Search Directories

At one time, Yahoo was the main search tool used on the internet (although for the record, Lycos was the first search engine). However it is important to keep in mind that unlike say Google, Yahoo was never intending to catalogue the whole web. It's aim is to provide a directory - a listings service of sites that they recommend.

A key factor to bare in mind is that every site is checked by a 'real live human.' When we started submitting to Yahoo shortly after their launch in 1994 it was pretty much a case of emailing their 'live human' and explaining why they should include the site. More often than not we'd end up having an email conversation about what they did or didn't like about the site, where they went on holiday ...
Things have changed considerably now. These days most (but not all) Yahoo entries must be paid for. And there's no promise that it will be included. As a general rule we advise that clients do not pay for submissions to Yahoo, simply because the rate of return can be hard to justify. The directory is not as popular as it once was and that money can be better spent in areas such as pay per click advertising.

One directory that should not be ignored, however, is Open Directory (DMOZ). Although it is now owned by AOL (please don't let that put you off), Open Directory works on the basis of volunteer reviews, which also means that submissions are free. The directory provides its database to other search engines, most significantly to Google.

Page Rank in Directories

Unlike crawler engines, there are many more limitations to the information in search directories. In essence they work on two main factors: the category and the description. It is very much a case of being in the correct category and having a description which contains the appropriate keywords to ensure a good page rank.
If you are not correctly listed then it is possible to change these (with varying degrees of success). Our Search Engine Optimisation Service includes an update to any directory listings based on the results of our key word research.

Formation provides a complete web marketing and search engine optimisation service.
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