$299 a year for Yahpoo

OH MY GOD!!!!

They want nearly $30 a month! A MONTH to deliver what exactly?

Nothing tangible... from an engine that is only used by 20% of the people...

Either this is the highest rip off on the planet... or this is a sure fire way to up your SERPS with them.. or its an elite... PAY IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT AND WE WILL REWARD YOU type arrangement..

Any thoughts. Seriously that is an incredible amount of money for absolutely no visible tangible or printed results.

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I found this blog saying pretty much the same



Yahoo Directory Listing - Is it worth it?

Following on from Wedensday's blog entry regarding the MSN DMOZ opt-out meta tag, I've had a couple of questions today regarding the advantages and disadvantages of being listed in the Yahoo directory, namely from Victoria from professional CV specialists, V and J Associates and Matthew from the online wedding stationery site, Perfect Wedding Store.
Most SEOs would give the advice that being listed in the Yahoo directory is a worthwhile investment and it may be if your site is poorly optimised and you have no links pointing to it from other sites, but if your site is well written, well optimised and you are willing to put a bit of time into building links to the site, I don't see the need to be listed in the Yahoo directory. Kenkai has never paid for inclusion in the Yahoo directory and 15% of our business comes directly from the Yahoo search engine results. We have never used pay-per-click either, so all of our business comes from organic results. I'm not saying for a second that there are no advantages to being listed on the Yahoo directory, but the disadvantages, in my humble opinion, outweigh the advantages.
Advantages of being listed on the Yahoo Directory

• A Yahoo Directory link is a trusted link, having been reviewed by a human editor before inclusion and being almost spam-free.
• You automatically get a link from the other English speaking Yahoo directories, of which there are ten.

Disadvantages of being listed in the Yahoo Directory

• It costs $299 for an editor to even look at your site and there is no guarantee that your site will be included - and it's a non-refundable payment, whether you get in or not.
• It's virtually impossible to make changes to your listing unless there is a spelling mistake and even then, it can take several weeks before any change is made.
• You cannot optimise your Title or Description, so you can end up with a listing that simply features the name of your company and a dreary description of your product or service. Even if you try to get away with a little bit of optimisation, the Yahoo Directory editors can change your title and description to whatever they want and you have no control over the changes.
• Yahoo's organic search engine often replaces your well honed index page title and description with the bland directory editor title and description, which not only attracts fewer clicks, it can affect your your search engine position dramatically.

I have a direct example of the negative side of the Directory listing, with one of my clients, Essential Health, who are a health insurance intermediary. They are still on the front page of the UK versions of Google and MSN for their main search terms, health insurance, medical insurance, private health insurance, group health insurance, etc. and held number one and page one positions for these terms on Yahoo. Then Yahoo chose to replace the index page listing with the Yahoo Directory listing and PMI-Scot lost their positions overnight. I'm currently trying to find away to get Yahoo to change back to the index page listing, but other than asking them to remove the Yahoo Directory listing altogether, I'm hitting a brick wall at every turn. If anyone has found a solution to this problem, please drop me an email and advise, I'd be ever so grateful.
There is no one answer to the Yahoo Directory listing question, and I would never come out and say that under no circumstances should you get your site listed, but I'm not convinced that it's worth three hundred dollars, or that the risk to your standing in Yahoo, if you have your index page listing replaced by the Yahoo directory listing, is worth the risk.
Have a great weekend.
The Big Man

Yeah a lot of people speculate to what it actually does. Some guys swear by it. I personally think, if you have the money to throw around I'd try it out.

This is a total rip! I mean come on. Use your own SEO tactics and look around the forum. Tons of stuff 10x more helpful than this and there FREE! I would never use something like this personally but proceed with caution. You can try it out but make sure you can get a refund or something worth while if it doesn't work to its standards and figure out do you get results equal to $30.00.

Thanks,
Austin

I have two Yahoo stores...and mixed feelings. I can tell you that it doesn't help your SERP standings because you are a Yahoo store, so that's right out. On the other hand, if $300 per year is going to make or break you, then you're probably right not do it. Awesome customer support. You get your own personal rep to call if you have an issue or need guidance. Great tech support staff. You never have to worry that it's going to suddenly "be gone" or just crash and lose everything you've done. Not for everyone, but it works for some.

I think you are talking about something else mate...i think OP is talking about having a link listing in the yahoo directory for seo purposes.

cmyer said:

I have two Yahoo stores...and mixed feelings. I can tell you that it doesn't help your SERP standings because you are a Yahoo store, so that's right out. On the other hand, if $300 per year is going to make or break you, then you're probably right not do it. Awesome customer support. You get your own personal rep to call if you have an issue or need guidance. Great tech support staff. You never have to worry that it's going to suddenly "be gone" or just crash and lose everything you've done. Not for everyone, but it works for some.

Click to expand...

I think that it's worth mentioning that I wrote the original blog article that has been quoted above, some five and a half years ago, although my thoughts on Yahoo's directory listing value has remained the same throughout that period and won't be changing anytime soon.

With all of the awesome SEO programs you can find just on this forum alone, paying 300 bucks for a yahoo listing is CRAZY!! But who cares about my opinion righthwell:

I think you are better off trying your luck with DMOZ than wasting a whole $300 on one submission that doesn't guarantee a listing or a refund. DMOZ might take several weeks to get in but it is free (it took me 2 weeks to get in, after 5 years of trying).

On the other hand $300 could go to a VPS package from Hostamus that has SENuke/xRumer etc preinstalled on it (the package has been mentioned on here somewhere, just can't remember where). I think it costs $400 if you want to pay annually or $70 a month. That $400 will get alot more $$$$ back for you than a non guaranteed Yahoo Directory submission will ever get you.

About 10 years ago, I made a site in about two days, was a membership site, submitted it to Yahoo Dir, once excepted, site made $1000-$2000 per month, and I never did a thing on the site again. Kicking myself for not scaling it up 100x.