By S. Donahoe -
Why Can't I Get Listed On Yahoo?
If I hear that question one more time, I am going to explode! The truth is you are not alone. It is very difficult to get listed on Yahoo, but if you follow my advice here you will stand a better chance of getting accepted. I am going to give you every piece of advice I can about getting your site ready for Yahoo's top traffic-generating directory.
A Little Understanding!
A Yahoo listing is one of the hardest listings to obtain, yet it is certainly the largest traffic generator your site can have!
Yahoo is very different from every other search engine on the planet. Unlike a regular search engine, every site submitted to Yahoo is reviewed by a human being. You are not trying to fool a simple robot. These are the top net savvy people on the planet who are looking for scams, tricks and subtle attempts to fool them. If you try, you will fail. That is lesson number one!
The average reviewer at Yahoo sees hundreds of sites every day. They are only looking for top quality sites to include in the directory and can reject up to 85% of them instantly. Again, don't try to fool them and you reduce the chance of being cut out of the directory.
Basic Requirements
Remember, your site is being appraised by a human not a robot, and they will look at the following elements of your site to see if it is worthy of inclusion :
- How Big Are You? - A mini-site or single page web site has less chance than a larger multi-page site.
- Rich Content - They are looking for good content, information and a site that has VALUE to its users.
- Solid Design - If your site looks non-professional or if it loads slowly, then the reviewer will not include you (so no poor Geocities template sites!)
- Obey the rules - Do not choose inappropriate categories or spam keywords as a description or any other obvious trickery. You wont even get visited by the reviewer!
Plan Carefully
When you are looking to include your site on Yahoo, you have to plan carefully. Make sure you have all your bases covered before submitting a site for review. You have to satisfy all their requirements or you will just be wasting your time. Do it right first time as there is no going back!
Make sure :
- You have selected the right category.
- Your description is appropriate, concise and isn't too long!
- Your title is short, concise and does not contain your company title
(and to hell with the whining marketing manager!)
- The title of your site matches the title of the page you are submitting.
- Etc. etc. etc....
The list goes on, but you see my point. Make sure you have planned to make the reviewer's life as easy as possible or he will just dismiss your submission.
Anyway, let's have a close look at the main elements of getting a good Yahoo listing...
Selecting Categories
When selecting a category, you can select both a primary and a secondary category. Do a little research and find out where sites similar to yours are located in the directory. Find the best suited one for your primary, include the next best one for your secondary and make sure both are relevant.
Do not be too worried if you have a lot of competition in your primary or secondary category. This means it is probably a very busy category and has lots of traffic.
You may not get listed in your secondary category, but do not miss the opportunity to apply for one. Try a regional category relevant to your site. The reviewers are keen to fill those categories as opposed to the main categories. Careful consideration of category selection will help you achieve your goal listing.
Start your submission by going to your primary category and clicking the "suggest a site" link at the bottom of that page.
What Is In A Title
OK, how about a little secret?
As I mentioned earlier, a Yahoo Title and the <TITLE> of your site are two very separate things. You have to understand that before we use this little secret. Your Yahoo Title is what you enter as a title when you suggest a site to Yahoo. The <TITLE> is that which is embedded into the HTML code on your web page.
The Yahoo Title is of more importance than the description (when a user searches for site) so we need to include our primary keywords there. The Yahoo staff will always try to shorten your Yahoo Title to just a company name. So temporarily changing your company name to include your main keyword will enable you to have it allowed in your Yahoo Title. For example, if your business is called "Benton Plastics" and your primary product and keyword is "widgets" Yahoo will list you as :
Title: Benton Plastics
Description: Widgets
What we really want is :
Title: Benton Plastics Widgets
Description: Creation, fabrication of high quality widgets, plastics extrusion etc., etc.,,,,
As I mentioned previously, Mr. Yahoo wants to see that the Yahoo Title and the site's <TITLE> match. So you have to (temporarily) change your site's title to match the titles of the main page that hold the same information as your home page to make them all match. In this case we change all pages to the title "Benton Plastics Widgets". If the Yahoo reviewer sees your company name is just "Benton Plastics" guess what your listing will be? Exactly..."Benton Plastics".
If you want to put this name change into effect without a shadow of a doubt, change a main logo (again temporarily) to match the new name. This technique will seal the deal and lock in the name of your company with Yahoo. Once you have been given your listing, the reviewer or Yahoo will never visit your site again, so you can change it back to what it was. Nice little technique, huh?
Alphabetical Relevancy
This used to be a big factor in listing order. A company called "Aardvark Physics" would land near the top of the listings. If your site was called "Zynaban Physics" you would naturally be listed near the bottom of a large category. However, this is not so relevant now. Most people perform their searches from Yahoo's home page rather than going though the directory itself.
Accurate Descriptions
First of all, never exceed the limitation of 25 words for your description. In reality it should be much less. The more concise you are the better. Excessive descriptions are guaranteed to get you chopped off. I recommend 10-15 words maximum. Write your description as a natural sentence with good punctuation and avoid commas. For some reason, they hate that.
Add your primary keywords to the description, but as mentioned in the last paragraph, it must flow as a natural sentence.
Site URLs
Unexpectedly, your actual URL does have relevancy on Yahoo. However, is it the least relevant element of all the factors we have discussed so far. Ideally (as with all search engine submissions) your URL should contain a keyword or two because this gives your site just a hint more relevancy.
If you are unable to do this, you can get around it by putting your pages in a directory labeled with one of your keywords. A URL for our previous "Widgets" example :
http://www.bentonplastics.com/widgets/mypage.html
There is a rumor that Yahoo does not accept long listings (like the example above) and only accepts root domains like "www.bentonplastics.com". This is FALSE. There are many listing in the Yahoo directory that have long listings.
Just to show how false that rumor is, try this URL:
http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/Mosaic/Docs/htmlwidget.html
I Got My Yahoo Listing!
Congratulations, you are now all set for lots and lots of traffic! That is unless....
You want to try for more listings by setting up another domain to mirror your site. Be careful though, as they will check your site's details against other sites in their listings. If the details match any others (like your other domain) they will investigate and chop you if you get caught. Just refocus the keywords, titles and descriptions and change the company names. Make it appear like a completely different company.
Fast Submission
Most submission to Yahoo take months! There is a solution, but it can be expensive.
Pay $299 for "Business Express"
This service will not guarantee you a listing. It simply guarantees that your site will be reviewed within 7 days. They will then tell you if you are accepted or refused. If you are refused, they will tell you why that happened so you can go away and resubmit. If you resubmit using the express system you will have to pay the price of $299 for a second time. This fee is non-refundable and recurring annually.
Final Notes
Getting listed on Yahoo is difficult. It takes some hard work and careful planning. If you follow our advice then you should be able to get into their listings and stand out from the millions of refused sites. Think positive, do your homework and you will succeed in getting listed, driving thousands of targeted hits to your site every day from the world's largest search engine!
