Does the Directory Listing help in the Serps?

Has anyone noticed that in the last week or so sites with directory listings are receiving higher success in the SERPS than ones with out? One of our sites was not listed within the directory, and was in a 2 place for over three months. Although within the last week, it's been knocked down by a new site with only a directory listing in Yahoo! and little to nothing else.

I find it unlikely that it could actually manipulate the SERPs besides providing a good link. THe other problem is that when you are listed in the directory, your title from the directory is used in Yahoo's SERPs, which has resulted in a much lower click-through rate for us.I think it's generally a good idea to submit to the Yahoo! directory if you can afford it - the link is relevant, it lasts a long time & it's from a very respected domain. It's pricy, but in my opinion, worthwhile.

Twice now I have seen sites with directory listings climb up the SERPs, from nowhere to the top 10... I will keep and eye on it, but just for giggles I am going to test it with a new site.

I would try the free submit first. If you do get in, you are in forever without having to shell out $300 to Yahoo for the priviledge of being in their directory.

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Randfish:

I'm interested in your comment about the title. I hadn't thought about that. My major site isn't in the Yahoo directory. For some reason when we were spending on bls I overlooked it. Yahoo directory for my search words is on the second page in google so it is an important backlink for G. We may be the only one of the high ranking sites not in it.

Every other SE has our title with its regional name but Yahoo. For Yahoo we are shown without the regional designation, which makes us seem national (even though the regional description in in the print under the title). We get an overwhelming number of visits from yahoo (we are #1) for the main search phrase. More traffic than our site merits. Actual conversions on the generic phrase our negligible. The vast majority of conversions on our site are for regional phrases. I've got to look at the title and check this out. I was wondering why Yahoo describes us without the regional phrase and all other SE's describe us that way.

Because of our ranking and title yahoo traffic into our site is about 70% of googles traffic and the single highest search phrase for our site is the main search term from yahoo.

Dave

For my main phrase I've been hovering around #25 for quite a while on Google.

Just recently I've noticed that it's jumped to #3 on Yahoo. The site is in the Yahoo Directory also.

I just looked at some of these numbers. Google is 50% of our search traffic, Y is 31% and MSN is 10%.

For our main keyword phrase Y delivers over 3 times the traffic than does G (because the title is national and generic and not regional) Also we are #1 for the phrase in Y and 6 in G. Y delivers 9 times the traffic for the main keyword phrase than does MSN, where we are also #1, though in MSN the title includes our regional name.

Interesting stuff for driving traffic to the site. (At the same time, despite these titles, by far conversions from searches reach us through regional phrases.)

Thanks for the comment, Randfish. I've got to look at the title now and think about this.