13 replies to this topic

[lister]

Hi - a client asked me to pay for inclusion into the business directory of Yahoo! It cost him $299 and I was secretly against it for many reasons, especially since I thought that there is no real need to submit to directories. In fact, what has happened is that the site has certainly benefited from a sudden surge in the rankings.

My question is - and this has probably been asked before - is that - is Google frowns on paid links, why does it seem to turn a blind eye on this blatant paid for inclusion, which in essence, to me, seems to be paying for links from a huge search engine - Yahoo!

Am a little confused on this. Thing is that a lot of text that I am reading says that paying for Yahoo! is a good idea.

What do you guys think? Does Google respect you paying for this inclusion?

[Jill]

Yes, Google respects you for paying for that inclusion.

You're actually not paying to be included, but paying to be reviewed and presumably Yahoo doesn't add sites that don't meet a specific review standard.

Regardless, as I've stated here for many years, I don't personally think that a Yahoo directory listing is worth the $299 per year. I'd spend that money on Adwords to do keyword research for what works and doesn't. Or some other forms of marketing.

[NASA]

I'd agree Jill, it's a lot of money just to be included in an SE directory, that I find looking at my GOAN, is only just above AOL for traffic.

Most trafic on all my sites are either Direct / Google / MSN / Live / Referrals , then Y! & AOL.

I get the feeling i'm not going to get much bang for my bucks if i paid Y! for directory inclusion.

[Jill]

There's a difference between Y! organic and Y! directory. I bet your Y! directory referrals are a lot less or non-existent.

Most people don't even know Y! has a directory anymore as it's very buried within their site.

[NASA]

Wow, so you get even less traffic from the directory inclusion, than you do for organic Y!

So Y! won't bring huge amounts of traffic either way you look at!

How do they justify the 300 bucks fee?

[Jill]

Cuz people are so hurting for links and they mistakenly believe that the Yahoo one is important, so they pay it.

[internetdominus]

There's a difference between Y! organic and Y! directory. I bet your Y! directory referrals are a lot less or non-existent.

Most people don't even know Y! has a directory anymore as it's very buried within their site.

That is very true, Yahoo directory is so buried that lots of people don't know it exists, and that is the case with most Y services.

I remember that back in 1999 I used to pay phone, electricity bills using Yahoo billing services, and remember using their auctions, and downloading music with them before iTunes became what it is. I also remember playing poker and chess a lot through yahoo games, and remember how former CEO back late 90s said that yahoo was no longer a directory, then also no longer a portal but a store, so people got confused, and never understood what to use yahoo for.

Problem is Yahoo decided to add/include everything on their homepage, but not their main lucrative services, and instead nowadays, you visit Yahoo homepage, and the first thing you see is silly news about celebrities instead of good useful content about health, finance, or anything that could be of real use to people.

So, from this you can see that facebook won't be so lucrative either as that site is mostly known now because is hot and new, but not useful in terms of knowledge. It is only good for time wasting (fun), and if people or so called internet marketer experts start spamming the site with so called social media techniques pretty soon people will jump to another site where they can talk/play/upload without being bothered with so much ads. Socializing means having a good time without being interrupted by sellers, you don't go to a friends party to socialize and see someone trying to sell you Viagra, or latest useless ebook, you don't go to the hottest niteclub to end up being followed by an affiliate marketer who wants to sell you hostgator hosting. You wanna have fun, or meet people when you socialize, and all without being interrupted, and you don't party to find someone behind you poking you to ask you to click on their link.

[NASA]

Socializing means having a good time without being interrupted by sellers, you don't go to a friends party to socialize and see someone trying to sell you Viagra, or latest useless ebook, you don't go to the hottest niteclub to end up being followed by an affiliate marketer who wants to sell you hostgator hosting. You wanna have fun, or meet people when you socialize, and all without being interrupted, and you don't party to find someone behind you poking you to ask you to click on their link.

Spot on!

Many a true word spoken in jest. If anyone behaved like that at a real party, you'd instantly reach for your coat & car keys! (unless you've been drinking of course, then the missus can drive )

[adibranch]

if i'm honest links are my weak point, but, years ago, i got a site listed on yahoo directory, before it was a paid service (but still reviewed). I did no other marketing as i was just doing design at the time. The result was that the link in yahoo kicked in to other directories and link schemes, making it self propogating, multiplying links as it went.

I dont know if its the case any more, but a link on yahoo seems to carry with it a lot of other links (given time) from sites which use the yahoo directory for their feed. I could be wrong of course, but in my opinion this makes it worth the chance of an outlay.

[jeepster]

Yes, Google respects you for paying for that inclusion.

You're actually not paying to be included, but paying to be reviewed and presumably Yahoo doesn't add sites that don't meet a specific review standard.

Regardless, as I've stated here for many years, I don't personally think that a Yahoo directory listing is worth the $299 per year. I'd spend that money on Adwords to do keyword research for what works and doesn't. Or some other forms of marketing.

In that case where do you stand on business.com? I've paid $299 for a business.com listing [about £180 in real money; so perhaps it doesn't hurt so much ] and my listing's on a PR5 page.
Do you think it's worth continuing with year-on-year for the link juice alone?

[Randy]

Treat it as if it were an advertising expense.

If you get enough referral traffic that turns into sales, keep it. If not, don't.

Besides which, didn't business.com start nofollow'ing most of their directory links a couple of years ago? Not that this should really matter since Google has known all along that those are paid placements. The possible difference being that Y! Directory's fee does not guarantee inclusion. I'm not sure what Business.com's stance is on that. If you pay do you always get a listing? Or do they still have the right to refuse your listing but keep your money?

In any case, if you treat it like an advertising expense and measure it against real traffic and real sales you can rarely go wrong.

[jeepster]

Treat it as if it were an advertising expense.

If you get enough referral traffic that turns into sales, keep it. If not, don't.

Besides which, didn't business.com start nofollow'ing most of their directory links a couple of years ago? Not that this should really matter since Google has known all along that those are paid placements. The possible difference being that Y! Directory's fee does not guarantee inclusion. I'm not sure what Business.com's stance is on that. If you pay do you always get a listing? Or do they still have the right to refuse your listing but keep your money?

In any case, if you treat it like an advertising expense and measure it against real traffic and real sales you can rarely go wrong.

Just had a look again and - as far as I can tell - business.com's sponsored links are no-followed but the others are not.
Rules are same as yahoo.com - no guaranteed inclusion.
My understanding was that quality directories can pass page rank and (other than dmoz) the best directories are paid, so why wouldn't business.com & yahoo come into that category?
And why have this in the introducton to this section of this forum?:
[url=http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showforum=21]Submitting to Directories[/url]
There's no need to submit to search engines anymore, but you do still need to submit to directories. Learn how to do it correctly the first time.

[Randy]

Submitting your site to directories can still help get the spidering started. Links from relevant directories, which are often smaller vertical niche directories, can still be helpful with gaining rankings. But they're far from the only link building one should do.

In even moderately competitive market sectors directory links alone aren't going to get you in the top 50 slots, let alone a top 10 ranking. It takes more.

That said, getting a few directory links isn't a bad thing to do. Just try not to become obsessed with it. And realize that if the submission requires payment Google may or may not give any value to those links. That's why you should treat them as if they were advertising, because in essence they are. They're advertising that need to pay for themselves.

[CDGUK]

I would by directories for traffic rather than organic seo benefits and if the latter happens its a bonus!