Yahoo! Directory Archives

On Thursday, we broke the news that the Yahoo Directory had no PageRank via a WebmasterWorld thread. Matt Cutts of Google quickly commented saying that the Yahoo Directory has a PageRank of 8. Matt was referring to the home page, which we said did have a PR value but not the internal pages.

Since then I have been tracking the discussion to find out that Matt added more details to the WebmasterWorld later on June 6th, saying although it appears the deeper pages do not have PageRank, they actually do. Matt said:

It looks like it's just a matter of canonicalizing upper vs. lowercase as to why some of the subdirectories look the way they do in the toolbar. I just wanted to reiterate that the Yahoo Directory has plenty of PageRank in our internal systems.

This just seems very weird to me. I guess it just proves that what we see in the Google Toolbar as a PageRank score can be very very wrong.

In any event, it is good to know that the Yahoo Directory has PageRank to pass around.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Just a few weeks ago, people started noticing that the Yahoo Directory lost Google PageRank. Well, not the home page of the Yahoo Directory, but the inside directory listing pages. The pages that link to your site and, in the past, past PageRank and link juice.

I am skimming through the pages, even the pages closest to the top of the directory are showing nothing in terms of Google PageRank. For example, the arts section or the WebmasterWorld thread it might be due to how the URLs are set up.

It seems to me that the Yahoo directory is grey barred because its got no pagerank, because the links from the home page http://dir.yahoo.com/ are all via non-search engine friendly redirects like: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dir/home/cats/*http://dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Travel/

But that doesn't completely jive with me. I know I have personally linked to many of the non-redirected linked versions of the directory pages. Some of those pages should have PageRank, no?

So is the Yahoo Directory still passing value? I assume many would say yes. What is up with the zero PageRank score for all the internal pages?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: I have posted an update named Google Says, Yahoo Directory Does Have PageRank.

We rarely talk about the Yahoo Directory these days, but Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal spotted Yahoo serving images near the sponsored listings within the Yahoo Directory.

For example, the NY Internet Consulting directory has tons of ads, most with images near them. Here is a screen capture.

Notice the top ad has a smaller image, and the ads on the right have slightly larger images. I have never seen Yahoo place images near sponsored ads. In fact, Yahoo specifically warned publishers to not put images near their contextual ads.

This is not the first time Yahoo placed images near their ads. They did display images near premium contextual ads in the past. But never in a search results setting, which includes directory listings.

Loren Baker explains that these images are not clickable and are hosted by worthathousandwords.com, aka. ImageAdvantage.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

I am seeing reports from both WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums that Yahoo is not supporting their own NOYDIR tag.

The NOYDIR is a tag you can use to tell Yahoo not to display your Yahoo Directory title in the Yahoo Search results. We have a few reports saying that Yahoo, all of a sudden, started showing the Yahoo Directory title for sites that have the NOYDIR tag on them.

Just this last few days Yahoo is ignoring this tag on my site:

<meta name="robots" content="noydir" />

And has reverted back to showing my Yahoo Directory title and description.

It is probably just a temporary bug.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread talks about how they noticed how the Yahoo! Directory pages are showing a PageRank score that is typically lower than what they showed in the past.

A member says based on that, "Looks like that $300 link was worthless."

As you know, it cost $299 per year to get reviewed to be included in the Yahoo! Directory. So he feels that the $299 he spent is not worth anything because the page with the link has a low PageRank.

Forum moderator, martinibuster, responds that it is not that simple.

Passing the review process of the Yahoo directory says something positive about a website. The toolbar doesn't reflect that.

I agree. Google knows Yahoo! tries their best to only include quality sites within their directory. Even if a page in the Yahoo! Directory has a low PageRank, it doesn't fully represent the importance of such a link.

I may be going off on an edge right now, but I believe that a Wikipedia link, even though they are nofollowed, can be valuable. If not today, I think down the road.

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to links. It is not just about PageRank or if the link is going through a redirect or even if it is nofollowed. It also depends on the source.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

David at Search Engine Roundtable Forums reports that Yahoo! has removed the directory (category) links from within the search results (directly under each search result.

A search on google at Yahoo! Search confirms this to be true. In the past the results looked like:

Notice the category link, which links the search result directly to the category it belongs to within the Yahoo! Directory. Now that seems to be gone for all searches I tested.

Same with a search on search engine roundtable:

Old Result:

New Result:

I tried several different searches that I knew returned the category link within the listings, and all are gone. I do not know if this is on purpose, or if this is just a Yahoo! test.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

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.

I pleaded with Yahoo in the past to Please Enable a No Yahoo! Directory Tag, and I am doing it again. It is especially important now, that Yahoo! adds support for this tag. Webmasters are confused, they think that because Google and MSN (Live.com) support a tag to force the engine not to use the ODP directory tag, that Yahoo! would support the same.

