How much benefit is there in buying into the yahoo directory?

Can I count on a significant increase in traffic? Is it a scam to take $200 from my advertising budget?

What did inclusion in the yahoo directory do for you?

 

This probably needs to be moved to the directoy forum, but I didnt see an area for the yahoo directory.

Another question on this...

If I was to submit my site to this directory, and lay out the $300.00, would it be a good idea to disable coop ads during that time? Or would it matter? I dont want something like that to cause me to not get listed.

 

I'd say it depends what category you're trying to get into, how crowded it is, the PR on that page, etc. If you can fit it in your budget you should get listed. Just listing in the Yahoo Dir. will help you get additional links and some traffic. Some people think there's a lot of other places more beneficial to list in for $299.

 

Not huge traffic but you will see a slight serp boost and that will help even more.

 

Significant increase in traffic? In a top level category that is considered a pretty popular category, I get between 100 to 200 visitors a month from the directory- and from others I know, that is more than they receive. It's a PR7 pages with about 25 listings, including major branded sites.

It is my personal belief that the co-op triggered a filter causing me not to be included in natural SERPS. The site doesn't run co-op, only has minor weight pointing to it. The listing did seem to get the site reindexed, but no increase in SERPS after about 3 months. I have older, more established sites that seem to have not been affected by co-op weight, probably even benefited from from it. I believe it is because I have a high percentange of other relevant links for those sites. Yahoo states that a directory listing may result in somewhat better SERPS- I just haven't experienced it. A listing does not guarantee any increase in SERPS.

I think it depends on what your annual budget is for promotion. If $300 is a major portion, I wouldn't go for a listing. If you spend $2,000 to 3,000 a year, I would say you should consider it. When I applied for the listing, I requested a category and they stuck me in another. I requested a change to the original category and they honored it immediately.

 

The market is extremely crowded, and the first two pages are almost all sites that are in the directory.

the $300 isnt a big deal per year, as long as the investment is worth the cost. I have heard positives and negatives in the past, but not much recent discussion about it since yahoo started using its on information for search engines.

 

It is all going to depend on how much business your site does. To a large site doing hundreds of thousands of year, it is probably worth it. To a site doing a much smaller gross, there are probably better places to spend your money. You are going to get some people who say "don't do it" and other's who say they "always do it".

Of course, the only real way to know is to try it. If you are serious about building that site into something large, then I would try it. I believe they even allow you to use a tracking url. You are in the best position to make that decision. IMO, $300 is a very small amount to experiment with but I wouldn't expect it to make any type of huge difference. I've been running sites since '97 and have never heard anyone say the "Yahoo directory" was the key a sites success.

 

I will be submitting tonight, and hoping for the best. Thanks for all the input you guys have given on the subject.

I noticed this digitalpoint is in the directory. Not sure if it was a paid inclusion or not though.

 

Well, after submitting on the 25th, I got an email today saying I was accepted in the directory, and the site should start showing up within 2-4 days.

Now to see what kind of benefit, if any, comes from it.

 

Sportsoutlaw,
Would appreciate to know what impact the directory listing had for you. I'm thinking of paying to get into the Y directory, but can't weigh up if it's worth the $299 when I could spend it elsewhere.

 

It is very early, but here are the changes I have seen. Are they a result of the yahoo directory? I dont know.

I was totally knocked out of the competition for a keyword phrase a while back. not in the top 200 via DP ranking tool. after I got in the directory, just 2 days later, I jumped in at #89, and today I am at #83. In the past, before getting knocked out, I had been at #10 - #13.

Another big keyword phrase, climbed from #9 to #3.

Changes in google....

• pages indexed, via site: - pre-directory, I showed 500-800 pages indexed, depending on what data center I got thrown to. I am currently showing 17,300 pages.
• per the DP tool (using API) - I showed 477 pages, now I am showing 10,500.
• also getting some minor climbs in the SERP's.

It has only been 2 days since I got my site showing in the directory though, so it is a little early to tell what the benefits are. This is just what I am initially seeing, and these changes may or may not be due to the directory. I will say though, in almost 2 years, I have never been able to get my paged indexed in google to reach over 870. 17,300 is still far less than half, but it is very nice to finally see something.

 

That sounds great SportsOutlaw, it would be a huge coincidence in my humble opinion for your rankings and indexing to change so dramatically and Yahoo Directory had nothing to do with it.

Please keep us posted as to you success, this is very interesting and I for one would really appreciate it.