Last year around this time, I took the plunge for the Yahoo Directory - paying my $299 review fee. I was reviewed and added here: http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/U_S__States/Illinois/Cities/Aurora/Real_Estate/

Since then, I can honestly say, the amount of traffic I have received from being listed has been minor - likely in the single digits. For many webmasters, the dilema of the Yahoo directory is obvious. $300 is somewhat expensive - one of the highest review fees out there and it’s annual too. Many webmasters measure the benefit of a directory by direct traffic - it’s farily well-known that the SEO aspect of many of them have been reduced over the years. However, there are a few that still generate some benefit - including the Yahoo Directory. However, when it comes down to it, is the benefit worth the cost?

For now, I am fairly content to continue paying the fee. I justify it by thinking of how much I pay every time I send out a mailing - $299 per year is a drop in the bucket compared to some of the costs of print advertising. In the future, I might review this decision and if there are better options out there, I may choose to discontinue my membership - only time will tell.

Just a few weeks ago I happened to check my Aurora IL real estate website out in MSN and lo and behold, I found that the search engine was actually pulling in part of my IFRAMES not compatible text to build the description. When using IFRAMEs it’s common practice to include a blurb of text for browsers that may not be able to property display IFRAMES. In many cases, webmasters place something like, “If you’re seeing this your browser is not compatible with IFRAMES”. For browsers that can display IFRAMES correctly, that text is never seen, however, to a search engine, that text forms a visible part of your page.

If you are using IFRAMES, make sure you check your alt text. If it’s close to the top of the page, search engines might actually be reading that text as part of your page description. Also, if you use IFRAMES in different pages throughout your site, as I do for my seperate regional real estate sites like Geneva real estate or Batavia real estate make sure to vary the alt text from page to page to avoid problems with possible duplicate content.