Yahoo's Sponsored Sites
- Feb. 1, 2001
There's a new paid submission option available to web site owners: Yahoo's "Sponsored Sites". For a fee, ranging from $25-$300 a month, sites already listed in certain business categories in the Yahoo directory will receive "Enhanced site listing in commercial categories". To see where paying sites will be listed, click here. You will notice a yellow-bordered box labeled 'sponsored' directly above the alphabetical listings for this Yahoo category. Although there are currently no sponsored sites for this category, there is a link to the 'sponsored sites' sign-up page where these sites would (will?) be listed.
What will it cost?
Apparently, there's no way of knowing what the actual cost of the sponsorship program will be for a particular site without signing up. The only price listing is the mention of the $25-$300 price range, but there is no further information about which categories fall under which pricing.*
*Feb. 02 - this seems to have changed since yesterday; when a site is submitted to the sponsored sites section, Yahoo lists the categories containing that site and the cost to be sponsored in each category.
Is it worth the cash?
One question to consider is whether or not the sponsored listing will actually boost a site's search rankings at Yahoo. The information at Yahoo says that a site will be listed at the top of that site's category, but says nothing about searching; this is where the major traffic comes from at Yahoo! For example, searchengineposition.com is ranked way down the alphabetical listings in our category (around 120), but we still get plenty of traffic from Yahoo when users search for terms such as "search engine optimization", for which we rank fairly well.
Another question to consider is this: even if it is worth the money, for how long? It may be nice to be at the top of our category's listings now, along with a few other sites that have decided to spring for sponsorship, but what happens if the rest of the category decides to tag along? We're right back where we started: buried among the listings in a crowded category... but this time we're paying for it! Perhaps the rates will increase over time to be placed higher in the category, and then it becomes a balancing act: is the amount of traffic we'll get worth the money we'll be handing over?
The Bottom Line
Since this service became available earlier today, we have a lot to learn about it before we can recommend for or against it. We will keep a close eye on popular Yahoo categories to see how many sponsored listings appear, and learn as much as we can about the sign-up process. We will also be keeping a close eye on search results, to see if sponsored sites seem to be favoured. Check back for updates!
Darren Downey
darren@searchengineposition.comCheck out Yahoo's sponsored sites page at http://sponsoredsites.yahoo.com
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