Does a Yahoo directory listing hurt Y! search results?

[pdstein]

My company's website ranks #33 in Yahoo! for our primary keyword phrase "Christian web hosting." When looking at the results I noticed that only 3 of the 32 sites that rank ahead of ours have directory listings. Those sites have shorter descriptions and because of Y!D strict guidelines they have no keywords in the title. Meanwhile those sites not in the directory have long descriptions and keyword-rich titles. So, my first question is, do sites listed in the Yahoo directory have an inherant disadvantage in the search results?

Second, our directory listing stinks. The description and category are both obsolete. I just submitted a form requesting an update, so hopefully that will improve things. But my second question is apart from any possible inherent advantages or disadvantages for directory listings in general, would a bad directory discription & category hurt a site like ours in the results? In other words, does Yahoo search look at our directory listing instead of the content of our site?

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by pdstein

My company's website ranks #33 in Yahoo! for our primary keyword phrase "Christian web hosting." When looking at the results I noticed that only 3 of the 32 sites that rank ahead of ours have directory listings. Those sites have shorter descriptions and because of Y!D strict guidelines they have no keywords in the title. Meanwhile those sites not in the directory have long descriptions and keyword-rich titles. So, my first question is, do sites listed in the Yahoo directory have an inherant disadvantage in the search results?

No highly doubt it. Of course Yahoo only knows for sure, but why in the world would they do this?

Originally Posted by pdstein

Second, our directory listing stinks. The description and category are both obsolete. I just submitted a form requesting an update, so hopefully that will improve things. But my second question is apart from any possible inherent advantages or disadvantages for directory listings in general, would a bad directory discription & category hurt a site like ours in the results? In other words, does Yahoo search look at our directory listing instead of the content of our site?

Have you consdiered using this tag:

Post subject: Yahoo! Search Support for 'NOYDIR' Meta Tags and Update

[SemAdvance]

Hi

Yahoo uses the meta keywords tag to spam check against page content and vice versa.

<meta name="keywords" content="Hosting, web host, site hosting, affordable web site hosting, web site hosting provider, Christian websites, build free websites, free Christian websites, free Christian, web site design services, affordable web site design, web design services, Christian, free Christian web hosting, Christian web hosting, web hosting, web design, Christian website marketing, website marketing, search engine registration, search engine">

Your tag would be labeled spam and as such is likely earning you a filter to lowered results in Yahoo.

Clean up the tag and measure your results.

Also might want to look at the div tags section with a titles you have used mid page and try not to be so obvious in your seo attempt here.

div class="tanmenuitem"><a title="Build free Christian websites - Free Christian web hosting, web design, and search engine registration services"

Same thing with h1 h2 h3 tags further down

<h1 id="pageTitle" title="Free Christian Web Hosting and Web Design Services and Affordable Marketing and Search Engine Registration!"

I don't know how to put this in a more delicate manner.... but Google & others would have a hard time finding your "faith" based practice, amongst all the marketing hype ;->

Remember you are building sites for visitors... not search engines.

[pdstein]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

No highly doubt it. Of course Yahoo only knows for sure, but why in the world would they do this?

It would be more of an unintended consequences thing.

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

Have you consdiered using this tag:

Post subject: Yahoo! Search Support for 'NOYDIR' Meta Tags and Update

I missed that announcement. Thanks!

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by SemAdvance

Remember you are building sites for visitors... not search engines.

Best thing ever learned in SEO.

[pdstein]

Originally Posted by SemAdvance

Hi

Yahoo uses the meta keywords tag to spam check against page content and vice versa.

<meta name="keywords" content="Hosting, web host, site hosting, affordable web site hosting, web site hosting provider, Christian websites, build free websites, free Christian websites, free Christian, web site design services, affordable web site design, web design services, Christian, free Christian web hosting, Christian web hosting, web hosting, web design, Christian website marketing, website marketing, search engine registration, search engine">

Your tag would be labeled spam and as such is likely earning you a filter to lowered results in Yahoo.

Why do you think that's spam? It's a list of keywords relevant to our site.

Also might want to look at the div tags section with a titles you have used mid page and try not to be so obvious in your seo attempt here.

Thanks for sharing your honest opinion. I appreciate it. Why should we not be so obvious? I don't think SEO is something to hide. Everything we have included on our homepage is relevant to the services we provide.

I don't know how to put this in a more delicate manner.... but Google & others would have a hard time finding your "faith" based practice, amongst all the marketing hype ;->

Remember you are building sites for visitors... not search engines.

We build sites for BOTH search engines and visitors. I think we do a pretty good job of speaking to both as we rank well in Google and have a good conversion rate. That's the goal, is it not?