Is Yahoo directory listing important?

[Richard_FC]

Hi Everyone,

I have found what appears to be a decent niche, the only thing is that when I check the SEOC page all the other sites are listed on Yahoo. Almost everything else is green (0 PR, 0 BLP etc.) and the commercial indicators look very positive.

So, how important is the Yahoo Directory listing? This is my first attempt at The Challenge so I'm wondering whether I should have a run at this niche, or save it for another time and find one that satisfies the criteria exactly (at least one full green line on the SEOC page).

Any advice on this would be very much appreciated!

Richard

[DeanRichards]

Hello Richard, and welcome to The Challenge Forums!

The Challenge guidelines with regards to the Competition Matrix have been honed to the essentials and the fact that the Yahoo Directory listing is included in them is telling. All red in the Yahoo column is game over right there.

It has been proven by SEO labs that Google gives a Yahoo Directory listing a lot of weight, but you also have to be leery of a matrix where all the leaders have it in common.

[Richard_FC]

Thanks for the information, I will have a look for a different niche.

For future reference though, could you explain what the difference between a red 'Y' in this column and a yellow one is. Surely this is a black and white situation with no middle (yellow) ground. And if that is the case would paying to be listed on Yahoo then put you on an equal footing with the top sites for this variable?

Thanks again,

Richard

[DeanRichards]

You have to remember that Google has said there are over 200 ranking factors and only about 150 of them are known, and of those we know about, only a few are available to the public. So there is a whole lot more to the ranking story than shows up in a Competition Matrix.

I misspoke when I said Yahoo was red. That particular column is (as far as I know) a simple Y=yellow and N=green. Other columns, however, may have different colors for the same value because of the influence of adjacent columns.

From the Market Samurai Knowledge Base: Colour-Coding in the SEO Competition matrix

One of the factors you should always keep in mind when looking at a Competition Matrix is the SEOC for the niche. If the SEOC is high, it doesn't matter how "easy" the Matrix looks, it simply means that non-matrix factors are having a large influence. With high SEOC, Google has a lot of sites to choose from and that means that all of them must have strong ranking factors whether you see them or not. This is why we look at the competition matrix after we eliminate high competition keywords and not before.