Those sites that can't afford PFI or Overture might well be willing to pay for inclusion in the directory as an alternative.
We have submitted many sites (one of the guys paid in US dollars unknowingly) for our clients. So I know it's a signficant because they keep appearing as annual renewals. Bit of a shame he did that really as that money comes out of the clients budget before it reaches us. Anyway....
I've been trying to establish a pattern and I wonder what number you would have to check to see if there is a definite correlation. And are there any other factors? My gut feeling is that there maybe a correlation between WR (web rank) and spidering and I am in the process of checking our sites to see if they are in the directory, what WR they are and what if any correlation there is in relation to the frequency of the bot.
If the sites you are talking about are over 4 months old, then there is a chance that it could be co incidence we are talking abouut here.
There have been a few discussions that suggest otherwise to what you are saying Ian, with people moaning that there ditrectory listing seems to have known effect.
The one thing i have noticed is that we were getting a lot of Inktomi (or yahoo slurp) movement about a month ago, and that this has slowed down now.
Having said all of the above, a friend of mine has a hot Yahoo site that is not in the directory. That site get's crawled the most I have seen, and it has ZERO WR?
All very difficult to suss imo.
