Can a Content Site Afford a Yahoo Directory Listing

[Chris]

So I've crammed http://www.SavvyShopping.net with a bunch of articles centered around decently high paying keywords with adsense. Additionally it's promoting some products, such as plasma TVs, that if sold can generate 3 figure commissions.

So, does that make the $300 annual fee from Yahoo worth it?

We'll see. All told I've spent around $1500 so far on this site in content and directory submissions (3). My goal right now is only $10 a day, but I think it could potentially do more than that.

I'm really going to be curious to see my adsense earnings after my yahoo submissions are approved.

[Cutter]

You should wait a few months before submitting it; that way you will be able to measure the difference Yahoo makes vs. all of the other places you've submitted.

[James]

Yes, but if he submitted then rather than now he could be losing money if the site does well--which, knowing Chris, it probably will.

[ozgression]

directory submissions (3).

Where else did you submit to?

[Chris]

No place, other than free Google submissions which'll take a few weeks.

.... ahh I didn't submit the homepage of the site... I submitted 3 subpages, thats where the 3 comes from.

[Chris]

Yes, but if he submitted then rather than now he could be losing money if the site does well--which, knowing Chris, it probably will.

Yes, money first, science second.

[Kyle]

No place, other than free Google submissions which'll take a few weeks.

.... ahh I didn't submit the homepage of the site... I submitted 3 subpages, thats where the 3 comes from.

Does Yahoo accept multiple subpages without any problems? Like if I could afford it, and it made sense, and the content was acceptable by Yahoo, could I submit 10, 20, even 50 sub pages?

[Cutter]

Its not about science, it is about money. Thats why when you make changes to your site, make them slowly rather than a complete overhaul.

This makes it so much easier to isolate what makes you $$$ from what is losing you $$$.

[Chris]

Sure Cutter, but are you saying that submitting to Yahoo isn't going to result in traffic/money? That perhaps if I waited I'd decide I'd not want to do it?

Waiting a few months for the site to be fully indexed in Google and then submitting to Yahoo is only going to retard the growth of the site, which will cost me money.

Icebane, yes. I have over 20 listings with my literature site (all free consequently).

[James]

I'd understand something like changing your layout, leaving it for a few weeks, and if it doesn't work out well then change it back, then try something new after a while.
But for something like this it's not going to do anything but improve how his site does, and he'll be able to see how many people go to his site from Yahoo through his stats, anyways.

[Cutter]

I'm not saying it won't help you; I'm just saying wait so you can fully measure it. Maybe its only a tiny benefit -- maybe its an enormous benefit & its worth paying to get every single site you have listed.

I'm just using a principle copy writers use. You keep everything but maybe only change the headline or price. If you apply all the techniques at once it makes it impoosible to isolate the real income producer.

With my Adsense I tweak afew things at a time. Maybe the color or placement -- but I never will change color, placement, and ad format all at once.

[chromate]

I'm deeply skeptical about buying Yahoo directory links. I just don't know if they're worth it. $900 for 3 links.

How much traffic do you think they'll bring in per day? I guess it depends on the directory, but less than 50 uniques I would think? Unless you have a strong affiliate prog in place that's highly targeted to the traffic, from AdSense, based on a 5% click through and a CPC of $0.20 it'll make about $0.50 a day. I can understand it for a high converting affiliate program which might generate $20 a day on the same traffic, for example. That would definitely make sense.

Of course all these figures are probably *WAY* off, but that's the way I think about it when trying to work out if it's worth it.

On top of that, Yahoo directory links seem to carry no PR and have no effect on Google rankings?

Even worse, I don't like the idea that they might not even accept your submission and you lose $300 for nothing. Unlikely though.

[AndyH]

What is the chance that they don't accept your submission?

$300 may be worthwhile, but not if i'm almost certain the website will be added.

[Kyle]

The Yahoo links will greatly help you with your ranking in Yahoo, which is still a great search engine to get some moderate traffic. Especially with a commercial site.

[Chris]

Its only a recent issue of Yahoo links not helping in Google, and I still find Yahoo links from their regional directories helping, and by getting listed in their us directory you often get into many regionals.

And the traffic is pretty good, atleast 50 uniques a day, a hundreds of uniques your first few days while you're a new site. Also many sites pull and then link to new Yahoo listings on a daily basis.

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-44,GGLD:en&q=link:http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecoupon%2Dcode%2Ecom%2F

[Chris]

I'm not saying it won't help you; I'm just saying wait so you can fully measure it. Maybe its only a tiny benefit -- maybe its an enormous benefit & its worth paying to get every single site you have listed.

I'm just using a principle copy writers use. You keep everything but maybe only change the headline or price. If you apply all the techniques at once it makes it impoosible to isolate the real income producer.

With my Adsense I tweak afew things at a time. Maybe the color or placement -- but I never will change color, placement, and ad format all at once.

Ahh, but you don't have a stat program showing you which adsense color format was clicked on, you just have to rely on total clicks. I do have a stat program showing me where visitors are coming from, and if I liked I could even see which visitors provide me more clicks with a couple lines of server side code.

[chromate]

What is the chance that they don't accept your submission?

Pretty minimal I would think if you select a targeted category and write the listing well.

[Cutter]

Ahh, but you don't have a stat program showing you which adsense color format was clicked on, you just have to rely on total clicks. I do have a stat program showing me where visitors are coming from, and if I liked I could even see which visitors provide me more clicks with a couple lines of server side code.

Use channels, on one of my sites I have a different channel for every page :D

[Chris]

If you use channels then why do you need to make changes slowly?

With some server side code you could make a different channel per color scheme easy.

[pas]

I've managed to get some free Yahoo directory listings. They've been worth nowhere near $300/year.

