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Yahoo Submission Tips

by Jo Wang

In this report, you will learn:

How Yahoo works.

How to prepare for the submission to Yahoo.

How to work "Yahoo-correctly" with your title and description.

What you "must" and "mustn't" do before submitting to Yahoo.

What to do to boost your ranking with Yahoo.

Where to submit.

What to do after submission.

Where to hire an affordable expert to submit to major search engines and promote your site effectively

Yahoo is considered the "king of directories" on the Internet. Yahoo is one of the best Net advertising vehicles available. Yahoo listing doesn't drop in and out like your listing with the other search engines. Yahoo brings a good source of quality customers. Yahoo is listed No.1 search engines/directories by WebSnap.com.

Is your site listed in Yahoo's directory?
Yahoo rejects 50% of the submission it receives. For some people, getting listed in Yahoo is like winning the lottery: millions enter, but only a few are accepted. It's frustrating, but not impossible. Read on to learn tips to submit to Yahoo successfully.

Pre-submission

Don't bother to submit to Yahoo if your site is not 100% up and running, or with some pages "under construction."

Make sure your site has met those criteria:

The pages are targeted with good keywords/key phrases that people may actively search.

Though Yahoo is not a "keyword driven" search engine, using good keywords will help you get a meaningful source of traffic. With targeted keywords, the quality of the content at your site will win the favors of Yahoo's editors.

Here are 3 places to discover popular keywords:
Good Keywords
WordTracker
Goto.com search suggestion pages

Before you submit your page, use Web Site Traffic Builder to check you keyword density.
Your title contains your business name as Yahoo requires.

Yahoo rejects the site with title and description that sounds like promotional ads.

For example, if you are a travel agency, don't use " No. 1 choice to purchase air tickets, rental car, and book hotel" as your title. But do include your business name, "Southeast Travel --- air ticket, car rental, hotel." Yahoo might edit the title to simply use your company name. Remember that Yahoo doesn't allow hype. If your company name doesn't match the title of your page, Yahoo will substitute your company name for the title. That's why you have to consider the keyword before you name your url or business. Your title will mostly be edited by Yahoo's editors, yet make sure that the crucial keywords are in your description, which is written in a descriptive mood without hype.
A brief description is used.

Use a concise description about your business with no hype text. One sentence with 15-20 words is appropriate. Make sure to include your important keywords or key phrases in the description.

For example, do not use, "travelabc.com offers the best price on the Internet discount air fares & hotel rates," but use, " traveabc.com offers the discounted airfares and travel options, including car rental, hotels, cruises, vacation package and specials."
Your site contains unique content.

You don't want to be only listed in Yahoo, but also listed in top placement. In order to impress Yahoo's reviewers, you need unique content. Or you can hire a placement expert to boost the ranking of your site.

Search Yahoo's category listing in the area you plan to submit to and find an area that is lacking content. And create the content to fill in the gaps. You don't have to create hundreds of pages with unique content. Eight to ten pages will be enough to get you listed.

Your site must clearly define the purpose and the features of your product or services. Remember, Yahoo is looking for unique content that offers value to its visitors.

Use the logo that displays your business name. You will get more attention if your business is named with your targeted keyword.
Your site must support multiple browsers and capabilities. Test your site with Netscape 4.7.
Your official business name must be visible to any visitor to your site.
Your site must be up and running 24/7.
There are no errors, broken links, or "under construction" pages at your site.
Your site makes Yahoo's reviewers easily find your contact information such as your physical address, phone numbers, email, etc.
No "tricks" are allowed in Yahoo such as keyword spamming, redirects, invisible text, and multiple submissions. You site must be considered providing valuable information.
Own your own domain. It's difficult to have Yahoo list your site, if your site resides on the a sub-domain of an ISP or Web hosting service such as AOL, Geocities, Earthlink, etc.
Additional recommendations to help your listing at Yahoo

Keywords are shown in your title and description to get better ranking results.
Try to come up with a plausible title for your site, starting with a number or the letter A, B, C because Yahoo currently lists alphabetically by title. Note that Yahoo asks you to use your actual business name as your title.
Use a SSL (secure sockets layer) Web server for credit card transactions in your shopping cart.
Provide clear information about your company's privacy policies, return policies, warranties, and guarantees.
Use logo and links to sites such as The Best Business Bureau and Truste.
Yahoo editors may go to your shopping cart to see if you are the actual company who sells the product or just an affiliate. Yahoo tends to avoid listing affiliate sites, especially if the content is already in its directory.
Yahoo likes professionally designed Web pages with content that is visually pleasing.
If your site is not ready for submission, ask the expert to help you.

