Forum Moderators: open
All help is much appreciated
Thanks
-Mike
Read here for a while.
complete working.htm before you submit.
There is a wealth of information here on the topic of Yahoo.
Here is a good thread to start and if you have more questions we'll be happy to answer them.
[webmasterworld.com...]
Mike_Mackin - I do not understand:
"complete working.htm before you submit."
What do you mean?
Thanks again
working.htm has an under construction sign on it.
-Mike
Just in case you didn't already realise this, Yahoo is not the most important source of traffic for most people, its Google.
Where paying to get into Yahoo used to be a 'given' many of us would now advise concentrating your resources in other areas first (Google, for a start).
Although you can still get into Yahoo for free, its bit of a lottery with very few winners. Paid review now costs 299.00 per year - which, for many, is a bit steep.
Good luck
Yahoo's transition to $299 per year for inclusion makes it, in my personal estimation, more like paying an annual fee for advertising, no matter what else it may be called.
You might want to test the online market a bit before shelling out $299 for one year for Yahoo. That might depend on how much you expect to net and who your target market is - plus what your total advertising budget is for the year.
AOL traffic is excellent for certain niches (which is Inktomi - $39 for the first page a year, but needs to be optimized specifically for Ink), MSN is also good depending on the search term. As 4eyes mentioned, Google is the biggest source of traffic right now. Which is the best source of conversions could vary, though. For certain things MSN/AOL traffic will convert better, depending on who the target market is.
I assume you're doing a site for the wrappers separate from your current site; that's a very specific product with a specific market.
Thanks for the info. I agree with you that the $299 for Yahoo may as well be considered advertising costs. And I also do not have a problem shelling out that kind of money (at least for one year) to see exactly how much business that generates. As I said in my previous post that when I do a search for my type of website I come up with ONLY 40 matches. To me that does not seem bad at all. My only concern is what was mentioned by 4eyes about it being somewhat of a lottery. I do not mind paying the money if that gets me listed. That seems like GREAT advertising for the buck. I do not want to just hand over $299 for the mere CHANCE that my site may be listed. I think perhaps that is what I am most confused about. Does paying that yearly fee GUARANTEE the user a spot? Also if I am correct I can submit my URL for FREE with Google?
Thanks again to all
The paid one is less so (but still a concern)
You pay for a review, but the site has to pass the test to get in.
I haven't done too many recently, but it for your type of site you should be OK if you make sure the site is in the right category, works well in Netscape and IE, can be navigated without Flash or Java, and doesn't have affilliate adverts all over it.
I am not an expert on Yahoo, though. Best thing is to use the search feature on the forum here - you will find plenty of threads.
Yes, submission to Google is free, but they like to find you through quality sites linking to you. which is one of the benefits of the Yahoo listing (and ODP listing as well, even more important).
>Does paying that yearly fee GUARANTEE the user a spot?
As 4eyes said, it guarantees review - but chances are if you follow guidelines and pay you'll be included.
My thinking is that if there are 40 sites in a category, it'll be important to be at least in the first half of those; there does seem to be some ranking order, so it's worth reading up before submitting to do your best to rank higher, if possible. There are a few factors involved, like domain name, what the site/company is called, and the title and description used when submitting. It deserves some thought beforehand; if it weren't a little involved there wouldn't be people who pay to have it done for them - and a lot do.
No matter the placement within the Yahoo directory listings, it's the Overture results that are still getting good attention, at least for now. Might be worth looking into that, because it's good for not only Yahoo, but MSN and AOL also, which will possibly be your best source aside from Google. Giving that a try at the start might give some indication of what the response will be.
