Yahoo is still the worlds most important search engine.
Yahoo can bring you traffic that your site may need.

There are a lot of webmasters trying to get listed in Yahoo. Some of them 
get an immediate listing, but most of the webmasters never get listed. 


And why are there so many sites who fail?

Submitted URL's in Yahoo are being added by humans, the "yahoo surfers" 
They have no crawlers, robots or scripts which searches through the net and

indexes automatically the pages. 
After you've submitted your page URL, a yahoo surfer is going to take a look
at your site and it's this person that will accept your site and add it to Yahoo,
or just reject it (you will never get a notification in case of rejection)

So what should I do that they list me?

1. Make a redesign on your page. 
   
  - Your page must look very professional and it must load fast (no yahoo
    surfer will wait three minutes just to take a look at your page).
  - Have value - good content and/or a unique product that is well presented.

  - Be easy to use, including a simple, clear navigation system.
  - Get an own domain - not essential but it helps.


2. Prepare your answers for the submit form. Open Word or a similar program
    like notepad and prepare the following informations that you need when
    you submit your site:

1. Title
If you have an especially important keyword that customers
would use to find you, make sure that it appears in the title.
If you add promotional language, they'll cut it out. Yahoo 
still returns search results alphabetically by title, but don't
play the alphabet game with Yahoo.

2. URL
Yahoo permits you to submit only one URL per domain.
In most cases you will submit your root URL (http://www.
yoururl.com). If another URL is more appropriate, submit it 
instead; then justify that submission in the Final Comments
section of the Yahoo submission form. There is an important
consequence to the "one URL" rule. If you sell a single product,
Yahoo will be your mos important source of traffic. The larger
and more diversified your product line, the less important Yahoo
becomes.

3. Description
Use your keyword at least once in your description. You are
supposed to be allowed 25 words in your description, but at
25 words, you'll likely get edited down, and thus lose control
of the wording. Instead, set yourself a 15 word maximum. Use
a single sentence without commas. Don't make your description 
promotional or the Yahoo editor will chop it out.

4. Categories
Since your is probably a commercial venture, you must list it 
somewhere in Yahoo's major category of "Business_and_
Economy". Search for competitive products and see where
the're listed. Enter the most likely keyword for your product
into Yahoo's search engine, and you'll probably bring up
several high-potential categories.

Copy the URL's of your two chosen categories and paste them
into your preparation sheet. Yahoo may graceyou with a listing
in only one of your categories. So list these URL's in order of
importance.

5. Contact Info
Type your full name and e-mail adress. Make sure your e-mail
adress has no typosn in it. Then list other company information.

6. Final Comments
Add a short blurb about the value of your site - content, traffic,
satisfied customers, etc. If you have to explain something about
your submission, do it here, too.


3. Review and Submit
Now review everything from Yahoo's surfers (or editors) point of view. Anything

they could object to? When you're ready, paste in your #1 Yahoo category
URL into your browser. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the 
"Suggest a Site" link.

After copying and pasting into the form from your prep sheet, save it.
You may need it again if you have to re-submit. And you can use parts
of it for other directories.

P.S. If you are not listed within two weeks, re-submit. Keep submitting 
every two weeks.


What if they still don't list me after submitting several times?


Odds are that Yahoo editors just didn't get around to your site.

After eight weeks with no listing, check your log files and see if you
had any visits from "add.yahoo.com", their spider that checks to 
validate the URL (not to index it). If you aren't litsted within a few
weeks, you were probably rejected.
If you feel that you have an effective, professional, productive
website, and especially if you are generating traffic and have
lost of happy customers, appeal directly to Yahoo on this basis.

Yahoo! Corporation
3420 Central Expressway, 2nd floor
Santa Clara, CA 95051, USA
url-support@yahoo-inc.com
tel. for listing support: 408-731-3333
tel:  (408) 731-3300 --8:30 AM - 5:00 PM PST
fax: (408) 731-3301

In short, mount a PR (PR = Public Relations) campaign to convince Yahoo 
editors to list your site. These are humans, not machines. They want quality.

If you convince them that you fit the bill, you'll get in.



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