Yahoo! Directory Listings

[WireNine]

Would you say that Yahoo! Directory listings are worth $300 or would that be a waste of money?

Please share your opinions.

Thank you.

[JeffHeaton]

I currently have a Yahoo listing. The ROI is not very good. Its a high-PR link to my site, but thats about it. Maybe thats enough to make me renew it, not sure. It generates almost no traffic. I get most of my traffic from google searches. I get hits from yahoo search, but not from the directory listing.

But don't buy a listing and expect a flood of traffic from it.

[cool_78]

I see. so its basically just a way to boost your PR. but at $300 for me its too expensive

[stymiee]

Back when the listing was $295 for a lifetime listing it was usually worth it for any business to do as the investment was for a lifetime so the cost could be justified. Back then the Yahoo directory used to drive traffic as well.

But to pay $295 for very little traffic the cost is much harder to justify. It's hard to imagine few sites getting a good ROI. The only real use it offers is a potential boost in Yahoo SERPs but even then, unless it is bringing you a lot of traffic that is making you money, it's probably not worth it.

[WireNine]

Thanks for your input everyone :)

[Harry smith]

i don't think paid listing would be beneficial just to have traffic, although some, better way try to get traffic by SEO techniques, try to improve PR by optimize your keywords,getting backlinks,
go for blogging, forum posting make your awareness by posting helpful and unique contents…..
All this will help you for getting traffic.

[BamaStangGuy]

I do not think it is worth the 300 Dollars a year that they charge. You get very little traffic from it and your only hope is that the search engines will take that link and value you it in your favor enough for you to gain position in SERPs.

I say take that 300 dollars a year and get better links that will net you some link weight and give you traffic at the same time.

[Dani]

Does a link in the Yahoo! directory get you a link anywhere else as well? For example, the way a link in Dmoz gets you a link in the Google directory.

[BamaStangGuy]

I don't think they allow their directory listings to be downloaded like DMOZ so I would imagine you would only be purchasing a link in Yahoo! without a chance of others giving you a link through DMOZ type knock off directories.

[Dani]

Yeah but who knows what sorta deals Yahoo has with other companies. Search engines always seem to syndicate each other's content. Or at least they used to.

[stymiee]

If Yahoo syndicated their directory it would make the listing more attractive. But even then, $300 per year is really hard to justify without significant traffic being the ultimate end result of it.

[Dani]

It seems like a whole lot more when you realize that they used to have a similar price for a lifetime listing.

[EFEXConsulting]

i would reply differently

if budget for your web-site allows spending $300 for 1 directory – buy link at dir.yahoo
just spend time/money and prepare good description of your web-site, pick also good and unique anchor text (and few other things, you should always care when buy links at directories).

Dir.yahoo can help if you select proper category for your web-site (note how web-sites are sorted there).

I think, that one of many google’s filters check for site – does he have incoming links from highly paid directories (like yahoo,business, etc) – and it’s like a trigger for Google that site owners are serious and spend money on site.

Btw, there are also one more filter like that, that helps avoiding sandbox for new web-sites.

One more thing, many new search engines – coming pretty frequently – seem to build their Url database from directories like dmoz/yahoo and etc. so you maybe conquer “fresh” market of BrandNewSearchEngine.com

[stymiee]

I think, that one of many google’s filters check for site – does he have incoming links from highly paid directories (like yahoo,business, etc) – and it’s like a trigger for Google that site owners are serious and spend money on site.

Google does not offer any bonuses for being in Yahoo's directory or any directory for that matter. They don't care if owners spend money on their sites because it provides absolutely no indication as to the quality of the site or the relevance of the pages for any search term. They also don't know which links are paid for and which ones are free. Can you imagine if they tried to figure that out? It's just not possible. Also, spammers and search engine manipulators spend money promoting their sites. We definitely don't want to give them a bonus.

Btw, there are also one more filter like that, that helps avoiding sandbox for new web-sites.

The sandbox is much more complex than this. Also, there are no hard facts about the sandbox much less any that support this claim.

[EFEXConsulting]

Google does not offer any bonuses for being in Yahoo's directory or any directory for that matter. They don't care if owners spend money on their sites because it provides absolutely no indication as to the quality of the site or the relevance of the pages for any search term.

this is one of the thoughts. Mine is different.
but do you know many web-directories that require $300 per year? Do you think it’s so hard for google to build a list (human edited) of the most expensive(+old) thus trusted web-directories and that that to account?

They also don't know which links are paid for and which ones are free. Can you imagine if they tried to figure that out? It's just not possible.

really? i can briefly say few approaches that are discusse in popular IR books (Modern IR btw)
do you think google doesn't invest in that kind of researches?

Also, spammers and search engine manipulators spend money promoting their sites. We definitely don't want to give them a bonus.

didn't get that, can you be more specific.

The sandbox is much more complex than this. Also, there are no hard facts about the sandbox much less any that support this claim.

:lol:
do you think i covered sanbox issue in few words? i know pretty well about it - i have tried to get 5 sites already out of sanbox, and 4 times i succeed. and i know what was the problem with 5th - it was just experiment.

don't think that search engines are so stupid. using PageRank (i mean the original formula) was useful 10 years ago (a bit less).
Currently google does a lot of stuff to significantly improve it's serp.
take for example its recent activity about social search (using blogs.google news.google).