A WebmasterWorld thread shows several web site owners complaining that Yahoo! forces the Yahoo! Directory title in the search results.

It really sucks that they do that and the listings are so bland and one simply cannot change anything with them...we have tried to get them to change our listing, but they NEVER answer. That is highly irritating.

It is sad that you pay to get listed in the Yahoo! Directory and it can have a significant difference in your click through rate on your organic results.

More details at Yahoo! Please Enable a No Yahoo! Directory Tag.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Yahoo! has now added support for the NOYDIR tag, more details here.

Andy Hagans at the Link Building Blog wrote his Final Word on the Yahoo! Directory, saying the $299 per year for the listing is well worth the money. I tend to agree, I feel that the listing does add some level of trust to your organic results, be it Google, MSN or Yahoo!

There are some down sides to having the listing, if they screw up your title in the Directory, then you are stuck with it not just for the directory, but also for your the listing in the Yahoo! Search results. That is why I am still pleading with Yahoo! to please enable a No Yahoo! Directory Tag, I assume one day they will - maybe part of Yahoo! Site Explorer.

WE have also seen evidence that a listing may not be automatically removed after one year. Earlier this year, we had reports that Yahoo! Directory Listings Last Longer Then a Year for good or bad. If for some reason, a person find the Yahoo! Directory page, and you have a high popularity rank, you can outrank some of your competitors on that long list, because Yahoo! Directory Ranks Pages by Popularity. Heck, I am number three on the main category I am listed on, and I am number one in the New York region, outranking huge Web consulting firms like Agency.com, Razorfish, and others.

There were also loopholes to getting into the Yahoo! Directory, but if that doesn't work for you. There is a guy at DigitalPoint Forums who is guaranteeing listings in the Yahoo! Directory for only $60 and yes, people have been saying that this guy is delivering.

So the final word on the Yahoo! Directory, I agree - it is worth it, especially for $60.

Forum discussion at Cre8asite Forums and DigitalPoint Forums.

Every now and then I check the directory listings I have at Yahoo! to see what is up with them. I have bookmarked them ages ago and when I have some free time I check them out. I checked last night and noticed that Yahoo! has added the "Save to My Web" button to the top right corner of the pages.

Social search, online bookmarking, is found everywhere with Yahoo!. In Yahoo! Local, where I bookmark phone numbers I use every now and then and now in the directory, which gets less and less attention from Yahoo.

The little icon to me is very useful. If you want to see my listings you can check them out in the New York Consulting list or the generic Yahoo! Web Rank.

I posted a forum thread on if this is a new feature for the Yahoo! Directory or not at Search Engine Watch Forums.

A post by seo-ireleand at our forums named New look Yahoo Directory listings notifies us of a slight change to the UI of the Yahoo! Directory. Take a look at the Y! SEO Directory and see how it is incredibly spaced out, between results. I have attached a small screen capture and a larger screen capture to document it. I do not have a screen capture of the page before hand.

So it makes me wonder if it is really different. But I really thing there was a change to, at least, the spacing in the directory pages.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

It has been a long time since we mentioned anything about the Yahoo! Directory let alone any directory. I found this nice thread at HighRankings forum named Quit Yahoo Directory - Still Listed which shows that even if you do not renew your Yahoo! Directory listing, after the year is up, you can still continue to be listed.

One member reported;

I stopped paying long back..much over a year...maybe 2 years by now...still not been removed from the directory.....I also sent 2 requests to be removed.

Jill Whalen adds that it is "great when they remove them though, because then the lousy directory description doesn't show in the organic results any more!"

Forum discussion at High Rankings Forum.

There is a thread over at Search Engine Watch Forums where a new member asks the question, "Does Yahoo Directory use DMOZ listings as the supplementary listings?" My thoughts, as many who read the thread, was to dismiss it as a possibility. However, Danny Sullivan dug deeper into the topic and revealed a passage over at Overture Web Search Product Overview page. On that page, right below that 'spacy' image, it reads:

Yahoo! leverages the Open Directory Project (ODP) to further improve the user experience on distribution partner sites. ODP title, description and category meta data is used to enhance Yahoo!'s relevant search results.

ODP is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web with a global community of volunteer editors. For more details on the Open Directory Project, please visit dmoz.org.

Danny goes on to say; "My jaw pretty much dropped when I read that. I mean, you'd think they'd at least mention that they also use their own Yahoo Directory and give it a little credibility. Instead, Yahoo is saying on that page that the ODP is bigger and more comprehensive than its own directory." Danny then points to a WebmasterWorld thread from over a year ago, where Tim Mayer from Yahoo! said, in message # 6, "We are using the title and description data in case we cannot generate any from the page or have a title and description available in the Yahoo directory."

