Yahoo! Directory, Search, and Site Match

"I'm not sure what to think of Yahoo! Now you can: 1) submit for free, 2) pay $49.99 plus $0.15 to $0.30 per click 3) Pay for Performance (i.e., Overture) or 4) pay $299.00 to submit to Yahoo's Directory. I understand Yahoo is looking for multiple streams of income, but what is the best choice for a small business, especially if it doesn't have an e-commerce site?" -- Patricia Hughes, Hughes Technology Solutions

Yahoo! is important, reflected by the fact that both Alexa and comScore MediaMetrix rank it as the #1 US website property, with nearly twice as many unique visitors as Google. In May 2004 comScore MediaMetrix qSearch found Yahoo! with 26.5% of all US searches (second after Google with 36.8%), followed by MSN (14.5%) and AOL (12.8%).

What makes Yahoo! confusing is that the services you mention are like comparing apples, oranges, and grapefruit. What's more, Yahoo! keeps changing the names of its services. Let me try to clarify these very different kinds of services -- (1) Yahoo! directory, (2) Yahoo! Search engine, and (3) Yahoo! Overture Precision Match (PPC).

1. Yahoo! Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com/) is a human-edited hierarchical directory that provides links to businesses for $299 per year (if your listing is accepted) through Yahoo! Express (http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add?+Business). Non-commercial sites can sometimes be suggested and listed at no charge (http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/). Though you'll receive some traffic from your Yahoo! Directory listing, Yahoo! doesn't feature its directory nearly as much as it used to. However, the link to your site from this high PageRanked directory can help boost your own ranking on Google and other search engines. If you have a small marketing budget to work with, you should seriously consider a paid Yahoo! Directory listing.

2. Yahoo! Search (http://search.yahoo.com/) is Yahoo's own search engine that competes with Google as an online search tool. Your site's ranking in a "natural" or "organic" search on Yahoo! Search will be affected by the keywords on your webpage plus the number of incoming links to your site -- similar (but not identical) to the way Google ranks webpages. If you're not listed on Yahoo! search, you can submit your webpage for free (http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request), and (hopefully) your webpage will be crawled and indexed in a few weeks. However, if you have a very deep site -- with hundreds of product pages, for example -- Yahoo! Search and other search engines may not index all the webpages in your site. To guarantee that some of your important pages are indexed, you can submit them through Yahoo! Overture Site Match (www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ays/bjump/sm.jhtml), a type of service sometimes referred to as "paid inclusion." Fees include an "annual fee" and a "cost-per-click" (CPC) fee. The annual fee per domain is $49 for the first URL, $29 each for the next 2 through 10 URLs, and $10 for each URL thereafter. CPC fees are 15¢ per click for most categories and 30¢ for apparel, electronics, flowers, health, travel, etc. Site Match won't help your ranking on the Yahoo! Search engine, but it does get your URLs into the Yahoo! Search, AltaVista, and AlltheWeb indexes, indexed initially within 72 hours and re-indexed every 48 hours.

I used to look at this as one more way to rip off the advertiser, but my views have changed. If you have product pages that could earn you hundreds or thousands of dollars per year if people could find them, then $10 plus 15¢ per click is a bargain if the choice is between being indexed or not. Search engines are overtaxed and don't come close to indexing all the webpages on the Internet. Being indexed is not really an inalienable right, but a privilege. Deep business sites and their thousands of dynamically-generated catalog pages often have problems getting all their important, revenue-generating pages indexed. Don't use Site Match if your site is already listed in Yahoo! Search -- it won't help you. Only use Site Match if you have valuable pages that you just can't get indexed. Unfortunately, Google doesn't offer a paid inclusion product.

3. Yahoo! Overture Precision Match (formerly called "Pay-For-Performance Search", www.wilsonweb.com/afd/overture.htm) is the hugely popular Overture Pay Per Click (PPC) product, which competes with Google AdWords. Your Precision Match ads show up to the right of the "organic" search results, when one of the keywords you select is searched. Your position in the list of Precision Match ads is based on the amount you bid for a particular keyword. Overture can cause your ad to show up next to search results on Yahoo! Search, MSN, AltaVista, CNN, and InfoSpace -- and on some non-search content sites. Yahoo! Overture now offers Local Match that allows local businesses to precisely target customers near their business locations or within their service areas (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/localmatch.htm). If you want to blanket Internet keyword searches, use both Overture and Google AdWords services.

I know it's difficult to differentiate between these products, so I'll simplify:

Do I recommend these? It all depends on your present ranking on the search engines and your budget. In general, do submit your site to Yahoo! Search if your site is not already listed. Pay for a Yahoo! Directory listing if you can afford it. Don't use Yahoo! Site Match unless you must to get your pages indexed. Use both Overture Precision Match and Google AdWords PPC ads to drive more traffic to your site. If you plan to do much PPC advertising, however, please read Andrew Goodman's e-book Google AdWords Handbook: 21 Ways to Maximize Results (www.wilsonweb.com/afd/pagezero.htm). Goodman's wise (but sometimes counterintuitive) tips will save you money.