Yahoo Directory pages have lost their Google PageRank (Google Toolbar PageRank that is) and are now showing a greyed out PageRank box.
Example, the Yahoo Directory page for Entertainment currently has no PageRank :
Has the Yahoo Directory lost its PageRank?
Being a link building cornerstone of the Internet’s solid foundation, I find it highly unlikely and fairly ridiculous that Google would slap a PankRank penalty on the Yahoo Directory for selling links, especially when it sells the time it takes for professional editorial review.
Google’s Matt Cutts himself laid down the paid directory law on his blog last April :
I’ll try to give a few rules of thumb to think about when looking at a directory. When considering submitting to a directory, I’d ask questions like:
- Does the directory reject urls? If every url passes a review, the directory gets closer to just a list of links or a free-for-all link site.
- What is the quality of urls in the directory? Suppose a site rejects 25% of submissions, but the urls that are accepted/listed are still quite low-quality or spammy. That doesn’t speak well to the quality of the directory.
- If there is a fee, what’s the purpose of the fee? For a high-quality directory, the fee is primarily for the time/effort for someone to do a genuine evaluation of a url or site.
I’d say that Yahoo passes all tests.
If this is a penalty from Google, it would seem like a slap in the face to Yahoo and search itself, as the Yahoo Directory was the original web navigation vision that eventually led to defining quality and human edited web search. I mean, this isn’t some phpLinks spam directory selling links on DigitalPoint, this is the original Yahoo! 🙂
Hopefully we’ll have some word from Google on what’s going on here.
Update : Google confirms that there has been no loss of PageRank going on for the Yahoo Directory (please see comment below).
