Are Yahoo Dir Links Still Worth It?, Are Yahoo Dir Links Still Worth It? Options

[stephenmunday]

It seems that when building links these days, you have to look at getting "trustworthy" links, not just high PR links. (I know this is a simplification, but let's just let that stand for the moment.)

Now, the Link Building Blog had a great post here: [http://www.linkbuildingblog.com/2005/10/top_ten_web_dir.html][/url] linking to a post at [http://www.webuildpages.com/directory/#newer] that has a list of the best directories to get links from to give your site a good boost of link "trust".

I admit I was quite surprised to see that both recommended Yahoo Directory, even though a while ago they changed their linking method from a direct link to a redirect that looks like this, to pick a random example:

[http://rds.yahoo.com/S=7978418:D1/CS=7978418/SS=7539995/SIG=10rqrbm1l/*http%3A//www.itccars.com/]

A quick look down the recommended lists on those two pages I referred to will show you that Yahoo' Directory costs a lot more than any other similar site.

My question is: If Yahoo's Directory is not linking directly to my site, will I get any benefit in terms of PR or Trust?

You guys tend to know about this stuff. What do you think?

This post has been edited by Jill: Aug 10 2006, 04:29 AM

[qwerty]

I still recommend it for clients who have a decent enough budget. For what it's worth, even Google recommends getting a listing there, and they're the competition:

Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

Does that mean it helps with your ranking in Google? No, but my personal belief (note -- belief) is that spending money on promoting a site should, and perhaps someday will be viewed by search engines as an indication that you're serious about the site, much like registering a domain name for a period significantly longer than one year.

[Debra]

My question is: If Yahoo's Directory is not linking directly to my site, will I get any benefit in terms of PR or Trust? You guys tend to know about this stuff. What do you think?

I went over to the Y!Directory and found all the pages I checked with clean links, here's an example:

http://dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Outdoors/Birding/Blogs/ PR6

You have to go down into the category listings themselves to get into the Directory, it appears you used the search box.

[stephenmunday]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the feedback. Especially if Google is still recommending it then (unless G is slow at updating its webmaster advice), then these links must be something their robots can follow just as clean links.

Regarding debra's comment:

I went over to the Y!Directory and found all the pages I checked with clean links, here's an example:

http://dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Outdoors/Birding/Blogs/ PR6

The URLs to each section of the directory are clean. What I am referring to is the links to each of the sites within that part of the directory, which are as per the example I posted. Run your mouse over a few of the links to specific sites in the directory section above and you will see what I mean.

[qwerty]

Especially if Google is still recommending it then (unless G is slow at updating its webmaster advice), then these links must be something their robots can follow just as clean links.

I wouldn't say that, but that doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile listing to have.

[Debra]

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/001834.html
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3369651

Note: you need to belong to the subscriber area of SEW to read the SEW link above.

Both articles will answer the rds.yahoo questions.

Stephen - I found itccars in the Directory:

http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/Ja...ess/Automotive/

The page is in the G index.

This post has been edited by Debra: Aug 11 2006, 09:25 PM

[Jill]

Also there are lots of previous threads here on whether a yahoo listing is worthwhile. IMO, it hasn't been worthwhile at $299 per year for many, many, years now.

[sonnyyu]

short answer for Yahoo's Directory give benefit in terms of PR is: No (302 link(s))

[seadog]

short answer for Yahoo's Directory give benefit in terms of PR is: No (302 link(s))

The one's I tried were 301's

[qwerty]

I'm seeing 302s on links to sites found by drilling down into the directory.

[Everett Sizemor]

I did a test with about ten clients at the last agency I worked for. Half were submitted just to the Yahoo Directory (these were sites that had been up for awhile) and the other half were submitted to a select list of five other directories. The end cost actually ended up being about the same, although a couple of the smaller directories were a one-time fee, so in the long run it was cheaper.

The result was that submitting to the five smaller directories ($30 - $50 range kicked Yahoo's butt all up and down the field. We saw about a 5% - 10% increase in the amount of terms showing up on the first three pages of the three major search engines with the sites that were submitted to the smaller directories. The five sites that were included in the Yahoo Directory were pretty much flatlined with little or no change.

I will NEVER pay $300 to be included in that directory. Well, never say never, but at this point in time I don't see the logic in it.

[qwerty]

Did you also track direct traffic from the directories? I'd be very interested in seeing any trends regarding that.

[Debra]

Bob, can you show me?

I'm seeing 302s on links to sites found by drilling down into the directory.

[qwerty]

Sure. From the home page of the directory, go to Health, then Education. The second listing is for a neuroscience tutorial at http://thalamus.wustl.edu/course/

The link to it from the directory is rds.yahoo.com/S=140647:D1/CS=140647/SS=2781150/SIG=1158dt6ct/*http%3A//thalamus.wustl.edu/course/

I run that through WebBug and I get

CODE

HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 20:00:59 GMT
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0, no-cache
P3P: policyref="http://p3p.yahoo.com/w3c/p3p.xml", CP="CAO DSP COR CUR ADM DEV TAI PSA PSD IVAi IVDi CONi TELo OTPi OUR DELi SAMi OTRi UNRi PUBi IND PHY ONL UNI PUR FIN COM NAV INT DEM CNT STA POL HEA PRE GOV"
Location: http://thalamus.wustl.edu/course/
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html

[stephenmunday]

You guys are great. This information is priceless. I particularly find the Yahoo Directory v. 5 smaller directoies argument extremely compelling. Thank you all so much.

:applause:

:offtopic:

As you can see from my posting habits, I have been a member for a while, but since I started, I have been away at another [unnamed] forum posting there. However, although that other forum seems to be getting more and more members, the quality of responses has gone way down, it seems. I posted this same question on that forum and received precisely no responses at all.

So here I am, back at High Rankings - and I am impressed!