Paying Yahoo! Directory $299 (a year!) worth it?

[mikomido]

So I am desperate to get links. I am earning nothing. I could take a loan for $299 and get a link in the Yahoo! Directory for 1 year. Would this help? Does Google value these links in that directory 1000x more than normal ones or something? Or is this throwing money in the lake? Why would a directory link be worth more? Shouldn't Google actually punish you for paying for a link there?

Please clearify.

[bateman_ap]

If you expect a quick payback of your $299 then no. Where it will help is by being a foundation stone in your sites "trust rank". You may get some natural traffic from the directory but I have noticed as the years go by, less and less people come to my sites through the Yahoo directory. Would I still buy them, god yeah, but I don't really worry about dropping $300 on it. Renewing is a different matter though.

If you really haven't got $299 for it and would have to borrow the money I would recommend get some work and save up a little "launch fund" for your site. I'm afraid it is much more difficult these days to launch a site with no money behind it, few years back it was much easier.

One low cost option for you is to investigate low cost PPC, think a bit about it and try to work out a list of low cost keywords. ie "red widgets" might cost you $1 a click, however "red widgets in timbuktu" might only cost $0.05. Send people to the relevant page in your site, and also think about maybe incentives for people to link to you.

[jomaxx]

It's not really the same as "buying" a link. There's a gatekeeper making sure your site is relevant and meets certain quality standards. Thus it would be logical for Google to give such links credit - however I don't know what the actual effect is.

OTOH, if you don't have $299 I wouldn't worry about it. Aside from possible link popularity value, Yahoo's directory is more and more irrelevant.

[nomis5]

Go get the Yahoo link absolutelty 100% for sure. Think about it, $299 over a year, that's less than $1 a day. Be brave, do it. At the same time search for other links, see what other sites may link to you and email them all. Most will ignore you, a few will link.

But above all, concentrate on one aspect of your site and try, try and try again to become the best at that aspect. That way the links will come in naturally. Think what is missing from the other sites and then spend weeks developing a page that beats them all. HGundreds of mediocre pages are worse than two pages which deliver something your competitors don't deliver. Put yourself in the position of the people who may visit your site. That's the key.

[longen]

I haven't tried the Yahoo directory yet, instead i pay between $69 - $150 for lifetime entries in Botw, JoeAnt or GoGuides.

[Maxnpaddy]

Yahoo will be untargeted, as the mix of traffic types are, well, - 'mixed' and not specific to your needs. All manner of people search Yahoo, and you need to narrow that traffic into a segment eg: You want games buying visitors to go to a Games website etc etc.

Then the chance of them finding Games would be much higher, than if they got sent to a general, all-singing, all-dancing website.

Go to extract the traffic you want, NOT follow the herd and buy any traffic or you waste money paying for expensive non-relevant visitors.

[dailypress]

Why do you guys think it is worth it? Do you rank higher in Google and Yahoo SERP's? Or do you get over 29,900 visitors assuming each are worth 1 cent (based on your websites CPC and % of clicks and other factors).

[jomaxx]

You might expect 1 or 2 visitors a day, per my experience. Maybe less.