Warmest Greetings,

:: Wednesday, October 30, 2002 ::

Watch Your Wallet.

I was forwarded an unsolicited email from a company that has one of the worst ideas I've ever seen.

Quote:
"Guaranteed Listing in Yahoo! Directory for as low as $15"

The idea is to buy an expired domain for a commerical site that already exists (and paid the $299 fee) in Yahoo!'s directory. You buy the domain and because it already exists in Yahoo!, it's assumed you'll get traffic.

Now, what they don't tell you is that you don't get to change the description in Yahoo! to whatever you'll be using that domain for. (Unless of course you pay Yahoo!'s $299 fee.) Therefore, if a user clicks on it, they'll likely arrive at a website that has nothing whatsoever to do with the domain subject or what's listed for the site description.

Porn sites do this all the time. They call it a "redirect". So does this company.

I believe I remember Yahoo!'s policy states that each yearly renewal for a paid listing involves them checking to make sure the site is still meeting their criteria and that it still matches the description, etc. This would make the scam fall apart, if true. It won't do anything for those sites that were "grandfathered" into the Directory before the December cutoff which required an annual renewal from that point on.

This means that any expired domain that's sold and the subject matter of the site is changed, but not updated in Yahoo!'s Directory, is a user nightmare and reflects poorly on Yahoo! search results.

This is the first time I've seen the value of Yahoo!'s annual renewal process. It would alleviate stupid ideas like what that company is doing.

:: posted by Kim Krause Berg on 10/30/2002 03:14:55 PM

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