I appreciate that this refers to a similiar question that i have
posted recently, howevever this is slightly more specific.

I have in the past paid for listing in directories such as Yahoo.
According to my web logs there have been in the region of 120
referrals from yahoo if this were the only factor this would represent
an expensive advertising mistake. However it is also provides an
additional link from a page with a pr of 4. My question is instead of
paying $299 to Yahoo should I spend the money on pay per click or are
there aditional unseen benefits to being listed in directories such as
Yahoo? If so please provide a list of directories I should submit to.

Hi there,

Paying for a listing on Yahoo involves the following factors:


PageRank
--------
Yahoo's home page has a PageRank of 9 or 10. The further down the
directory structure you go, PR gets smaller. So therefore being listed
on a high PR category page for $299 is much better value than a low PR
category page.

You could find a higher PR category that your site qualifies to be
listed in, let your current listing lapse, and when it is gone from
Yahoo, re-submit it to the higher PR category. Normally your site
would already be in the correct category.

If the Yahoo listing is the only PR4 or higher page linking to your
site, then a lot of your site's PR will be due to the Yahoo listing.
If your site currently has a PR6 or higher, losing the Yahoo listing
probably won't make much of a difference. Use Google's Backward Links
function to see a list of pages linking to your site, in order of
importance. The further down the list the Yahoo page is, the less
valuable it is to you.


Extra special weight in Google 
------------------------------
There is no such thing. Google treats all websites equally, which is
why when you do a Google search for "search engine", Google comes up
4th. Google can and do penalize sites, but no site ever gets special
favours.

In their advice on how to get listed in Google, they give following
advice, but that's all it is - advice - there's no special gain to be
had:

"If you are having difficulty getting listed in the Google index, you
may want to consider submitting your site to either or both of these
directories. You can submit to Yahoo! by visiting
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/. You can submit your site to
Netscape's Open Directory Project (DMOZ) by visiting www.dmoz.org."
://www.google.com/webmasters/1.html


Where webmasters find links
---------------------------
If I am making a page of content, and I want to provide a few topical
links for the visitor, then I often go to the directories as a quick
way of finding quality sites. Being listed there *might* be the reason
a high PR site chooses to link to you. I doubt this happens very
often, but it is a factor.


How big is the category?
------------------------
Some Yahoo category pages are becoming more and more bloated. For
example, check out:

...Internet and World Wide Web > Web Site Designers > M 
http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Economy/Business_to_Business/Communications_and_Networking/Internet_and_World_Wide_Web/Web_Site_Designers/WhitePages/wp_12.html

This is a case of once being a useful directory with the web surfer in
mind, and now being an exercise in generating revenue. It depends on
the category you are in, but in general you can expect the number of
listings to grow, and the odds of someone clicking through to your
site will lessen.


Changes ahead
-------------
Yahoo has been buying search engines this year: Overture, AltaVista &
AlltheWeb. Next year you can expect a lot to change.

- Yahoo could combine their directory listing fee with paid inclusion
to their search engines.
- They could relaunch their directory, and more people might use it. 
- Their search results might resume to showing directory results
within the general search results.

Any of the above could make the $299 seem better value. But then again
they might bump it up to $399!


Keywords
---------
If the Yahoo link to your site has some great keywords in it, then it
can be a big help in the search rankings. That includes the
description alongside the link as well. However, with recent Google
changes the value for commercial keywords has diminished greatly.

See my previous answer for more on link keywords and the Florida update:
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=283789 


Just Google?
------------
Currently the Google search engine influences approximately 80% of
search results. Next year, who knows? Yahoo will start using their own
engines. Microsoft will be launching theirs. Expect 80% to drop to 50%
or less.

Maybe Yahoo results will be biased towards being in their directory?


$299 for a PR4 link?
--------------------
I'm sure that there are many PR4 sites out there that would accept
much less to be promoted on their homepage. I've been selling a link
from a PR6 page for the same price.


My advice
---------
Ditch Yahoo. Keep an eye on them though, they might have a better
proposition next year.

There are other general directories, but in terms of boosting your
PageRank, Open Directory is a definite, and Zeal is worthwhile if your
site is non-commercial (although the process is painful). The rest are
not worth bothering with, in my opinion.

Look for some specialized directories. Run a Backward Links search on
your opposition's sites, and see where they are listed.


Best wishes,
robertskelton-ga

Very good answe more or less exactly what i was looking for.

Highly recommeded

It depends on:

How much is a visitor worth?
If your average visitor spends $20 then it is worth it...


How many other quality links do you have?
If you have dozens of links from PR4+ sites, then Yahoo probably isn't
making much of a difference. If it is the only one, then you'll lose
PageRank if you lose the link.

If the $300 is a one time fee and you use your website to sell goods,
then being listed in the yahoo directory is worth it. My (personal)
website used to get on the order of 10-20 visitors a day, and with
some search engine optimizations I got that up to about 50. Once I got
listed on yahoo though, it hit the roof. Even though yahoo accounts
for less than 100 visitors per day for me, the higher ranking it gave
me on google and other directories have made the real increase of
being on yahoo more to on the order of 500 visitors a day.

Quote: "If you have dozens of links from PR4+ sites, then Yahoo probably isn't
making much of a difference. If it is the only one, then you'll lose
PageRank if you lose the link."

It's not true, you don't have to have any PR4+ backlinks to have a PR.

I meant lose some PageRank, as in from PR5 to PR2, I didn't mean lose
PageRank altogther.

Thanks for the comments. I guesss what you are saying is there are two
measures of value one is the traffic (and how much they spent) and the
second is the PR4 link. Other than that there is no particular benefit
from a Yahoo pr4 than there is any other page with a pr 4.

Thannk you all once again you have been very helpful.

Regards

anon2

Google have stated that they assign no extra value to DMOZ or Yahoo,
but there might be something in the Google algorithm that in a round
about way makes them more worthwhile than they seem... All I know is
that Google suggests that you get listed in the directories.

I had a PR4 site, paid the $299, and the next week my traffic had
doubled. You need to factor in the flow-on effect, the snowball
effect. Getting the little rise in traffic or PR could be the momentum
you need to reach PR6 or higher.

Robert

Thanks for that, you have answered the majority of the question.
Although you have posted it as comments, I feel you shoulld submit it
as answer.