Mark Your Calendars, The Yahoo Bill is Coming!

Here's the change that was suddenly slipped into Yahoo's terms and conditions:
"If your web site is accepted for inclusion in the Directory as part of Yahoo! Express on or after December 28, 2001, then your web site's continued inclusion in the Directory will be subject to additional review each year and you agree that your credit card will be charged the Recurring Annual Fee. Subject to Section 1.3 above, the current applicable Recurring Annual Fee is US $299 for web sites ..."

The $299 Express Submission Fee used to be a one-time charge. It was considered an expediting fee to ensure that Yahoo got around to reviewing your site. Although it was a fine point of contention, Yahoo argued that it wasn't advertising, because paying the fee didn't ensure that they would accept the submitted site. In practice, this wasn't the case. Before the $299 submission (the original price was $199, by the way) a site owner had less than a 1 in 10 shot at getting their site into Yahoo. Since the Express Submission Program, after submitting dozens of sites, we have yet to have one not make it. Obviously, when it comes to getting into Yahoo's listings, money talks.

Regardless, Yahoo did have total control over how your site would appear in its listings. The editors had the freedom to change site titles and descriptions as they saw fit. Any obvious manipulation of keywords was soon spotted and cut with one keystroke.

The Original Purpose for Yahoo

When Jerry Yang and David Filo, Ph.D. candidates in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, started Yahoo in 1994, it was to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. Eventually, their list grew so long; it had to be divided into categories. The original site sat on their student workstations at Stanford. The pair soon realized there was a tremendous need for a site that would bring some semblance of order to the chaos of the Web.

The original purpose of Yahoo was to match web searchers with the sites they were searching for. Part of that goal was achieved by categorizing and organizing sites into a directory. The second part of that goal was achieved through the discerning eyes of the Yahoo editors, who reviewed submitted sites to determine if they would add value to the Yahoo directory. They took their job seriously, and far more sites were rejected than ones that actually made the cut. Since then, Yahoo has fallen into a common Internet trap. Their original focus has been superseded by the need to make money. Profitability, while undeniably vital, should never pre-empt your original business focus. It should be a product of that focus and the well-orchestrated implementation of it.

Directory or Advertising?

With its latest move, Yahoo has stepped across a line that moves it permanently away from its original focus. No longer is it an objective directory. On December 28th, it became an advertising vehicle, pure and simple. And that means Yahoo will have to re evaluate the way it treats its advertisers. The customer is no longer the web searcher. Now, the customer is the Webmaster that is forking out three hundred dollars every year to remain in the Yahoo directory. And Yahoo has had a terrible track record for its treatment of webmasters.

In the past, Yahoo has always defended it's Business Express submission by saying it was a administration handling fee charged to ensure that editors took a look at your site. Now that the fee is annual, the same defence can't be used. It's an annual advertising fee. If you don't pay it, you won't be included. The quality of your site really has nothing to do with it. While Yahoo may pay lip service to the fact that the objectivity of their editors remains unchanged, practice has shown this not to be the case.

The question remains, however, "Will Yahoo improve the way it deals with webmasters?" Will their tendency to rewrite site titles and descriptions cease. Will their previous unresponsiveness to webmasters requests continue? Let's face it; the reason people want to be in the Yahoo directory is to generate traffic to their site. In order to do that, you have to appear on the first page of results when a search for your keywords is done. Yahoo has always said that any attempt to manipulate your ranking through use of keywords in the title and description is forbidden. But that's the whole point! What use is it to be stuck in the directory with a keyword-bereft description that relegates you to spot 123?

With their switching to an annual fee, Yahoo faces a fundamental question. Who do they have to make happy now? Either they embrace the Webmaster and realize nobody wants to be on page 12 of their search results, or they stop taking money from them.

The Yahoo Attitude

For a nice, friendly directory started by two well-meaning grad students, Yahoo has certainly turned into a bloodthirsty corporate entity. I have no quibble with Yahoo's wanting to turn a profit, but this particular move was handled with all the public relations finesse of the Exxon Valdez.

The Yahoo attitude developed over time and came from Yahoo's unassailable position as the leader in search sites. Since the day it was launched, Yahoo has been the number one search portal.

To call Yahoo's approach to website owners high handed would be akin to calling the sinking of the Titanic a minor naval mishap. They have consistently been arrogant, inflexible and downright obstinate. Polite requests from webmasters to relook at misplacement of sites in wrong categories or site descriptions that have been hatcheted by editors beyond recognition go ignored, or worse; prompt a threatening response implying that we're damn lucky to be in Yahoo and if we whine again, we'll be turfed out on our virtual butts.

There was no response to this, because Yahoo could defend it by saying that this attitude was consistent with their desire to provide a quality, unbiased index. Now, Yahoo has sold out that last remain bit of integrity for the bargain price of $299 a year. Unfortunately, the attitude remains. This was shown by the way Yahoo unilaterally imposed the charge without warning, continuing with their past history of saying, "This is for our own good, and you'd better like it!" Whether Yahoo realizes it or not, webmasters are unlikely to pay $300 a year for the privilege of being insulted by a bunch of arrogant Yahoos in Sunnyvale, California.

Symptoms of a Greater Evil

But beyond the question of whether a Yahoo can change it's stripes, comes the question, "What the heck is happening to searching on the Internet?" With each search site that either dies off or sells out, our options for valid, relevant searches become fewer and fewer. Most web users I know don't want a listing of paid advertisements when they conduct a search. They want the sites that are most relevant to their search terms. With each new charge that's imposed, it becomes harder for independent webmasters to be noticed amongst the corporate monoliths with the infinite marketing budgets. With their annual fee, Yahoo has just put another nail in the coffin of unbiased searching.