How to Get Your Website Listed in the Yahoo Directory

May 2002
By Alice Seba

Getting listed in the Yahoo! Directory is no easy task, nor is it an inexpensive one. If you have a personal web page, with no commercial content, you can submit your site for free. If you have a commercial site you can pay $299 (7 day Express) to submit your site. Mind you, this is just a guarantee that Yahoo! will review your site within seven days. After this review, you may or may not be listed. Even if you are listed, you will have to pay for this review every year.

So what's the point? Why bother with Yahoo!, right? Well, reports vary, but Yahoo! still has a huge share of the search traffic online. Having your site listed in a well chosen category on Yahoo! will certainly drive traffic to your site. Before you pay for the Express Submit service make sure of the following:

- First read the Yahoo Submission Guidelines 

- Make sure your site is ready! Do not submit a site that has any pages under construction. Check all your links and ensure all your images are showing.
Your site should be professional-looking and easy to navigate.

- Your site should have plenty of content and not be blatantly commercial.

- Submit your category to the most appropriate category or you may be rejected. Check where your competition is listed; this is where you should be listed too. Also, if your site has regional value; choose a category with your state or province in it. It will be easier .to get listed regionally.

- Yahoo! lists alphabetically. If possible, your site title should be near the beginning of the alphabet. However, Yahoo! does insist that you use your business name or official web site title. Don't just make up a name to get a high alphabetical listing.

- You must have your own domain, not a subdomain.

- When you submit your description, be factual. Don't exaggerate or use promotional language. Yahoo! says that your description can be up to twenty five words. That way you can ensure your description won't be edited.

- Ensure you include contact information (include a real address, not a P.O. Box), Privacy Policy and Returns Policy (if applicable) on your website.

- If you decide it's not worth the effort to get listed on Yahoo! or you do try, but find yourself rejected - don't fret. When you type keywords in the search box on Yahoo!, the results being returned are from Yahoo's web crawler, Slurp.

The 7 Day Express service is to have your site listed under a specific category in the Directory That's another thing to consider. If you sell a variety of products, a listing in Yahoo's directory may not be beneficial to you unless you have separate URLs for your product lines. Otherwise, you will be limited to a narrow category that may not fully represent your web site.

More Search Engine Information: Highly Recommended! 

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