This is the last issue of the year. On behalf of the Add Me team,
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support
and loyalty.
We whish you a happy holiday season and a successful year 2003!
Dom Vonarburg
Is A Yahoo Listing Still Worth The Cost?
By Dan Thies
In
October 2002, the Yahoo! portal changed the way it delivers search
results. In the past, the most prominent results were exclusively
culled from websites listed in the Yahoo directory itself. Since
October, sites listed in the Yahoo directory no longer enjoy this
privileged status.
The Google search engine now drives the primary search results
on Yahoo. While this is certainly an improvement for users of
Yahoo search, it's a disaster for many businesses that counted
on their Yahoo listing to deliver substantial traffic.
This change has also led many site owners to question the value
of a listing in the Yahoo directory. In this article, I will
outline the pros and cons of maintaining, or paying for, a Yahoo
listing. In the process, I will delve into more details of the
recent changes.
Argument #1: Yahoo Listings Mean Link Popularity
Pro:
Even if the Yahoo listing itself delivers little or no traffic,
other search engines will rank your website higher if it's listed
in Yahoo. Because Yahoo is so important, a link from Yahoo counts
more than a regular link. Thanks to its higher "PageRank," Yahoo
means even more to Google.
Con:
Yahoo listings do not deliver nearly as significant a contribution
in this area as you might think. You can verify this by doing
a "backward links" search on Google for any Yahoo-listed website.
The most important links are listed first, and the Yahoo listing
is rarely even on the first page of links for top ranked sites
on Google.
Argument #2: Listed Sites Look Better In The Search Results
Pro:
Websites with a Yahoo listing show up in the combined Yahoo/Google
results with their title, description, and category from the
Yahoo directory. This may boost the response when the site appears
in the search results. This applies when the URL listed in the
results is the same as the URL in the Yahoo listing.
Con:
Results listed with Yahoo information include a link to the
site's category, which may prompt surfers to pass over your
listing and go to the category. Sites without Yahoo listings
have the more inviting "search within this site" link, which
leads to more results exclusively from your site.
Submit Your Site to 2,000 Search Engines and Classifieds!
Your site will be submitted once a month to 2000 search
engines, announcement services and classifieds for a whole
year. Also, with just one click you can re-submit your
site any time you want. For example, if you are updating
your site often, you can re-submit every time you change
it. Every submission produces a detailed report on the
results.
If you have a non-commercial site and can get listed for free,
of course! If you're not one of the lucky few, though, you have
to evaluate whether it's worth $299 a year for what amounts
to a better than average incoming link. Everyone must make their
own decision. If $299 is small compared to your total marketing
budget, it may be easier to just continue paying. My own listing
expires in March, and I don't intend to renew it.
How Can You Profit From The Changes At Yahoo?
The obvious answer is that you must take steps to improve your
own position in Google's search results. Google's rankings are
made up of many factors, but the dominant factor is "PageRank,"
which is based on the number and quality of incoming links from
other websites.
Therefore, the first step in improving your position on the
Google search engine (and now Yahoo) is to improve your site's
link popularity. This takes time, and trying to take shortcuts
can get you into real trouble - Google doesn't like "link farms,"
or any program designed to artificially boost your link popularity.
Finding Quality Link Partners Through Google
Since only links from quality sites will count for much with
Google, let's take a quick look at how you can find these sites.
Start by targeting the sites that link to existing top-ranked
sites. You can do a backward links search for any site by typing
"link:http://www.domain.com" in the Google search engine.
An even faster method is to use the Google toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com/),
which requires Internet Explorer 5 or greater, running on Windows.
With the toolbar's advanced features enabled, you can conduct
a "backward links" search from the "Page Info" menu for any
site you visit.
Since Google lists these results in descending order by "PageRank,"
you can quickly determine the best places to get links by doing
backward links searches on the top 10-20 sites for your desired
search terms, and seeking links from the top 10-20 places that
link to them.
Links Are Not Enough: Optimizing For Google
While "PageRank" is the dominant factor in Google's algorithm,
it's not the only factor, and you still need to optimize your
web pages. This can be a complicated topic, but the most important
factors are:
- Keywords in the title of the page
- Keywords in headings on the page (H1 or H2 tags), especially
the first heading.
- Keywords in the body text of the page, particularly the first
paragraph.
Don't Complain, Act!
By some estimates, Google now controls 2/3rds of the searches
conducted on the Internet in a given day. Not only is Google.com
extremely popular in its own right, but Google also controls
the search results on popular portals like AOL and Iwon.com
- not to mention Yahoo.
A lot of website owners are complaining bitterly about this
change. All the more reason for you to take action now, while
so many of your competitors are busy licking their wounds. With
a little planning and effort, you could be in a dominant position
on Google before they even get started.
I wish you success...
About the Author
Dan Thies is the author of "Search Engine Optimization Fast
Start," the ultimate beginner's guide to higher search engine
rankings - available today at http://www.cannedbooks.com
