way to get unlisted, but you can switch/swap/exchange the site that is being listed with another site. That's how I got out.

[marketingmagic]

Does anyone have a email for having Yahoo directory support look up and sort out older Yahoo accounts?

Anyone who's lost the username/pass for their yahoo directory listing knows what a nightmare it is to get someone within Yahoo to help fix things.

Sticky or post. :-)