Around 1999 or so they started to neglect the directory — it got nearly impossible to get things added to the directory unless you paid them a few hundred bucks.

I was pretty lucky and had gotten quite a few pages in the directory back when it was easy. Being in the Yahoo directory really helped you in the Google SERPS circa 2001 — If I was launching a new site, I’d make some links from my ‘network’ and I’d be PR 5 right away. A friend of mine was jealous cause he was making web sites for real estate agents and other small business people and couldn’t do better than PR 3. Of course, he wasn’t very good at SEO, but neither was I.

However, I still would like to see my primary site ranked better in Yahoo because I am still wondering about potential traffic from it. People say that it has good potential, but Yahoo gives me about 5-6% of traffic only :( . Instead of it, Google brings me about 70% of all visits.