[chromate]

I've managed to get some free Yahoo directory listings. They've been worth nowhere near $300/year.

Yeah, I've got a few free listings too. In terms of AdSense they're not worth it for me. But possibly indirectly by helping my Yahoo rankings? I don't know about this, because I don't know if it does help Yahoo rankings. I've seen a LOT of good sites that have yahoo directory listings way down in their search engine rankings.

But for affiliate programs and possibly very high paying adsense ads (> $1/click) that would be a different matter.

[Chris]

The authors with yahoo listings are my most popular authors on my literature site. They also have the best rankings on Google.

Yahoo listings definitely help, still I wouldn't pay for listings for my literature site.

SavvyShopping though has a much higher eCPM potential. Plus if I wanted I could only pay for the listing for a year or two until the site is established.

[Chris]

well my submissions were approved today so we'll see tommorow or thursday when they go live.

[Billyray]

Chris, I take it that your change in direction with SavvyShopping means that you think a content based / Adsense business model is or has more potential than a datafeed model? Or are you trying to diversify away from datafeeds?

[Chris]

Diversification.

Well I'm listed in Yahoo's "new" area of their directory today, but not yet in the actual directory (they must do a 48 hour or whatever cache rotation).

The category I got in for my TV article is excellent though.

http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Consumer_Electronics/Television/

Only 2 listings (I'll be #3) gonna get a good number of clicks from there.

[chromate]

Is that the category you chose, or did they choose it for you?

[MarkB]

An article on effect Yahoo submissions (free and paid) would be great. Any chance?

Does Yahoo still accept free submissions? Or is it all paid submissions now?

[chromate]

Only paid submissions in the commercial categories (shopping), but the other categories still take free submissions.

I'd definitely like to know what kind of traffic your links bring in Chris, as I may pay for a few myself if I can be convinced it's worth it. Though with $300 I could get around 25 - 30 new articles written. Not sure what's the best investment these days.

[davesplace1]

In my experence the traffic you get from Yahoo sure buys alot and they also click on alot of ads, so it is worth $299 for the right site or subpage.

[MarkB]

What's the turnaround on free listings these days?

[Chris]

months to never

[pas]

Getting free listings in Yahoo has been even more futile than DMOZ, in my experience. Submissions-to-listings:

DMOZ - 23:8
Yahoo - 21:1

Same submissions. Each page is totally relevant to the category. I really doubt there's much effort at all at Yahoo in reviewing free submissions. I've had much much better success in getting listings approved with Zeal (which, unfortunately, appears to have near zero value).

[Chris]

Well so far traffic has been minimal. at most 50 uniques a day from the 3 listings combined. I attribute this to Yahoo no longer featuring directory categories in their search results as much as they used to. Even back when they were using Inktomi for search results they still featured the directory more. I remember getting hundreds of uniques from a new listing per day.

Still, I think (I hope) it'll eventually pay off with the increase in search rankings. The site isn't fully indexed anywhere yet.

The one good thing is that my Adsense CTR is good. That'll be some nice money if the traffic grows.

[MarkB]

Nice CTR. One of my sites gets between <CENSORED! SUPER SECRET> depending on the day. Unfortunately it only sees around 150 unique visitors a day, and a low eCPM. :)

[chromate]

I don't think we're allowed to discuss CTR. Only earnings. ?

[James]

It is against Google's Terms and Conditions to say your CTR.

7. Confidentiality. You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google's prior written consent. "Google Confidential Information" includes without limitation... (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program provided to You by Google

[Chris]

I managed to get another listing for my coupon site, I thought it was a little bit of a stretch but...

http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Business_to_Business/Computers/Hardware/Systems/Manufacturers/Dell_Computer/

They actually made a new category for it as well -- so anyone looking for the official "dell" category will see my site as the only listed coupon site. Could perform well I think. Not even the category I wanted (couldn't be, being a new category they just made 2 days ago) but I'm not complaining :)

[Todd W]

I managed to get another listing for my coupon site, I thought it was a little bit of a stretch but...

http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Business_to_Business/Computers/Hardware/Systems/Manufacturers/Dell_Computer/

They actually made a new category for it as well -- so anyone looking for the official "dell" category will see my site as the only listed coupon site. Could perform well I think. Not even the category I wanted (couldn't be, being a new category they just made 2 days ago) but I'm not complaining :)


Two dell sites and you - now that will hopefuly be a nice listing.

[James]

Heh, looks a bit out of place, but hopefully will help you out some.

[Snowballer]

those coupons are pulled via the feeds eh?

[Chris]

No, they're manually entered by me from emails I get.

[James]

<CENSORED! SUPER SECRET>
Haha, nice censoring message.

Yes, I get the same Amazon coupon emails, but they're not very frequent. I actually forget I'm signed up between emails from them. They're usually just things relating to hardware, though, rather than things like computers, or games.

[pas]

I managed to get another listing for my coupon site, I thought it was a little bit of a stretch but...

http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Business_to_Business/Computers/Hardware/Systems/Manufacturers/Dell_Computer/

They actually made a new category for it as well -- so anyone looking for the official "dell" category will see my site as the only listed coupon site. Could perform well I think. Not even the category I wanted (couldn't be, being a new category they just made 2 days ago) but I'm not complaining :)
Have you noticed much difference traffic/revenue -wise from the new Yahoo listings?

[Chris]

I think its too early. I'm getting about 20 uniques a day from that link though.

[Mike]

Do you think a Yahoo listing is a good idea for a site that is just getting started? I've found a category, but there are three pages of results which may make the listing not worth it?

[Chris]

A busy category like that makes it hard for it to be worth it. If the site isn't on a good high paying topic I'd say no.