Yahoo Paid Submission

Your submission to a non-commercial category is more likely to be accepted if your content is not overtly commercial. For example, submitting the home page of a site that sells running shoes is likely to be seen a commercial and not accepted. However, if you have a page within that web site that discusses in depth how to select the right type of shoes for different running races, then that page might be deemed helpful, non-commercial information and accepted.

As for commercial categories, Yahoo requires that sites pay a Yahoo Express submission fee of $300 (well, $299) per year. This fee doesn't guarantee that you will be listed, only that you'll get a yes or no answer about being accepted within seven business days. However, the vast majority of most decent sites are accepted.

If accepted, you'll be reevaluated after a year and charged the submission fee again, if you want to stay in Yahoo's commercial area. You should review the traffic you received from Yahoo over the past year, to decide if it is worth paying the fee again. If not, you can decline to be listed, and you will not be charged.

But what about Google? If you originally signed up with Yahoo hoping to influence Google, won't dropping your Yahoo listing cause you to be dropped by Google? Not necessarily. Google will keep listing your site on its own. Whether it will rank it well is a separate question. However, after a year of existence, your web site may have other important links pointing at it. This means that losing your link from Yahoo may not have much of an impact on your ranking. If money is tight, you could try dropping the Yahoo listing and only submit again if you find it does have an impact with how you rank in Google's results.

The annual fee only applies to commercial categories. If you submit to a non-commercial category using Yahoo Express and get accepted into that area, the fee is charged only once, not on an annual basis. You might get the opposite impression, because you'll keep seeing references to "recurring annual fee." However, in the terms and conditions for Yahoo Express, the annual fee is only for sites in the Yahoo Commercial Directory.

You'll know you are submitting to a commercial category if the "reverse bar" containing the category name at the top of the category page is yellow. You'll also know because if you try to submit to a commercial category, only the Yahoo Express submission option is offered.

How do you submit? If you are submitting for free to a non-commercial category, click on the "Suggest a Site" link that appears at the bottom of category page. That will bring up a submission form. Fill it out, and you're done.

If you are paying to submit, you needn't pick a category. Instead, just go to the URL below:

Yahoo Express Submission Form
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add?+Business

From there, Yahoo editors will choose a category for you. All you need to do is fill out the form that's presented.

The above tips are the bare essentials to getting listed with Yahoo. If you are in a hurry, you can follow them, and you'll probably get listed and receive some traffic from the service. However, you may want to do even more preparation before submitting to this important service.

Alternatively, you might consider working with a search engine optimization company such as Pathway Solutions which has experience in submitting to Yahoo. You'll have to pay for their services, but the price may be worth it in relation to the additional traffic you'll receive from a carefully conducted submission to Yahoo.

Finally, even if you choose not to submit to the Yahoo Directory, you may still appear in some the results at Yahoo that come from Google. The next part of this guide explains how to submit to Google.

The Open Directory is a volunteer-built guide to the web. It is provided as an option at many major search engines, including Google . Given this, being listed with the Open Directory is essential to any site owner.

The good news is that submission is absolutely free. The bad news is that this means there's no guaranteed turnaround time to getting a yes or no answer about whether you've been accepted.

If you are accepted, you should see your site appear within about three weeks. If this doesn't happen, then you should resubmit.

As with Yahoo, it's highly recommended that you take the time to learn more about the Open Directory before submitting, in order to maximize the amount of traffic you may receive. a great palce to start your listing is in the http://www.dmoz.org/

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