Yahoo Paid Directory - Still Worth It?

[jebernier]

Just wondering if having a listing in Yahoo's Paid Directory will cause any issues with either Panda or Penguin?

Will it hurt or is it still worthwhile?

Thanks

[tedster]

Almost every site I work with is in the Yahoo Directory - and almost all of them have had no Penguin or Panda problems.

The last time Matt Cutts was asked about the Yahoo Directory, he confirmed that it still had a positive effect. The way I see it, if the Yahoo Directory is no good, then no directory can be any good.

[Andem]

I have had a different experience to tedstar: I have 3 listings for one site in the Yahoo! directory (non-paid) and it was affected by Panda 1.1, but not Penguin.

On the other hand, I also have around 20 pages listed in DMOZ (only one was submitted by myself).

Incidentally, I was browsing the Y! directory today for the first time in years and found that many of the sites listed resulted in either DNS errors or 404s. Many of the pages on the .com version were PR0 or PR N/A.

[jebernier]

Thanks for the info, I trying to set a filter in GA to see just how much traffic I get specifically from the directory.

[scooterdude]

@tedster

Do you think Yahoo directory listing would benefit newish sites which struggle to attract links and traffic or would money be better spent on advertising

[tedster]

I think every site owner needs to make their own decision - no blanket yes or no. There's certainly little if any direct traffic coming from Yahoo Directory that I can see. And there are certainly many successful sites that never get near the Yahoo Directory.

At the same time, along with the ODP it's been one of the most trusted directories because of a high editorial threshhold. This means it's been used as a seed set for various types of machine learning projects. Being in a seed set of "editorially cleared" sites can be a very good thing.

[Robert Charlton]

Do you think Yahoo directory listing would benefit newish sites which struggle to attract links and traffic or would money be better spent on advertising

I think you may need to do both.

My experience with the Yahoo Directory is that it can give a noticeable bump, but unless you follow up with ongoing natural link acquisition, that bump can fade fairly quickly. It's almost as if Google gives you a honeymoon period after a directory link, but it's the kind of link that requires ongoing confirmation.

For that reason, I would not simply rely on a Yahoo listing in lieu of other promotion. I'd also make sure I had excellent content in place, content worth linking to, with ways of calling attention to that content to help maintain traffic flow. How fast you might need to acquire new links depends, of course, on how fast your competitors do. Site engagement factors also enter into it.

[Planet13]

Do you think Yahoo directory listing would benefit newish sites which struggle to attract links and traffic or would money be better spent on advertising?

How strong is your value proposition?

How good are your advertising skills?

How competitive is the the niche in terms of adwords?

With a good value prop and if you know what you are doing, you could turn your investment into anywhere from 3X to 8X that amount in sales - depending again on how well positioned your product is and how good you are at adwords.

On the other hand, if you are like me (no real value prop - mediocre grasp of marketing fundamentals), you could end up only breaking even with your adwords spend :)

(Hey, at least now I know WHY my adwords campaigns barely break even - props to netmeg for that.)

[ken_b]

Almost every site I work with is in the Yahoo Directory - and almost all of them have had no Penguin or Panda problems.

Just as a counter point, or maybe to reinforce the "almost" part of that quote, having a Yahoo Directory link is no guarantee of avoiding negative affects from Panda or Penguin. I have unsolicited/unpaid links from the Yahoo directory, ODP and BOTW.

After several years at or near the top of the relevant page 1 serps, I've been pounded to a pulp by that angry little Pangry.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

If anyone can buy their way in it's not of the highest quality, does the Yahoo! directory still do a manual evaluation of every site?

[Beachboy]

@tedster

DMOZ is a two-edged sword. If you get in, great. But editors, who are usually professionally involved with the categories over which they rule, often keep out competing sites. Getting listed is often not a quality issue, it's a political or economic issue.

[Planet13]

DMOZ? Is that still around?

When was the last time anyone actually used DMOZ to find an actual web site?

[martinibuster]

One thing I didn't see mentioned is that the Yahoo directory is sometimes used by some to seed their lists of sites. A listing in Yahoo can lead to links elsewhere.

I agree with Ken that a listing in Yahoo or DMOZ won't protect against algorithm changes. And without question neither will put a site in the top ten. To be fair, no single action or activity will do either. But if you're going to cover your bases in ticking off all the positive things you can do to help promote your site, then submitting to Yahoo still makes sense.

[superclown2]

The last time I looked at the Yahoo directory the sector I was interested in hadn't been maintained in ages. Quite a lot of the domains I looked at had expired in the past and been taken over by link merchants who had packed them with spun content.

If Google does indeed trust this directory then their trust is misplaced.

And as for Dmoz, well, need I comment ....

[seowise]

I do not know why they are of value - yahoo and dmoz seems to be corrupt. Yahoo keeps sending back money and anyway - if you can buy links for 300 bucks - what value does it represent? Dmoz is even worse - you do not pay apparently but finally there are those corrupt editors. I have tried years and years on and it turned out that dmoz is a friends circle. I think google should deem these places as useless and not give any weight to these listings. It is finally manipulation of page rank and they are not democratic at all. Anyone holding the same opinion?

[lgn1]

When it comes to Yahoo Directory; the lights are on but no one is at home.

We get virtually no traffic from Yahoo Directory. When our credit card expired three years ago; we never gave them a new number.

Every year we get a mesage to renew our listing, but they have deleted none of the listings over the years.

Half the links in our category are broken.

My guess, is that Yahoo has left all the automated processes in place to take peoples money, but the site is no longer managed; and inclusion is automatic.

If you are going to list in Yahoo, make sure you use a credit card with less than a year to the expiry date, and don't pay them more than once.

[CainIV]

I've always used the directory and believe it passes trust and natural citation weight to companies wishing to, or whom already are, brands.

[MikeNoLastName]

I 100% agree that getting into DMOZ, if one of your competitors has become the category editor is impossible, and has been for nearly 10 years.

AS far as YPD we were well grandfathered in it since before it became paid and although the pages have been kept or redirected on our end, the main subject of some of them have changed to the point that _I_ would scarcely consider them a good fit anymore, but we're afraid to notify them of changes for fear they will just delete them totally. In the old (pre-pay) days, the pages linked and the titles, were less than ideal.

BTW we still got majorly hit on Panda 2011, but not since then.