How Does The Yahoo! Directory Rank Sites?

A WebmasterWorld thread asks how Yahoo! ranks sites within the Yahoo! Directory. As I explained years ago with Yahoo! Directory Ranks Pages by Popularity, but let's look at an example close to home.

Yahoo! has a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Resources section, where they list out sites included in the directory in order of "popularity." Here is it...

What makes one site more popular than the next? Let's look at another example close to home. The Internet Consultants New York section has my business ranking number one, above Agency and Razorfish.

Let's analyze...

RustyBrick.com has 70,032 external links via Site Explorer.
Agency.com only has 7,782 external links via Site Explorer.
But Evolution.com has a whopping 152,059 external links via Site Explorer.

So why isn't Evolution.com number one?

Let's look at the SEO category:

Search Engine Watch has 213,437 external links via Site Explorer.
WebmasterWorld has 275,587 external links via Site Explorer.
SEOBook has 283,855 external links via Site Explorer.
Search Engine Roundtable has 239,111 external links via Site Explorer.

All about the same.

How does Yahoo! define popularity?

By default, Directory site listings are presented sorted by popularity and relevance. Sites that are most popular with users or the most relevant to the category appear at the top of the site listings. The order of web sites or web documents is based upon Yahoo! Search Technology. If the category is large, the listings will display over multiple pages with pagination displayed at bottom of the page.

Sagerock at the WebmasterWorld suggest it is about click popularity. But I suspect it is a bit more detailed based on Yahoo! saying, "order of web sites or web documents is based upon Yahoo! Search Technology."

They can easily apply a popularity algorithm to the Directory and order pages by that. Now if we knew exactly how the popularity algorithm worked, then you know...

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Like The Story? Vote For It On Yahoo Buzz! Or On Sphinn!

posted rustybrick in Yahoo! Directory at February 20, 2007 7:28 AM Comments (8)

Comments

Its simple click popularity, always has been (atleast since they stopped listing alphabetically), thats why Yahoo records click-throughs.

A way to influence it is to sponsor a category with a new site. Clicks on those sponsored listings will contribute to your overall popularity and once you read enough popularity to be listed high naturally you can stop the sponsoring and you should hold onto the position since being listed high self reinforced your click popularity.

Also it isn't just directory clicks, but clicks from Yahoo's search engine as well. So if you're listed well in the search engine it is pretty easy to climb the directory popularity ranks.

Posted by Chris Beasley at February 20, 2007 10:34

I do really rubbish in the UK search engine optimization services category, I am on the 5th page out of 5, I look at some of the companies on pages 2-4 and my site is well-more popular then all of them in every sense of the word, I haven't been able to fuigure out the algo at all, thanks for the info. about sponsoring a category Chris, I think I will give that a go.

Posted by David Eaves at February 20, 2007 13:52

It seems to me that Yahoo likes what Google does not a year ago I tryed with one of my sites linking to anything and everything google hammered me but with in 2 months I was number one on yahoo.

Posted by Paul at February 21, 2007 08:31

I have a Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorneys site and noticed once I got on the first page of Yahoo! and got a directory listing, I stayed on the first page. I would agree Yahoo! is looking for click popularity, whereas Google is looking for "relevant sites" linking to your page. Whatever that means. I think Google is trying to slowly force you to buy pay per clicks for top ranking. This is because Google now says it "knows" if you are "buying" sponsored links to influence its serach engine and is now devaluing those sites. In other words, unless you but from Google you cant influence Google PR. I think Yahoo! will take over again because Google will sell a pay per click even to a porn site. This means relevant sites soon won't matter as long as you pay Google

Posted by Mike at February 21, 2007 11:58

yahoo used to use click popularity. however their links are no longer to redirects that track clicks, and there's no javascript/etc to track clicks in the directory. this was done years ago. my guess is that they now have a 3rd party source of info. maybe alexa?

Posted by erik at April 1, 2007 02:33

Does Yahoo still use popularity? I am starting my website, www.azizipersonalinjury.com Do you have any suggestions as to how I can move up in ranking. Thanks

Posted by David Azizi at September 9, 2008 03:19

How does one site becomes popular over the other is practically not in our hands. It's in Yahoos. Personally, i am clueless.

Posted by Cali at October 9, 2008 03:08

It's all about Google.

Posted by Kevin D. at February 1, 2009 17:07

How Does The Yahoo! Directory Rank Sites?

Comments

Post a comment (Note: Can Take 120 Seconds For Your Comment To Show Up)

Recent Table Activity

SEM Forum Threads

Sponsored Links