21 replies to this topic

[mrdch]

Hello,

Is it was still worth paying the $299 fee for a Yahoo! listing?

IMHO there is no yes/no answer to it. It would depend very much on the nature of the site, the value of a 'sell' (if the site does sell stuff), the time pressure to generate visitors and such like. In fact - it is certainly related to your budget If that sum of money was not a significant part of the marketing budget, I see no harm in paying for one year. Then, the results should speak for themselves and indicate if it is worth paying for a renewal or not.

Having said that, I suspect that the sum involved is NOT inconsiderable, otherwise you probably wouldn't have bothered asking the question in the first place. If so, I think that you sould at least consider the other directories, some of which were mentioned already. Another directory, Gimpsy, will consider your application within 72 hours and promote your site (if approved) for 90 days, all for the one-off fee of less than 10% of Yahoo's annual charge Moreover - you can even save that money and submit for free, but then the review will take significantly longer.

Hope that helps!

MC

[HorseCove]

Hi Guys,

Thought I'd chime in with my two bits.

Magnolia - nice name BTW - you asked if it makes sense to pay $299 for a Yahoo listing.

Let me ask another question. If something CAN help a site and it's perfectly legal and it's not terribly expensive, is there any good reason not to do it?

If you have a client in a highly competitive area, they need every advantage to make a difference.

Why wouldn't you pay $299 for a link that might help move them move up in the rankings. The higher ranking could result in more profits for the company. So the link could pay for itself many times over.

I think we all agree that a Yahoo link is certainly valuable - both as a link and for branding.

There may be some sites that are so well established they don't need the Yahoo link. However, I don't take anything for granted when it comes to my clients. I always recommend a Yahoo listing.

Chris

[Jill]

Yes, Chris, but what about the fact that you end up with Yahoo's usually lousy description (just a company name) with one that you can control yourself through your Title tag?

To me, having a Yahoo listing at the moment, can in many cases be a hindrence, more than a help.

Now, if they didn't remove your Title and put their edited one it, I would rethink my recommendation.

Jill

[HorseCove]

Jill, maybe we need to start an SEO poll and show Yahoo how much money they are losing because many SEOs won't pay the $299 listing if they can't have more influence on the Title.

There will be Yahoo reps at the Conference next week, let's corner one and talk to them. Money talks.

[qwerty]

Yahoo just went on a bit of a shopping spree: Inktomi is theirs, as is Overture, and along with Overture came ATW and AV. We don't know yet how or when they're going to put all of that to use.

I doubt they're going to drop their directory, but I think it would be unwise to spend $299 on something when you have no way of knowing how it's going to fit into a very big picture.

[Jill]

My feeling is they must not have valued that $299 all that much, or decided it wasn't worth $299 a piece to sacrafice relevancy. I'm sure they know exactly how much they're losing since they made the change. I assume they must feel it's worth losing that money anyway because of other considerations.

A link from Yahoo is simply that, a link. There are lots of places to get links!

Jill

[toprank]

We've been ranking quite well without a Yahoo directory listing and a few months ago took a stab at it. In our case, the company name as the title is fine, but our ranking on Google for certain terms went down after the Yahoo directory was picked up by Google. Our listing on Google for "online marketing" went from #5 to #22. It may have been something else, but I am inclined to advise budget-concious clients not to bother with the $299 and to put that investment elsewhere.

BTW Jill, Thank you Thank you for your newsletter and your forum!