Not impressed by Yahoo

[Peter (IMC)]

You´re legally correct. You should be a lawyer,.. But no matter what you say, the reality is that if you want your business site in the Yahoo Directory, you better pay that $299.

Since you know the Yahoo directory so well, can you explain what happens when you don't pay the $299 the second year?

[Martinscholes]

I have made this post as a warning to other website owners to beware the Yahoo directory.
I submitted a site to them last May and paid the $299 review fee. Yahoo say the site will be reviewed within days and an e-mail will explain reasons for non inclusion if site is not accepted.

Approx a month after receiving nothing I did find our website had been included in the directory. Unfortunately in the incorrect category. Since then I have repeatedly requested the site be added to the correct category. The e-mail response was that it had been incorrectly categorised and that after a few days the site would be included in the correct category. Well here we are in Jan 2008 and it's still not!

Next moan. The same website used to appear quite well for our keyphrases in Yahoo search but following a cosmetic only revamp only the index page is now indexed. I decided that probably to verify the site with Yahoo may rectify this, it didn't. Neither did submitting an XML feed sitemap. Again I have politely e-mailed Yahoo about this. I even asked them directly if the site was being penalised. One lady did reply to me saying it wasn't penalised and the problem was with Yahoo. Months later still only the index page is included! The same site ranks well in both MSN and Google with all pages indexed.

Next moan. The new revamped Yahoo search marketing interface is yet still slower to use than it's previous Overture and not as straightforward, worse still some of the keyphrases I've bid on don't come up when using Yahoo Search. Often in the sponsored results all you see is "Advertise your site here". Well I'm trying to do just that.

So my experience of Yahoo is that they clearly have no interest in website owners. Anyone else had similar experiences?

You are in the UK? Great! Great if you used a credit card, not a debit card.

Because under the 1974 Consumer Credit Act any transaction of £100 and over is the responsibility of the Credit Card Company to resolve. They have to pay you your money.

[Martinscholes]

It's doubtful that such dispute would be successful, as Yahoo makes it clear that 1) there is no guarantee of inclusion, 2) that they reserve the right to place the listing, if approved, in the category of their choice, and 3) that the subsmission fee is non-refundable regardless of the result of their review.

Not under UK law. Yahoo will be stuffed.

[deepsand]

Not under UK law. Yahoo will be stuffed.

Are the Terms presented by Yahoo the same in the UK as in the US?

If so, and bearing in mind that we're dealing with Contract Law here, and a Contract of Adhesion in particular, specifically what is there in the Consumer Law that you cite which stands to render Yahoo's Terms null and void?

[deepsand]

You´re legally correct. You should be a lawyer,..

More than a few have suggested that I might consider changing my profession to becoming a teacher or a lawyer. As such remarks were always intended as compliment, I'll assume the same here, and graciously say "thank you."

But no matter what you say, the reality is that if you want your business site in the Yahoo Directory, you better pay that $299.

Given that such is not the only entry point to said Directory, I would say that it depends on the necessity for both timeliness and certainty of result.

Absent such needs, and bearing in mind that the benefit of being so listed most greatly accrues to those businesses for whom a web site is an extension of brick-and-mortar, my advice would be to wait and see if one is listed by action(s) initiated by Yahoo.

BTW, both having brick-and-mortar and using the PPC program formerly known as Overture seems to get their attention.

Since you know the Yahoo directory so well, can you explain what happens when you don't pay the $299 the second year?

My knowledge of said directory is limited to my personal experiences and their published information; I have no privileged view of the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of Yahoo. Therefore, I am unable to provide you with a definitive answer to your question, one that I myself have wondered about.

Were I to speculate, and assume that Yahoo were to act rationally and in its best interests, it would not be illogical to suppose that they would not immediately remove such listing, but would instead allow it to be handled by that(those) process(es) which result in non-submitted sites being listed or de-listed.

[Martinscholes]

Are the Terms presented by Yahoo the same in the UK as in the US?

If so, and bearing in mind that we're dealing with Contract Law here, and a Contract of Adhesion in particular, specifically what is there in the Consumer Law that you cite which stands to render Yahoo's Terms null and void?

It is the Fair Trade Act:
The Office of Fair Trading: Fair Trading Act

Basically it says if terms of an agreement are deemed -by a court- to be unfair, the agreement can be set aside as unfair.

[deepsand]

It is the Fair Trade Act:
The Office of Fair Trading: Fair Trading Act

Basically it says if terms of an agreement are deemed -by a court- to be unfair, the agreement can be set aside as unfair.

Said Fair Trading Act (FTA) was repealed almost in its entirety in 2003, having been replaced by the Enterprise Act (EA). Those few portions of the FTA which survive have nothing to do with consumer protection.

An overview of the EA finds no nexus to the matter here under discussion. More importantly, the scope of authority of the EA appears to be limited to EU member states.

Absent both a clear and definitive nexus and the requisite extra-territorial authority, one should not be quick to assume that a party residing in the UK should expect to easily best Yahoo in this matter.

[mitosblog]

Google brings 4 to 5 times more visitors to my site compared to Yahoo. Since Yahoo is no.1 in the world I couldn't understand why this could have happened.

[deepsand]

Google brings 4 to 5 times more visitors to my site compared to Yahoo. Since Yahoo is no.1 in the world I couldn't understand why this could have happened.

There are any number of possible reasons:

1) The demographics of your intended target audience could be more closely aligned with those of Google users than they are with those of Yahoo users;

2) You may be targeting the wrong geographic region(s);

3) Your site may place higher in the natural/organic listings on Google than they do on Yahoo; and/or,

4) If using PPC advertsing, your ads may be placed higher on Google that they are on Yahoo.

[activeco]

I have several sites naturally linked in Yahoo directory, however I couldn't see real benefits of the listing.
I have to 'grep' a lot of stat lines to find someone referred from there and funny thing is that even Yahoo siteexplorer don't show the links from the directory.
Yes, the links are redirected (in the form of "rds.yahoo.com..."), but the addresses are clearly shown below the listings, yet they seem discounted from Yahoo itself.
Google doesn't show them either, which still doesn't mean they are not counted.
However one of the sites, also several years listed in the directory (currently waiting its redesign turn) has received NO hit from Google in a year (except images).