How to get your website listed in the Yahoo! Directory and Yahoo! Search Engine

Advice on how to get your site registered in the Yahoo! directory and Yahoo Search Engine.

   Search Yahoo! Directory
Yahoo Directory Submission Info

As of March 2005, Yahoo has four options for placement in their network. They come down to free or paid.

Free Yahoo! Placement

• FREE Submit. Or the Site Explorer submission. Free submission to the Yahoo Search Engine (not the Yahoo! Directory!).
  
  There is no guarantee of process time or placement, but no cost either. There is no free way to be listed in their directory.

Paid Yahoo! Placement

Yahoo! offers you many ways to give them money if you want to. Before you do so, we recommend using their site explorer tool (more data about this tool available below) to review which pages are already indexed by Yahoo without payment. We cover these in greater detail on our Overture/Yahoo! Search Marketing page. Amongst these, you can pay for placement in the directory, the search results, or their sponsored listings.

• Yahoo! Search Marketing - Search Submit Express -- Paid submission to the Yahoo Search Network, entry into the standard search results.
  
  In February 2004, Yahoo! stopped using Google search and switched to their own search engine.

  Yahoo! search is different than the results you get when you search the Yahoo! Directory. Yahoo! search has risen to become second only to Google in popularity since it was released.

  However, Yahoo, unlike most other search engines, is a pay-for-inclusion search engine where you pay for each clickthrough to your site. Becayse Yahoo! still offers a free submission method and still actively crawls the web, you should try the unpaid route first. This is because Yahoo! is currently the most expensive of the search engines to pay for placement in.
  
  Yahoo!'s paid search placement used to be known as Site Match, and was an Overture service. Overture was re-branded as Yahoo! Search Marketing, then as Yahoo! Marketing Solutions. The name has changed a few times but the details have not.

  When paying for search placement, you are paying for placement amongst the otherwise natural search results. If someone clicks on your listing amongst the search results, you will be charged a click-through charge. How this differs from pay-per-click is beyond us (aside from lower placement on the page). So far, we don't see any reason to recommend doing this unless you've optimized, tried the free submit (above), and are still invisible to Yahoo!. The payment includes the ability to customize your listing, your keywords, and view the details of your search traffic.

• Yahoo! Directory Submit - submission to the directory
  
  This is paying for a listing in Yahoo!'s categorized directory, and used to be called "Yahoo! Express" submission, before Yahoo offered additional services. It is the most important directory to pay for placement in, and it is also the most expensive one (see our Hard Costs page) with a large annual inclusion fee.
  
  We highly recommend getting a Yahoo! Directory listing.
  
  Once upon a time, you were allowed to choose a category for yourself. That is no longer the case; you can suggest one but it may not be chosen.
  
  
• Yahoo! Search Marketing - Sponsored Search
  
  These are Pay-Per-Clickthrough ads, and were previously called "Overture Precision Match", and before that "Pay-for-Performance listings from Overture". If you already had an account with one of those prior services, your account should still be accessible using your old username and password unless you failed to sign in and agree to the re-branding agreement and new privacy clauses (Overture to Yahoo changeover) by July 2005.
  
  If you're going to do any pay-per-click search marketing, Yahoo! is one we'd recommend you do. However, reading up on our advice about it first might save you some money.
  
  
• Yahoo Directory Sponsored Listing
  
  This is a Yahoo! Directory "special placement" program that is available only to existing directory members for a monthly subscription that ranges from $50.00 to $300.00 depending on what your site does or sells. This is on top of your annual inclusion fee.
  
  What this means is that if you already have a spot in the directory, and you are buried in your category, you can pay your way up to the top of those listings. Be aware that sponsored directory spots are very limited and go quickly in competitive areas.
  
  While most of the benefit of being in the Yahoo! Directory has nothing to do with where you rank in your category, if you're at the bottom of the list you may decide it is worth it to pay to change that. We don't consider it necessary; it does not help your page rank, your natural search rankings or any other factor you should be placing emphasis on.
  
  

NOTE: Getting all of these done will run you at least $500.00 plus additional monthly/yearly expenses from then on — just for Yahoo! placement. See Hard Costs of search engine registrations.

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How to get your website listed in the Yahoo! Search Results

In February 2004, Yahoo stopped displaying Google results as its "search results" and switched to their prorietary search results, "Yahoo Search Results". This is different than the results you get when you search the Yahoo Directory. To be listed in their Yahoo Search Results, you need to sign up at Yahoo Search Submit Pro. That's the only way currently to pay to get into the Yahoo Search Results. It will cost you -- see our "hard costs" page for exactly how much. It depends on how many pages you want to include. There is also a minimum charge of 15 cents per click, which comes out of a deposit to your account which you must keep pre-funded. The minimum charge varies by industry category.

Personally I think this is rather outrageous of Yahoo, to charge for:

• inclusion in the Yahoo Directory and
• inclusion in the Yahoo Search Results and
• a continuing cost per clickthrough of either 15 or 30 cents for each click to your site through their natural results pages.

It created something of a furor when they first switched to this system in 2004. Shortly thereafter, they created the free method of submission. Have to admire their chutzpah!

Since then, we have noticed that if you choose not to pay for placement in the "natural" search results and your site is well optimized for Yahoo you may eventually show up here anyway and can even rise to the top of the ranks -- without paying for placement.

