Yahoo began in 1994 and has become the most popular directory on the web. Like many other search engines, free commercial listings are a thing of the past at Yahoo. Yahoo requires a hefty payment of $299 to even have your commercial web site reviewed. This does not guarantee inclusion in the directory. It simply means that an editor will review your site and decide if it is worthy of inclusion.

The good news is that Yahoo still uses Google for its main search results. This means that sites not included in the Yahoo directory can still show up in the search results if they are well ranked in Google. Of course the actual Yahoo catalog may still be searched separately. Therefore it's definitely worth gaining a listing in the directory if you have the budget.

Also worth noting, Yahoo is set to switch it's results from Google to the Inktomi database in the first quarter of 2004 so once again a good ranking on Inktomi will be well worth the effort.