I had a conversation with one of their tech people today and was so disappointed with the basic knowledge he had of the product. It seems to be all about the sales without the understanding that an informed consumer is generally a better customer - unless of course the product does not have any substance to it.

They have actually suggested I contact a few of their third party partners to get a better idea of how it all works.

I hate to say it but they have no training on the product beyond the pricing structure and a blanket method of how you can get more pages indexed and visitors from them, but no clue how they are valued against the existing results.

I visit pretty much all the major SEM forums that are english speaking. All they talk about in the Yahoo threads are how disappointed they are with Yahoo!'s customer service.

It is a real shame.

The best I can describe SiteMatch is that it is, at best, a temporary paid inclusion program. And you are right, AW, there is not much substance to it.

The program does not give you better ranking in the search results, it just assures that your pages are indexed in the first place and included in those results. If you cannot afford to wait for Hell to freeze over before Slurp comes around, then you might want to consider it. It might provide for a quick jump-start on your website in that case.

Slurp is not as aggressive as MSNbot or Googlebot. This is either because Yahoo does not have the resources to index the Internet properly, or they choose not to out of greed with the SiteMatch program. Either way, the Yahoo index is something that cannot be ignored. If you need to have new content in that index, SiteMatch might be a necessary evil.

I have had pages indexed in Yahoo! in less than 2 days and had them in their directory free in under 2 weeks.

I think Site Match is a horrible option for most people, but I do not think Yahoo! is necissarily bad for offering the option.

People have the option to learn and work hard. If they want to pay a little extra to save time and get a more rapid refresh then let them. I don't ever intend to use SiteMatch though.

I have had pages indexed in Yahoo! in less than 2 days and had them in their directory free in under 2 weeks.

While getting your pages indexed in under 2 days may be unusual -- or coincidence -- it is not the norm.

What I do want to ask you though, is how did you get into the Yahoo Directory for free?

I submitted it. they have actually accepted multiple websites from me for free. if your site is blatently non commercial with cool original content then they will likely want to list it.

Really? That is interesting, first time I have heard that. I will have to give that a try. Thanks.

I thought Yahoo abandoned new free directory listings when they institituted
Express Submit and the $299 recurring annual fee.

Yahoo Directory has always had the free option for non commercial sites

Missed the "non commercial" kernel in previous thread.

The best I can describe SiteMatch is that it is, at best, a temporary paid inclusion program. And you are right, AW, there is not much substance to it.

I've found that submitting client sites to SiteMatch does them almost no good at all. The clickthrough fund has barely been touched on most of the client sites. The promos sent from the SiteMatch resellers suggests a doubling of traffic for those who've "upgraded" from Inktomi to SiteMatch, but our experience has been that there is simply no effect on traffic after submission to SiteMatch.

Further, when we get those notices about re-crawls, they very often seem to find the site "unavailable" when our site monitoring service NEVER finds the site down. No ranking improvement, no clickthroughs, no frequent refresh, no benefit to SiteMatch. Hmmmmm.

I haven't used the OSM program yet, and so have not experienced any of the difficulties that have been mentioned. When I first heard of the program, I thought "Hey, this may actually improve the relevancy of the search results."

The reason why I thought this was that since we would have to pay per click on top of the inclusion fee, then we would want to optimize our sites for highly targeted keywords that bring suitable conversion rates rather than use a mass keyword campaign to improve traffic regardless of conversion rates.

If this was the case, then each time I searched for something specific, I would get relevant results since people would not want to have their click balance reduced by unqualified traffic.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that sure, I understand how the program is not suitable for everyone, and that some people are cheesed off with the PPC component, but I actually think the concept behind the program is a good one.

And before you ask, no I do not have any affiliation with Yahoo or Overture. :)

Yahoo Directory has always had the free option for non commercial sites

I have been all over that directory looking for the free submission link .... and I cannot find it anywhere. Anybody know where in the hell it is at?

I found the clause in their Yahoo!Express Terms of Service under section 2.1 -- You may choose to submit your site for consideration through Yahoo!'s free "Suggest a Site [link]" service.

But that link takes you right back to the beginning of Yahoo!Express. What gives? Do you have to go thru Express and enter in your credit card information anyway before you find out that is the right place to submit it?

on non commercial categories you can add a site using the right side add here. http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add?95984180

commercial categories only have the paid inclusion option

you do not need to give them credit card info to submit a free site.

on non commercial categories you can add a site using the right side add here. http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add?95984180


Thanks Aaron, that is what I was trying to find. Man oh man, they don't make it easy to stumble across -- do they? :rolleyes: