Changes in the Yahoo Directory

[krisval]

I am noticing a couple of Big changes in the Yahoo Directory.

1. The directory home page has changed. It now has a new look and feel.
http://dir.yahoo.com/

2. There are a lot of sites without descriptions.

3. There are a lot more internal links using the @ sybmol

4. Some of the listings are not showing up in the "websearch results" with a link to the directory category

5. A lot of new listings

6. RSS Feeds. I don't remember this before.

Couple of other observations. Looks like Yahoo is trying to be more like about.com. The front page has recommended sites and commentary. Could it be that they lost the bid for About.com, but decided to do a similar portal themselves and build more reach for Overture results?

[2much]

I've always wondered about Yahoo's intention with the directory. Somewhere I read that Tim mentioned Yahoo is paying more attention than ever to the directory. I wonder what this means? Why these changes? Are they trying to encourage people to submit again? Are they just optimizing all their properties?

Any ideas?

[Nacho]

Danny Sullivan had a very good blog (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/050308-101342) about it today.

[krisval]

I do not like the changes as a user. I may be one of the few who really have has used this directory extensively to find 10-15 companies offering a particular service. It was easier than searching and re-searching.

If they want to have a community like about.com (which is just my assumption based on their lost bid to buy About.com), then they could have created Description / Informational pages cross-linking to the directory listings. Now, that would be cool.

I could see this as a move to increase distribution for their Overture Results because they do not have the distribution capabilites that Google has developed.

[bethabernathy]

:confused: Is a url that is embedded in all that stuff i.e.:

http://www.integratedresourcemgmt.com/images/yahoolink.gif

considered a link?

[Grumpus]

Yahoo's in a fairly unique position. All the engines have always wanted to be able to actually index web pages and put them into specific categories - to be able to actually determine the topic/subject of a page before a search term is used to bring it up.

Now, we've got the Semantic Indexing stuff. Here, we take a set of pages that we already know what they are about, then see (though how these pages link to and get links from other pages) how these known pages relate to the others. Common terminology and all of that sort of stuff can give valuable clues toward whether the page you've landed on is on the same subject. And, once you've explored deeply enough and gotten links in from all sorts of pages, you can even find how the topics relate and blend with each other into new topics.

In order for all of this to work, though, you need a batch of pages where you know what they are about. And, Yahoo's the only search engine that also happens to own it's own Semantic Seed Database. So, if they're going to start playing with this tech (they did buy a bunch of crap last year which would lead me to believe that they are interested in it), the first thing to do is clean all the wood out of their directory, make sure all the sites are live, cross reference everything correctly (the extra @ signs mentioned above), and rank the seed pages based upon some sort of "importance" criteria.

G.

P.S. Yahoo's got another piece of tech that they got from AllTheWeb - one that has since vanished, but that I'm dying to see back in action. Back in the day, ATW used to show us the traditional "snippet" from the page just as everyone else does, but it also had an uncanny ability to create a wonderful "description" snippet. That description snippet (not from the meta tags, but from the actual body of the page) was always a complete sentence, had at least one of your keywords in there, and somehow managed to be the most descriptive sentence about what the page was about (at least in respects to your search term). In all - a perfect "directory listing" description for a page. Anyone else remember that? I miss it and hope the bring it back to Yahoo.

[sew2002]

:confused: Is a url that is embedded in all that stuff i.e.:

http://www.integratedresourcemgmt.com/images/yahoolink.gif

considered a link?

I'm curious too.

Will I get any PR for a $200 link from Yahoo that doesn't even have my URL listed?

[seobook]

Google still recommends submitting to the Yahoo! Directory to help get your site indexed
If you are having difficulty getting listed in the Google index, you may want to consider submitting your site to Yahoo! or Netscape. You can submit to Yahoo! by visiting http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/. You can submit your site to Netscape's Open Directory Project (DMOZ) by visiting www.dmoz.org. Once your site is included in either of these directories, Google will often index your site within six to eight weeks.
I also think some of the regional directories also provide direct links and your links may syndicate through those. also you get reviewed by Yahoo!, which could potentially help boost your site's credibility to Yahoo!

