Is Yahoo Directory worth $299?

In August I paid $299 to be featured in the directory and for an entire week afterward I was bombarded with phone calls and emails from people wanting to sell their services because they saw me featured at Yahoo. After that I have had absolutely no response. Is it worth it?

 

If you're looking at its value in terms of backlink, I can get much more quality backlinks from other sources with $299.

 

I bet I could to but I figured I'd give it a shot and see what it could do for my website. I am not really impressed with it.

 

We had two of our products featured in Yahoo shopping, We received it free after complaining about poor service and our products not being included in their price compare (Kelkoo). I was told the full price should have been £240 a month plus ppc and we received two months free (but not ppc).
Our traffic increased greatly but sales unfortunately did not, I would of cried my eyes out if I paid £480 for the featured items and I certainly would not recommend!

 

I don't normally use it but I've done a lot of asking.
My take is that about 50% of those in the know say to use it and the other say it's not worth the money.
I guess I'll ahve ot try a real test of my own someday.

 

Do you have lots of top10 rankings in Yahoo ? Do you do a lot of PPC (more then $2000 per month) ? If either of these is a yes, I would spend the $299. If not, forget it for now.

The reason for my points are:

1. If you have lots of top10 rankings, the yahoo directory listing will give you .00001 extra point of merit, and sometimes that is what is needed to get one or more steps above your competitors currently listed above you.

2. If you spend over $24k per year on PPC, reduce it by less then 1% and make it $23.7k and spend the $299 on this directory listing because it may send you that much of targetted traffic or more visibility.

Keep in mnd, my suggestions vary from one industry to another, and I just tried to spend a few minutes and make it a little more generic to help you decide.

I could also add another point. Do you spend upwards of $1000 per month on link building ? If yes, spend the $299 on this directory listing.

I hope this helps.

 

$299 could be spent creating unique content or even paying someone to buy oneway permantent links. Or you could use it to set up a bunch of satellite sites that send traffic to your central site.

I have have a couple of Yahoo listings in fairly deep and specific categories, but I have to say that neither have sent any noticeable traffic. However, both these links were added before the annual subscription was introduced, so I'm happy enough to keep them.

I would also be concerned if a link from the directory even passes authority. Don't they use some sort of tracking like http://rds.yahoo.com/S=3597150:D1/CS=3597150/SS=19892463/SIG=10q3i6nlo/*http://www.example.com/

 

Good question. I have another question that is somewhat related. I noticed a ton of business advertisements that charge a ton. I often wonder if the amount of money paid actually brings more profit? I cannot see spending $5000 dollars or so and earning back more then that amount in sales.

 

Hell no...

When is the last time you used a directory to find something, other then checking to see if your site got listed??? Directories are only good for SEO and I would not be surprise if the value of links from directories would eventally dimission to nothing. For now shoot for the Free/Recipical directories that is what I did and it help me surpass my compeition in SERP. Also vary your archor text to hit mulitple search terms.

Sinking $299 into Yahoo.dir is just a waste. Why not give it to me . i will make far better use of it.

 

It's more than worth it if you know the editor and he makes sure you get a good listing. Or are well prepared when it comes to submitting. otherwise: save your money and go for a few of the smaller directories instead

 

Nice suggestions Mike.