I just jumped from a poster who said on here that he paid $299 for a submission to Yahoo. I looked at the terms as a result. Here they are. To qualify for Yahoo! Directory Submit you must meet and accept all of the conditions below. Please note: Once you have suggested your site, either by category or by direct submission, it is still subject to review by the Yahoo! Directory team to determine if it meets our criteria for inclusion in the Yahoo! Directory. Do you think that at least one of the terms I've highlighted is stretching things a bit far? How could ANYONE guarantee a site is to be up 24/7/365? Even God would have problems with that one. Point I'm trying to make here is that in reality Yahoo could always throw that excuse at you if they decide not to list you. Is this fair?
Well no webhost that im aware of can guarantee 100% uptime and when they visit your site it could be when the host is having a few problems.
their own hosting says 99.9% uptime! i think they keep those tos strong to help them in the court, otherwise am sure most of those terms won't be exercised!
It's why companies like that aren't rich and most others aren't. Mind you at a push I'd say it fell under the unfair contracts act, and for $299 I would certainly go for it and would all but guarantee that Yahoo would fold before any court case becuase as people said in other threads, sometimes it just aint worth it.
If you pay- $299 for one year listing review and get rejected --that is completely legal and understandable. Because they mention it on their TOS. Directories do not sell links as post trollers perceive. Directory are there to review websites -and if those websites qualify to get listed on that directory according to their TOS. If qualify-- very good. If it does not qualify --it does not mean anything-- because the submitter is submitting after reading the TOS whereby the directory owner has clearly stated what the TOS is. But the directory owners--whether Yahoo Directory or JoeAnt or any other ABCD must have a clear TOS so that the submitter does not get wrong impressions that he can listed on PR***** page for $$$$***. Thats the lession I learnt. Bottomline--- Reviewing a site is the role of an individual directory owner or an editor of a directory. Not listing and thereby giving high PR link for some --f.....ng $$$.
remember that this directory was probably written some time in the 1990s, when uptime and bandwidth weren't really thought about (lots of offers back then for unlimited bandwidth and 24/7 uptime). I also think that Yahoo means that you're site is actually offering something or worth reading 24/7 (or whenever its online) - as in most of your site shouldn't be under construction, etc. From what I hear, they accept all sites that pay - unless you're site is offensive or contains porn (submitted to non-porn category) or something else that's bad they won't accept it -and will tell you why.
They really should at least give an explanation if rejects a site. But that is not even in the TOS. I feel that they simply try to make submitters agree on their TOS for their advantage. Once you agree to it, then there is no argument for you to make. They seem to demand too much for any submitter to be intimidated. Nevertheless, many businesses want to get listed in the directory. I think the power of popularity is that strong in their minds.
most websites are 24/7 if the hosting is quite reliable. Yahoo rejected submission due to other reason, IMO.
What do you know about GOD???? do you think after 1990s yahoo forgot to update their TOC and busy in reviewing new sites ?? funny isn't it
People I think you are reading way too much into this. I sincerely doubt that Yahoo is going to say "Oh Mr./Ms. Website Owner we are dropping your listing with us because on January 5th your site was offline for 5 minutes". It stands to reason that Yahoo doesn't want a bunch of broken links in their directory and they felt including some sort of uptime requirement will aid that goal. What do you think they should have put? Sites must be fully online 98% of the time? How about 90%? And do you think they want to mess around with keeping stats for every site in the directory to ensure a site indeed matches that standard? No matter how they would have worded that they want the site to be 100% functional and fully launched there would be someone who could say "But, what if?" I have little doubt that if you had a site down through no fault of your own and conveyed that information to Yahoo that they would work with you. If they truly dropped every site who had even 5 seconds of downtime their directory would be quite empty.
I wouldnt worry about that statement about uptime. Providing your site is up when a reviewer reviews it, it won't really matter.
It shouldn't but it could! Come on mikey, if your a student in Law you should know this? I studied in Cardiff Law school, you?
Yahoo cannot monitor your uptime. 100% uptime to them means whenever their editors check your sites its up. Nobody can promise 100% anything. They should get it sorted. You're right about it, but I expect few webmasters worry about it. The content of your site is much more important.
Exactly, so they shouldn't have the term in there which is what my gonnabe lawyer mates and I got rat arsed discussing.
Sorry Mikey, you left yourself open to this one. Somebody can promise 100% something. Yahoo promise a 100% rip off Isn't their directory just like another directory using the Dmoz listsings, just another mass duplication? As one listing - not always, but - tends to be listed on other variations of yahoo, such as region specific domains.