Thursday, February 21, 2008

Yahoo Directory

http://dir.yahoo.com/

Use the Yahoo Directory when...

  • you are using the Web for relaxation or personal use
  • you want to browse through subject categories to see what is available on your topic
  • you are willing to use a collection of generally unevaluated material

Note that the Yahoo site consists of several components. A Yahoo search defaults to a search of the general Web, using its own search technology. This page discusses the Yahoo Directory portion of the Yahoo site.

Special Features of the Yahoo Directory:

  • Is one of the largest subject directories on the Web
  • Has broad subject coverage
  • Has a hierarchical subject organization that is good for browsing

Drawbacks:

  • Accepts almost any site submitted for inclusion to its database and does not do much to evaluate for quality or accuracy
  • Makes no attempt to be balanced in any subject area; it is mostly the passive recipient of sites submitted to it
  • The Yahoo editors are so busy that they don't have time to include all submitted sites into the directory; therefore, significant and high quality sites may never make it onto Yahoo
  • There is generally sporadic coverage of academic subjects
  • Tends to index only the major landing page of a site; therefore, any significant subsidiary pages on a related or different topic may not show up on this site

Quick Tip!

The Yahoo Directory is NOT an appropriate research tool.

Most sites listed in the Yahoo directory are submitted by users, not by editors who are searching the Web for valuable content. Most annotations are written by the site creators and may therefore not be objective. Yahoo explicitly makes no guarantee that its editors check for quality or accuracy.

If you wish to use a wide-ranging directory portal, try the Open Directory Project. This directory is maintained by thousands of volunteer editors and links to nearly 2 million resources on the Web. The quality of its content is generally more reliable than the content on Yahoo.

An excellent example of the Open Directory is the version maintained by the Google search engine, called the Google Web Directory. This version utilizes Google's Page Rank technology and ranks results by link popularity.

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