Here is a link to Yahoo!'s advice, in the form of a July 2005 article, on what to do to rise up the Yahoo! Natural Search Results. It is old hat to anyone who has optimized their site (or read any of Words in a Row's advice on the subject), but it is interesting to read as an insight into what Yahoo! says they want.

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Yahoo Background Info

I've seen statistics showing that 45% of all traffic to the average website is provided by Yahoo! That makes Yahoo! an easy choice -- you should pay them and get into their directory. Failure to do so is catastrophic to your online presence.

For several years now, Yahoo! has required payment for a review of your commercial site to determine whether they will include it in their directory. All commercial websites must use Yahoo's paid submission service to get into the "Shopping and Services" area or the "Business to Business" area at Yahoo!. In other words, if your company sells a product or service you must pay to get it into Yahoo!

Procedure: First make sure your site is fully functional, with no "under construction" pages. Then at Yahoo! select the exact category of their directory in which you want your site to be listed. Keep digging into their directory structure until you're absolutely sure you have the exact right category for your site, then click on the "Suggest a Site" button on that page so you can submit your site from within that category.

I hate to be redundant, but it is necessary here: be very careful about selecting the right category of Yahoo! in which to have your site listed. If you pick the wrong category you won't get listed at all. If you pick the almost right category you may get listed but later on you'll wish you were listed somewhere else. Yahoo! is very resistant to making changes after your site is listed in their directory. In fact, it almost never happens. So it pays to truly confront their category system and get it right the very first time.

The best way to figure this out is to dig into the categories and find where your competitors are listed. Once you see which of the subcategories all your competitors are grouped into, you know you've found the right category. Another good way is to do a search for the main keywords someone would look for in order to find your site, and see which categories come up. Go to that category, look for your competitors, and if you find them there, submit your request for a listing from there.

On the basis of your submission, one of Yahoo's site reviewers (these are real humans) will go and look at your site. They may or may not let you know if it's been accepted. If they see anything incomplete or non-functional in your site they will disapprove it and you will have wasted your $299.

Recap: If you have a business website, you MUST pay $299 and use the Yahoo! Express submission service to register your site if you wish to get into the "Shopping and Services" area or the "Business to Business" area. Yahoo is no longer taking "free" submissions from business sites for those areas. For $299, Yahoo! promises they will look at your site within 7 days and let you know whether or not you're in.

If you are trying to register an "adult" website, Yahoo! charges $600 for the business express service.

As of January, 2002, Yahoo has stated that they will require this $299 or $600 fee on a yearly basis to stay in their index. So they have become a kind of on-line yellow pages that you have to pay to stay in.

These Yahoo! submission fees are NON-REFUNDABLE. In other words, Yahoo! keeps the money whether they decide to list your site or exclude it. Either way, you will never see that $299 again. You're paying for the "express review"--for the privilege of having Yahoo! make their decision within 7 days.

The link to their business express service is findable if you burrow into any of their categories -- it will be at the top right of the screen and looks like this:

Y! Business Express
suggest your site

To make a change to a listing you already have at Yahoo!, use this Yahoo! changes form. That's also the page to use to see if your site is already listed in Yahoo's directory -- it can be hard to tell whether your site is listed in the Yahoo Directory because Yahoo! also pulls search results from Google now, not just its own directory.

As of May 2004, this is the link to the Yahoo Listings Management Center.

Here is some helpful info on how to get listed in Yahoo: How to Suggest Your Site to Yahoo!

You can buy a Yahoo Ad box and become a sponsored site within a category by buying the top listing in that category at Yahoo! Prices range from $50-$300/month, depending on the category. Of course your site must first be listed in Yahoo's regular directory in that category before you can use this service. This does not help your search rankings at Yahoo--it only displays an ad box within the category your site is already in. So a searcher would have to burrow down into the category to see this ad box to do you any good. If you have a big advertising budget to burn, feel free to buy this service. It can't hurt anything. But the ad box program at Yahoo! has not been worthwhile for my smaller clients. Several have tried it and gotten no appreciable results.

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Yahoo Difficulties

The phone number to contact Yahoo with billing difficulties is 408-349-5151.

The email address for billing problems is: bizex-billing@yahoo-inc.com.

The billing account management area at Yahoo is: http://billing.yahoo.com.

Make sure you have all your Yahoo account information ready to go before you call or email, because they will ask for it.

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Yahoo Site Explorer Tool

Yahoo has an interesting tool for exploring a site, the Yahoo! Site Explorer.

It shows all the indexed pages for the specified domain name, telling you how many inbound links in total, as well as for any particular page, and lets you wander through the inbound links. Quite helpful to know which pages are not in the index before you submit. We highly recommend wandering through the Yahoo Explorer before submitting, especially before paid submission in Yahoo.

If you have any trouble with it, read over the Directions for use of Yahoo Site Explorer to be sure you're using it correctly.

Back to Yahoo on Directory Page.
Back to Yahoo on Search Engine Page.

Did you mean to find out about Yahoo Search Marketing?

Our advice about advertising on Yahoo! Search Marketing deserves it's own page. Yahoo! Search Marketing was once its own company called Overture. Overture was bought up by Yahoo, and you will find all of our advice on how to run an ad campaign there in our advice page.

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