[Manpasand]

seoconsultant.in is one & half month old site and listed in yahoo directory within a month of launch with 20-30 inbound links. Now recent PR update(still going on) it jumped 0 to 5

I think yahoo directory listing help the PR and ranking.

[3dfabrique]

:confused: Is a url that is embedded in all that stuff i.e.:

http://www.integratedresourcemgmt.com/images/yahoolink.gif

considered a link?

I'd be interested to know other peoples oppionion on this. I'm thinking of submitting a site to the yahoo directory, but when I discovered that the hyperlink is redirected by a script I began to have second thoughts !!
I always thought that for a link to have any value for increasing link popularity it has to be a "classic" hyperlink ?? i.e.
<A HREF="http://www.mydomain.com">Mydomain</A>

What do other people think ?

[dannysullivan]

Best test I can think of is to see if you can find Google or Yahoo listing the page you are on in the Yahoo directory as a backlink. If so, then it should be something they are counting as a backlink. It's hard with a site with many links, though. Harder with Google not showing all the links it knows about. But anyone have an example they can share?

[sew2002]

seoconsultant.in is one & half month old site and listed in yahoo directory within a month of launch with 20-30 inbound links. Now recent PR update(still going on) it jumped 0 to 5

I think yahoo directory listing help the PR and ranking.

Nice site! I tried typing "link:http://www.seoconsultant.in" in google and didn't see you in the Yahoo directory though. Are you sure Google counted the link from Yahoo?

Your site did show up on a link popularity check within MSN as being listed in Yaho's Australia directory, which does use "real" links without the scripts.

[Manpasand]

Nice site!
Thanks

Google not showing all the links it knows about.I am agree with danny that Google do not shows all the back links.

online-web-solutions.com and indianfreelancers.net sites are listed in Y! directory and below you will found Y! directory as a backlink.

backlink1 (http://www.google.com/search?q=link:www.online-web-solutions.com&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-10,GGLD:en&start=70&sa=N)
backlink2 (http://www.google.com/search?q=link:www.indianfreelancers.net&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-10,GGLD:en&start=10&sa=N)
backlink3 (http://www.google.com/search?q=link:www.indianfreelancers.net&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-10,GGLD:en&start=30&sa=N)

Even you will not find ODP directory as a backlink, it doesn't mean ODP link do not help in Google ;)

Hope it helps

[sew2002]

Thanks, it does help to know these little details. ;)

I'll check out your site too for seo tips. :)

[bethabernathy]

Best test I can think of is to see if you can find Google or Yahoo listing the page you are on in the Yahoo directory as a backlink. If so, then it should be something they are counting as a backlink. It's hard with a site with many links, though. Harder with Google not showing all the links it knows about. But anyone have an example they can share?

That was a pretty good test. I went to Yahoo and did a link query like:

link:http://www.northtahoehomes.com

and on page 1 the first result was the Yahoo Directory link. Here is the url and Yahoo query:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=link%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.northtahoehomes.c om&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&fl=0&x=wrt

Pretty cool!! :) -Beth

[seobook]

Best test I can think of is to see if you can find Google or Yahoo listing the page you are on in the Yahoo directory as a backlink. If so, then it should be something they are counting as a backlink. It's hard with a site with many links, though. Harder with Google not showing all the links it knows about. But anyone have an example they can share?
I think Google might be counting the Yahoo! directory, but at NYC SES Google stated that some of the stuff in the link: does not necissarily count for link popularity

[lobofenris]

Thanks

I am agree with danny that Google do not shows all the back links.

Even you will not find ODP directory as a backlink, it doesn't mean ODP link do not help in Google ;)

Cool, I've suspected this for a while. I recently launched a new site www.calbeds.com and Google says I have a big nada in the back links. Other back link checks with MSN and Yahoo show they have picked up some of my new back links. I guess my question is does anybody know definitively that Google recognizes some back links but doesn't post them in their back link check? And why they might choose to show some back links but not others in a query? Thanks.

[sew2002]

That's a good question. I have links from DMOZ which doesn't show up on my link check on google. If a DMOZ link doesn't count, how high is google's standard?