[stymiee]

this is one of the thoughts. Mine is different.
but do you know many web-directories that require $300 per year? Do you think it’s so hard for google to build a list (human edited) of the most expensive(+old) thus trusted web-directories and that that to account?

This is easy to disprove. Google, and other search engines, don't need to give blanket bonuses to any website for anything. Google already has a system to gauge the usefulness or relevance of a webpage, they have no need to make arbitrary global adjustments based on some perceived notion of one a paid directory being better than a free one.

Good, relevant, trustworthy pages will naturally have more PageRank and thus provide a more valuable link. This value is not from the fact that they are paid, but from their good quality content. Likewise a free directory page with the same quality will provide an equally valuable link. Then, of course, paid and free directories that aren't useful will not. The system works.

An arbitrary blanket bonus would ignore all that. Arbitrary bonuses are to search engines today what horse and buggies are to modern cars. At one time they may have made sense, but technology has progressed to where there are far better options. A search engine today has absolutely no need to guess about the usefulness of a site based on some arbitrary characteristic when they have the computing power and algorithms to examine and score each individual page on the Internet based on its true merits.

really? i can briefly say few approaches that are discusse in popular IR books (Modern IR btw)
do you think google doesn't invest in that kind of researches?

It's an enormous task that serves no purpose. See above.

didn't get that, can you be more specific.

Spammers spend money to promote their own websites just like any other business. Thus the concept of a business spending money as an indication of its worth is flawed. Also, search is about relevancy. Financial backing is no indication of quality or relevance. If a page really is good, it will have acquired a lot of quality incoming links. That's a more natural and accurate way to determine a page's value.

do you think i covered sanbox issue in few words? i know pretty well about it - i have tried to get 5 sites already out of sanbox, and 4 times i succeed. and i know what was the problem with 5th - it was just experiment.

How do you know you were in the sandbox? You don't. You assumed you were as there is no way to know if you are in the sandbox. Even more, there is no definition of the sandbox. Google has admitted they penalize (for lack of a better word) some new sites but that is all that is known. The rest of information out there about the sandbox is made up by newbies.

It's far more likely your site was just new and thus didn't rank well and as time progressed it naturally improved in the Google's index. This is commonly assumed to be the sandbox when all it is a natural representation of a site's value to Google. It's also more likely that any aging filter Google had applied to your websites had expired naturally and had nothing to do with your efforts to have it removed.

don't think that search engines are so stupid. using PageRank (i mean the original formula) was useful 10 years ago (a bit less). Currently google does a lot of stuff to significantly improve it's serp. take for example its recent activity about social search (using blogs.google news.google).

I don't think I've said anything to make anyone believe I think they are stupid. In fact I said they were smart and that's why they don't bother with blanket bonuses like you have implied they use.

And pagerank is more relevant today then it was ten years ago. Most people don't understand the true value of pagerank (your post implies you don't). You should read this essay which explains pagerank very well and what it really means.

And Google has been innovating search since they launched. Not just currently. PageRank changed the way search was done and singlehandedly changed the world of search forever and they've only improved from there.

[EFEXConsulting]

ok, just posting quick reply to you - since i'm not really interested to prove that i'm right, especially question was quite different.

from your words google is doing everything automatically and doesn't need any human editorial.

do you know spell checking feature in google?
i and few other web-masters found few really funny "right" version of phrases.
in 6 hours that "right versions" were already replaced with more relevant (and not so indecent).

and few facts (that are no thoughts about any filter or anything)
- google can't do that in automatic mode, because that AI would reqire really lots of resources
- there are a lot of brilliant minds that were working at google and already not working there - because they thought the Google is all about innovation/new algorithms ideas (like you think) and it figured that it's far away of that.

[stymiee]

from your words google is doing everything automatically and doesn't need any human editorial.

I didn't say that. In fact you can be sure there is human intervention that affects their SERPs. The vast majority of this is related to spam control, however. You can be sure they have algorithms that identify suspicious content but do not trigger an automatic penalty. Humans will review these cases manually. A lot of potential black hat techniques are subjective and/or beyond the capabilities of current technology to discern (i.e. their hidden from the search engines).

do you know spell checking feature in google?
i and few other web-masters found few really funny "right" version of phrases.
in 6 hours that "right versions" were already replaced with more relevant (and not so indecent).

and few facts (that are no thoughts about any filter or anything)
- google can't do that in automatic mode, because that AI would reqire really lots of resources
- there are a lot of brilliant minds that were working at google and already not working there - because they thought the Google is all about innovation/new algorithms ideas (like you think) and it figured that it's far away of that.

Not sure what you are getting at here. If you get a chance if you could elaborate on it I would appreciate it.

[kathrynsias]

But I don't understand. I always understood it as you get what you pay for and Yahoo is one of the best right?

[joeharison]

$ seems high. You will get the listing but it not help to boost the rank.

[dammy2007]

I would rather spread the $300 on as many directories with PR4-5 permanently, than paying yahoo annually.

[esspwebmaster]

yea i would be wastage of money