Should You Submit your Web Site to Yahoo! ?Written by Alan Grissett
By even most conservative estimates, Yahoo! is single largest search directory in terms of overall quantity of searches. This is due to a number of factors including its early entrance onto Web (1994), popularity of its value added services (e.g. Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, and My Yahoo!), and overall quality of its directory listings. So what does large quantity of searches performed at Yahoo! mean for sites that are listed in directory? It means that, with a good listing, a Web site can expect to receive a good amount of targeted, keyword-specific traffic. In fact, Yahoo! is so confident that it can generate traffic for Web sites that it now charges submission and annual listing fees for commercial sites listed in its directory. (Yes, you read correctly, annual listing fees).Yahoo! uses human beings to organize Web. These human editors find sites or review submissions, then, if sites are of sufficient quality, place those sites in one or more categories that are relevant to them. Beginning in November 2000, Yahoo! implemented a mandatory submission fee for review of commercial sites. This fee only guaranteed that an editor of Business Express service, as it was then named, would review site within seven business days. It DID NOT guarantee a listing in directory, only that a site would be reviewed. At time, a lot of Webmasters felt that this was extortion, but for many businesses, it was a relief, because previous submission process had no specific time frame for review. In fact, average review time before introduction of Business Express service was two to three months.
| | The Web's Secret Traffic Source - the Open Directory ProjectWritten by Alan Grissett
The importance of having targeted traffic can't be understated, and search engines can be a great source of this traffic. The first search service covered in this series of articles is a directory known as Open Directory Project, or ODP (http://www.dmoz.com/).First, a little background on Open Directory Project: The ODP is a Web directory, not a search engine, and purpose of ODP is to list and categorize web sites. But unlike Yahoo! or several dozen other directories that maintain a paid staff of reviewers, "the ODP is an Open Source inspired, volunteer managed initiative." In a nutshell, this means that human volunteers review, add, and remove listings of this directory. Potential editors can elect to review site submissions in categories related to their area of expertise or interest. In and of itself, this is a pretty remarkable method for reviewing sites, because it allows for those most knowledgeable in a given area to review sites submitted to that same area. From a Web site manager's perspective though, Open Source nature of search service itself is main factor in its importance as a traffic source.
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