Did you know Yahoo! is now charging $199 to consider adding your site in their Business category? What a bummer!

Andy

I believe it has been that way for quite a while now. :D

Ah. Well, if it was news to me, it might be news to somebody else. Either that or I'll just be really embarrassed. :blush:

You are absolutly correct Andy, it could be news to someone. No need to feel embarrassed.

yeah they've been doing it for close to 6 months or so now (maybe a little less).

What they haven't been doing is mentioning it to anyone. The only time you really notice is when you roll up to submit your site and read it there. I believe you can still get a free listing if you find yourself a regional directory. As Yahoo! uses Google now try submitting your site there instead (for free). The results should show up in Yahoo! eventually ... at least that's my plan *chuckle*

Greg Moore

Please note. If deciding to pay for submission anywhere, make sure your ducks are all in row and your links are flawless. If you notice the keyword "CONSIDER" , it would be ashame for you to pay $200 thinking your site will be added and find out it was not because of an error in submission or site content and lose your $200. Unless of course you have that much money you just want to throw it away. If that is the case I have some "PRIME" swamp land I think you would be interested in. :)

Isn't that to have your site listed as a premier site, ie. top ten search?

Well, they are bringing masses of traffic so it's ok - it's like buying a great life time advertising space (with a great CTR :)

Cheers!

I paid the $199, only because I did not feel like waiting for my site to be reviewed.

I didn't think it (the payment) was required by businesses though...

From what I understood, the "Business Express" package that Yahoo offers just gets your site reviewed within 7 business days. I resorted to this after waiting 5 months for a review w/o hearing a thing...

A business that wants to be listed on Yahoo has two choices, pay the $199 or pay the $199. The alternative is not to be listed at all.

To add value to what once was free, Yahoo does promise to review business sites within 7 days for possible inclusion. They do not guarantee inclusion. This is a simple way to allow them to exclude objectionable sites without going into a lot of details in a disclaimer.

They have no alternate means of submitting business sites. They use a little double talk on their site, though once you read it, it is clear that business sites must pay if they wish to be considered for inclusion.

Yahoo has yet to break even, much less make a profit, and this is undoubtedly one of the ways they wish to change their financial picture.

Duster - Just a quick addendum. akashik was correct in his post above in stating that regional business listings are still free. Although it's probably debatable as to whether or not they'll actually give you one without plunking down $199. :)

Andy

So noted. I actually started to include mention of it then deleted it as I wasn't certain and didnlt want to confuse matters

Originally posted by akashik
As Yahoo! uses Google now try submitting your site there instead (for free). The results should show up in Yahoo! eventually ... I wouldn't say that they "show up eventually" in yahoo is exactly accurate. Yahoo uses Google results to fill in queries where there are no sites, or not enough sites, returned. If you look for, say, "web hosting," there'll be thousands of yahoo sites so you won't see any of the google listings. If you experiment by trying a company name that's not a common word and if the site's not in Yahoo itself, you'll probably get a Google-supplied response.

The Google listings appear under the heading "Web Page Matches" on Yahoo; the "regular" returns from their directory are under the heading "Yahoo! Category Matches" if your query matches a category name or "Web Site Matches" if it does not.

Although I dislike the idea of paying a fee to get listed, I'd say getting listed on Yahoo is worthy.
Yahoo&Google are the ones I get most of traffic off search engine.