The Yahoo Directory

Is Submission to the Yahoo Directory Worth Your Money?

A good webmaster is always on the lookout for the best ways to improve their site’s exposure and get valuable traffic. Positive search engine rankings are an important part of such endeavors, and search engine marketing is the process of going about modifying the practices and content of your website in such a way as to affect your rankings on the search engine in a positive way.

The Yahoo Directory is the very first open directory of its kind available on the Internet. It is very similar to the Open Directory Project, or DMOZ, and rivals it in size. The cost to get listed in the Yahoo Directory is not low. As a matter of fact, it is currently around $300 per year to be listed in the Yahoo Directory, and many webmasters question whether this price is worth it. The question is whether the benefits outweigh this cost, and with every site, things are different.

What is Your Marketing Budget?

If your marketing budget is fairly high, it is very likely that $300 is a drop in the bucket compared to some other endeavors that businesses take to increase their traffic and organic search engine rankings. For those with a lower budget, $300 is a bit pricier—and such a webmaster has more to lose. The payment is required for commercial websites, but smaller sites can submit their sites free and wait in line to be reviewed. The fee pays for an ‘expedited review’ and addition to the Directory.

Check out those sites in your niche that directly compete with you. Have they been listed in the Yahoo Directory? If so, it may be worth your time to get listed yourself, so that they do not have that advantage over you.

The Directory Can Improve Your Search Engine Rankings

Those who do successfully submit their sites to the Yahoo Directory may very well see an increase in their search engine rankings. This is because the Directory itself has a positive Page Rank with Google, and being included in the Directory counts as a valuable link back to your site. Quality backlinks are important for those who are looking to increase their site’s Google Page Rank, and many other directories use the Yahoo Directory to populate themselves. As such, a webmaster may see a slow increase in their own Page Rank due to the back links that are generated from their participation in the Yahoo Directory.

Whether or not the Yahoo Directory’s expedited review is a worthwhile investment for your website is up to you. Many websites have benefited greatly from being included in the directory whereas other sites have seen no change. Those who are willing to give it a shot and have the money in their budget to do so may want to pay for the listing for a year and see the difference. If there is no difference, it is safe to say that the Yahoo Directory is not a worthwhile investment.

There are many directories out there that a site can be listed in free, and Yahoo is one of them. It is possible to carefully submit your site and have patience and hope for the best in lieu of making that hefty payment for submission. Other directories, like the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) may also be worth your time.

Still undecided? Consider trying out other directories that are cheaper or even free to be listed and see the results from that. Check out your competitors and make use of other search engine marketing techniques. From there, reconsider Yahoo if these other techniques don’t seem to be working.

Working to make a website successful is not easy. There are many different ways to get traffic and backlinks and the Yahoo Directory expedited review is only one of several. Keep your options open and have patience, and you may be able to save a bit of money in your marketing budget for other endeavors.

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