Submission

There are three places for you to get listed in Yahoo:
The main (original) Yahoo
The international Yahoo
The regional (city) Yahoo (click to see the whole listings of international & Regional Metro submissions . )

The main Yahoo is toughest to get into. So if your site is location-oriented, first try to get listed in the regional or international Yahoo. Remember that it takes 6-8 weeks for Yahoo's staff to review your site.

Use Yahoo's Business Express for $199 ($600 for an adult site) to get a quicker response to your application. This service guarantees that in 7 business days they will review your site and notify you by email when they make the decision. If your submission is declined, they will tell you why they did not accept it. Read the terms and conditions carefully before using Business Express.

The registration with Yahoo is complicated and time consuming. However, you must register with Yahoo if you want to maintain a serious presence on the Internet. To save you time and money, hire an expert to do all the submissions.

Follow these steps to submit your site:

Check to see if your site is already in Yahoo!

If your site is already listed in Yahoo! and you would like us to make changes, please use the change form.
Define your site to see if it's a commercial or non-commercial site.

If your site is selling anything at all, then your site belongs in the Business and Economy section of Yahoo. Yahoo no longer accepts free submission for commercial sites in late November of 2000. These two directories at Yahoo only accept paid submissions under the Business and Ecomomy category:
Shopping and Service
Business to Business
If you have a non-commercial site, you can still submit it for free. You can use Business Express to submit a non-commercial site to buy a faster decision.

You can submit a commercial site to the regional section of Yahoo for free if you don't have the budget to submit to Yahoo by Business Express.
Determine the first and the second categories that best fit your site in.

Look for a category that has the least number of entries in it to avoid being buried in a huge category. Usually it's a very specific category. The service or products at your site must be very consistent with the category you plan to get listed.
Go to the category page you wish to be listed in and click on the " suggest a site" at the very bottom of the page or on top bar. Then follow the instructions and register step by step.
Make sure you are doing the right thing at every step.

"Step two" gives you a chance to suggest an additional category. Don't submit your site until you have chosen your top two categories.

At "Step three", you are required to include your contact information. Make sure that the info you fill in matches the contact info provided at your submitted page. Yahoo even checks to see if the contact information matches you InterNIC registration.

Remember, Yahoo reserves the right to edit your title, description, and categories.
Yahoo uses the company name and site description when returning results from a keyword search.
Tell Yahoo in "Step four" if your site is time sensitive. Yahoo might hurry your application.
Some other tips which help your submission:

Yahoo will not accept your submission if you initiate the submission from the wrong page on their site. You need to click on "suggest a site" at the category page where you wish your site to be listed.
Your site will get banned from Yahoo if you submit a site to a regional index that has nothing to do with that region.
The "keyword optimized" sites will not catalog well on Yahoo. Yahoo does not index the content of your pages. Instead, follow the instruction provided above on the pre-submission section to make your site listed.
Understand the search results by Yahoo, which have several conponents; Yahoo category that match your query, Web Sites and Web Pages, etc. "Web Sites" are the results in the Yahoo index; "Web Pages" are drawn from Google. If your site does not appear in the "Web Sites" section, then your site is not listed in Yahoo.

After-Submission

Wait patiently for Yahoo to email you about its decision. If you use Business Express to submit your site, you should get a reply in 7 business days. If you do not hear from Yahoo's staff within 2 weeks, write them a nice letter as a reminder at url-support@yahoo-inc.com. Write them another polite letter if your site is not listed in 30 days. Be sure to provide the specific time, date, company name, page description, etc., in your email. Don't abuse Yahoo by sending them numerous emails. You don't want Yahoo to get angry with you. It takes 7 to 10 days for Yahoo to act on your request.

If your site is not listed in 2 weeks after using a free registration, contact them at url-support@yahoo-inc.com. Make sure to use the original email address used when you registered the site. If you still don't hear from Yahoo, restart the submission and see if there is anything you can do to improve your site at this submission.

You can also contact them by mail or phone:

Yahoo! Corporation
3420 Central Expressway, 2^nd floor
Santa Clara, CA 95051, USA

Phone: 408-731-3300 --- 8:30 AM to 5:00PM PST
Fax: 408-731-3301
Support Phone: 408-731-3333
Extension#1: For information on submitting a new URL
Extension#2: For information on making changes to an existing listing in Yahoo
Extension#3: For information about Yahoo! search results.

Working your site with Yahoo's requirements is frustrating, but it's not impossible. Here is a solution to save you time and money to sumbit to all majoy search engines and be ranked high.