You would think that Yahoo! would drop ODP completely after moving off Inktomi technology.

The Yahoo! Directory has gone under some revisions. One such revision is that it now defaults the sorting of the directory listings by "popularity". What does "by popularity" mean? Well, in the Yahoo! Directory Help section it states;

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.

If Danny Sullivan didn't write an entry on this at the SEW blog, I might have missed the thread at the Search Engine Watch Forums. Danny has some nice points on why Yahoo! should not make the directory look and feel more like the Web search. Danny said, about the popularity ranking, "I've always felt that clickthrough measurement, along with perhaps some link analysis, was part of the secret sauce." I asked Tim Mayer about it, and he said he will get back to me, we will see.

The SEW Forum thread notes these changes:
1. The directory home page has changed. It now has a new look and feel.
http://dir.yahoo.com/
2. There are a lot of sites without descriptions.
3. There are a lot more internal links using the @ sybmol
4. Some of the listings are not showing up in the "websearch results" with a link to the directory category
5. A lot of new listings
6. RSS Feeds. I don't remember this before.
Edit/Delete Message

An other large change is the "Sites 1 - 40 of X", making people click the next button to see more results for that category.

It seems as if some people are disturbed that Yahoo! ranks its directory pages fairly high in the Yahoo! Search natural results. I have noticed this as well, but I can't seem to pull up any results (at the moment) where the a Yahoo! directory category is ranking in the top 10. I am sure I will find an example in the next day or two. In the thread, there are those that feel that the directory pages do not need to be listed in the Yahoo! results. I agree.

(1) If the results are relevant, those results with Yahoo! listing have a little link under them that reads "Category: [Yahoo! Directory Category Name Link]"
(2) The directory tab is at the top of every page, if the searcher wants directory results, they can click on it.
(3) They should clearly label Yahoo! Directory results as they do with Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! News, etc at the top of the page. In fact, I would find that useful.

Do you think Yahoo! has a little clause in the code that assigns a tad more weight towards the Yahoo! Directory categories? It would be unethical, dishonest and a conflict of interest if they did. Do any of you see ODP listings next to those Yahoo! Directory listings?

Cre8asite Forum added a new forum (or changed the name of an old forum, I forget) - Large-scale* Web Directories. The * stands for, This forum is for the discussion of large-scale web directories, such as DMOZ, Zeal, and similar. *A large-scale directory is one with more than 10 full-time (paid) editors, or more than 100 part-time or volunteer editors (note: self-submittors do not count as editors).

So you can expect directories such as Yahoo (paid), DMOZ (more then 100 volunteers) and other directories like those to be discussed in that forum.

A member over at HighRankings started a thread named  How To Get Listed On Yahoo, Easily And Cheap, Proven method, no Yahoo-express, which provides just that. Here is how it works.

(1) Sign up for an expired domain name service that show sites listed in the Yahoo! Directory
(2) Wait for the domain names to come into your inbox
(3) Purchase the domain name for several dollars
(4) Build up the site and content
(5) Call Yahoo asking them to switch the site into the new appropriate category. He said, just tell them you changed businesses and tell them that you forgot the email address you signed up under.
(6) Presto a free listing at least for the remainder of the service period, which could be for ever.

I am sure the Yahoo! Directory folks will patch this up shortly.

I had the opportunity to speak with Tim Mayer, Aaron Ferstman and Nancy Evars from Yahoo! Search after the last session of the day. Let me take you through the conversation in chronological order, as best as I remember it.

After the "Search Engine Friendly Design and Coding (Especially Flash)", which Tim spoke at, I met up with Aaron at the speakers platform. Aaron was waiting for Tim to finish answering individual attendee questions. Aaron and I discussed the normal stuff you discuss with people when you first meet them. We discussed the fact that people in California like to buy big 4 wheel drive SUVs and how people in New York like to buy small fast cars. I myself just leased the Lexus SC430 (sporty convertible), and as you know, it does not drive well in the snow - you also probably know that New York tends to get its share of snow. We just found it funny that people in Cali like cars that are more suited to New Yorkers and New Yorkers like cars that are more suited for Californians.

After the car talk, we discussed what it takes to speak at these conferences, especially as a representative from the search engines. I commented that Tim does an excellent job. We agreed that these speakers need to be politicians. Soon after, Tim was ready for a cigarette so he pushed his way (being dramatic - he did not push anyone) out the conference room out onto the street where he can get a breath of fresh air (or cigarette). There Tim, Aaron and Nancy sat to talk about various topics.

We discussed the Yahoo! Search Blog, which Nancy works on and the conversations ultimately lead to Jeremy Zawodny, who will be arriving tomorrow, and his blog. Jeremy is known to say things in his personal blog which ruffel the feathers of some of the more corporate types over at Yahoo!, but overall it seems to me that most of the people over at Yahoo! are fairly relaxed. After meeting Tim, I get that impression.

