Seems that some publishers who have paid to have their sites listed in the Yahoo Directory (which is an essential part of a core link building strategy along with Best of the Web and DMOZ listings) are seeing their listings renewed by Yahoo for free. Yahoo usually charges an annual fee of $299 for its directory listings.
Barry covered this at SE Roundtable. I kind of agree with Barry here that since Yahoo is downsizing and the directory probably isn’t much of a top priority, it would make sense for Yahoo to designate the quality sites listed in their directory as just that; quality, and issue some sort of free renewal bonus for those sites.
It would also make much more sense for the Yahoo Directory staff to take the time to purge the directory of redirects, dead sites and dropped domains, if Yahoo actually wants their directory to help search algorithms define quality sites.
More on Yahoo Directory Renewals :
- …It appears that some sites that have paid for inclusion into the Yahoo Directory are no longer being charged for the annual resubmission fee.
A few webmasters confirmed in a WebmasterWorld thread that they have not been charged the fee and their listing is still there.
I’ve always had 3 websites that I paid for inclusion into Yahoo Directory. Now, 2 of the three are no longer listed under my Yahoo account (the backend where my billing info etc. is).
I noticed this after realizing I wasn’t charged for them towards the end of last year. But the listings are still active in the directory – they show up in the same categories, everything just like when I was paying for them.
I have two sites listed in the Y directory. One was listed about 3 years ago. I paid the fee but it never renewed, it remains in the directory to this day. The other listing I just paid for last December. Since my credit card expires before next December, I’m pretty sure I won’t be billed for it. I’ll be interested to see if it stays in the directory. I suspect it will stay.
