Ok, so I have posted previously that we ranked well in Yahoo, then did not, the did, then dropped, etc, etc, etc. I commiserated over drinks with some fellow Realtors and then tried to build a site that the big 3 would all approve of and want to rank high in their SERPs. After a couple of months of building a pretty great site (toot, toot right? ) I threw my white hat in the fire and cried a tear for my Yahoo SERPs.

So, I decided to buy into their directory to see what would happen...any guesses? Anyone? You in the back of the class, do you have a guess?!? That's right little Johnny a #4 ranking for a pretty darn competitive keyword. So what is the conclusion? I think that Yahoo will be the first of the big 3 to totally sell out for the sake of the stockholder and not the end user. That's right folks, big hugs to Ben Franklin, Ulysses S and even Honest Abe!

That might be a little dramatic, but I cannot believe that our $300 directory listing ranks #4 and our site naturally ranks #1 billion and something

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Thanks,
Grant

Read about Nashville Homes and Nashville Condos on my Nashville Real Estate Blog.

For many years now it has been known that the Yahoo directory listing has some value, however in the not to distant past it was more useful for the other search engines than Yahoo itself.

When Yahoo brought out their Search Match(?) program last year their was some speculation that the only way to get listed in Yahoo would be to pay.

If you want to save the $300/year try canceling your listing but request that it remain in until the end of your currently paid period. Chances are you won't be removed from the directory even at the end of your year, at least not quickly and even if you do you can always resubmit.

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Update!!

So now may paid directory listing and natural placement have all but disappeared. Any ideas what is happening with Yahoo?

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Thanks,
Grant

Read about Nashville Homes and Nashville Condos on my Nashville Real Estate Blog.

IMHO Yahoo is struggling to improve its SERPS for more or less the last year, and as with any new venture it's often one step forward three steps back.

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Ok, so my paid listing is back and my natural position is adios...what to do with Yahoo? Maybe, begin a grassroots campaign to let end users know Yahoo gives bad SERPs and they would be better off using MSN and Google? Maybe tell them Google makes them more attractive souls

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Thanks,
Grant

Read about Nashville Homes and Nashville Condos on my Nashville Real Estate Blog.

hmmmm, a grassroots campaign. if only that would work. if it did i think everyone would be on macs and surfing with firefox.

but i hear your frustration Nash

except FF is way more work than it is worth for most people. Until it works better than IE without add ons it will never become #1. For the most part only the really techy people (and those that hate microsoft) like FF. I have suggested it to a lot of friends that are average users and they ALL have hated it.

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really, everyone that i have suggested it to, even newbies have loved it and not gone back. especially when i send them some add-on's for it as well. such as the google toolbar, web developer toolbar, winamp extension and the weather forecast extension. now i know there's many more cool extensions, some of which i use, but that is usually enough to convert people. For the most part i have not noticed that it is a lot more work besides adding on some extensions. most extensions aren't regular feature in ie anyways. and most people i know are amazed at the ease of installing and finding extensions for firefox.

I am actually considering making the change, but I am scared that I won't be able to fully utilize its capabilities because I am so used to IE and I'm no expert.

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Thanks,
Grant

Read about Nashville Homes and Nashville Condos on my Nashville Real Estate Blog.

I used FF when it first came out & could not view or work in many things properly with it and deleted it. Reinstalled it recently & although I do like it I still prefer the tabbing capabilities of my old browser, Crazybrowser. No matter how I set up FF it still opens most tabs in a whole new window, even though I don't have it checkmarked for that.

In fact, I have to go back to Crazybrowser to be able to work in one of my much used web mlsni access portals. It won't work for me in Firefox & I don't know why. I cannot imagine any of my friends switching over.

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Southwest Chicago Suburbs Real Estate is an affordable area with close access to downtown Chicago. Money Magazine says that Orland Park real estate is one of the best places to live in the U.S.