The blog conversation moves on to, of course, to comment spam. Yahoo! Search Blog, as you know, allows for commenting - as opposed to Google's blog. Jeremy has a lot of experience with blogging and he uses MT Blacklist to fight comment spam on his blog as well as the Yahoo! Search Blog. Tim made a comment that he was at some bar with the WMW crew and one mentioned that they tried to comment spam Jeremy's blog. Of course Jeremy blocked the comment spammer from doing so in the future. But another WMW folk said that if he was spamming blogs, he would make sure not to spam a Yahoo! employee's blog.

We then discussed ThreadWatch.org, NickW's blog, Tim loves reading it. Tim finds ThreadWatch to be more of a forum then a blog, I see his point - but I disagree. We discussed giving ThreadWatch.org a link on the left hand navigation of the Yahoo Search Blog site. I think it might happen in the near future. From ThreadWatch we moved onto forums. We discussed some of the exciting threads, such as the one about how people post spammers in order to show Yahoo! and Google who the spammers are. Tim kind of hinted that he wouldn't do anything manually when he finds such a thread. Of course he could not comment on Google's behalf.

I then asked Tim about all the PM's he gets or Sticky Mails (as they are referred to at WMW). He says he gets some of the funniest things. One story he told me was about this Sticky he got from someone who basically copied content off another site and complained that his site was not listed. After Tim responded to the member who sent him the sticky mail, the member responded that he was a cab driver and he should give him a break. Of course, Tim knew that this person was not a cab driver - so he found the whole situation funny.

That conversation lead to how Yahoo! handles the re-inclusion of pages that were delisted. He said that you can email an address and Yahoo! should review it within 2 weeks or so. He gave me specific examples of such cases, but no need to mention them here. At first, he explained, Yahoo! was bombarded with requests for re-inclusion (this occurred after Yahoo! merged all the other engines into one). But now, a re-inclusion request should be reviewed quickly.

Then the Yahoo folks split up and I walked with Tim back to the Hilton. During the walk, we talked more about giving NickW that link on the Yahoo Search Blog and some football talk. Tim is a Steelers fan, I myself am a Jet fan (yes I know). We talked a bit about how we used to run rotisseries before it was all automated on the Web. He used to fax back and forth sheets between people. I actually had my brother write small programs to help keep track of the stuff.

As we approached the Hilton, we talked about how Yahoo's Blog links to Google's blog and how MSN's blog links to both Yahoo's Blog and MSN's Blog. But you do not see Google linking to either Yahoo or MSN. :) Which lead us to talk about those Google bombs, and the recent "more evil than Satan", when queried at MSN Search Beta brought up Google. Of course the engines play games with each other, and he shared some funny stories with me on that. At that point we exchanged cards and parted ways.

It was nice meeting the folks at Yahoo. Nancy was nice to talk to, real smart and fun. Aaron is an all around nice guy, seems very hard working and honest. Tim has way too much fun over at Yahoo!, seems way to laid back and, to be serious, is an excellent communicator.

A thread at WebmasterWorld named Has anybody listed Affiliate site in Yahoo directory? confirms that people have successfully listed affiliate sites in the Yahoo! directory. Senior Member Patrick Deese said:

If you have an affiliate site just make sure that you have lots of unique content that other sites in the same cat/directory don't offer.

If you have a ton of "template" content from the merchant you are not likely to be listed.

For $299 per year, why shouldn't they list your affiliate site? Of course, pure spam pages should not be listed.

Have you noticed that since mid April, Yahoo! Search has been using the Yahoo! directories description, if available? Here is a sample of what it looks like in the SERPs for my corporate site.

People at WebmasterWorld find this to be a tad unfair. As one member says, "The ordinary "new Yahoo" search description is much more complete and helpful, and substantially more likely to provide the searcher with a complete sense of the site's focus and content."

Tim Mayer from Yahoo! responds to that with "From my perspective as a searcher I agree with you. Some people's view is that it is query dependant. From a content providers perspective I have heard many times that they do not like the directory T&D. We had the same problem with the Looksmart directory listings in the Inktomi Index. People unsubscribed from Looksmart just to get rid of the T&D in Inktomi."

"Yahoo_Mike" an other Yahoo! representative responded 4 days ago with "We are reviewing this process to provide additional ways for sites to be listed rather than always using the directory information."

I agree, the Yahoo! directory description is not as good as the Yahoo! Search description. Let's see if they respond quickly to the SEMs feedback at WebmasterWorld.

Do you have a non-profit informational site, like this one, that you want to be listed in the Yahoo! Directory for free? If so, you can get listed for free. A thread at SEO Chat named free yahoo directory listing discusses just that.