the complete review Quarterly
Volume II, Issue 3   --   August, 2001


Yahoo's Book Review Directory:
Some Notes and Observations


Introduction
I. Finding Book Reviews on the Internet
II. Yahoo's Directory
III. Dead Links
IV. Stale Sites -- and Others
V. New Listings
VI. Alternatives and Consequences
Conclusion

Links


Introduction

       In conducting a survey of Internet book review resources (see Taking Advantage), we relied on the Yahoo directory of book review sites. It is the obvious choice -- and also, by far, the most popular directory of book review sites on the Internet. We were surprised, then, to find a number of problems with it. In fact, we found that it is a surprisingly poor resource.
       From poor upkeep to incomplete (and often inappropriate) listings, the Yahoo book review directory is in a fairly sorry state. Because of Yahoo's preeminent position on the Internet this is particularly unfortunate. In part the problems we found may help explain why directories generally are not that popular with Internet-users (especially when it comes to looking for book reviews) -- and they may also account for a general disappointment users have with the Internet. Standard-bearer Yahoo here offers little more than a very amateurish links-page, a poor reflection on the company -- and on the Internet in general.

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I. Finding Book Reviews on the Internet

       Arranging sites by subject in directories seems a convenient way to allow users to find a variety of sites of interest and easily reach them. Those in search of book reviews, for example, might appreciate being able to go to a directory where they can find links to a large selection of book review sites -- preferably with brief descriptions of those sites. Ideally, such a directory is much like a newsstand, where a reader can browse to see which periodical is of most interest.
       When looking for book reviews, however, consumers often are looking for information about a specific title. In such a situation a search engine is often more useful than a directory. Indeed, at least some Internet search engines are quite good at pointing users to pages providing information about a specific book or an author.
       Search engines appear to be the preferred method of finding book reviews; certainly that has been the experience of the Complete Review. The vast majority of its users find the site through specific searches conducted at search engines (including at Yahoo (via its default search engine, Google). In fact, less than 5 percent come to the site via links found in directories.
       Still, given their apparent convenience, we find it surprising that directories are not more heavily relied on. One reason, certainly, is that they can be unwieldy: the Open Directory page of book review sites lists over 250, while the Yahoo page lists nearly 150. (These are the two most significant directories; most search engines with directories simply adapt the Open Directory listings for their own directories.)
       More focussed lists of links -- mini-directories, as it were -- can be found on many sites, and these are often relied upon by users looking for similar content. From a mere list of book review sites, such as at Arts & Letters Daily, to short, annotated collections such as this library list, these are often helpful to users. (Frustrated by the inadequacy of most book review links lists and directories, the complete review even created its own list to meet its (and -- one hopes -- its users') needs.) Nevertheless, these links lists tend not to be used extensively. Search engine directories -- with so many more users -- are still dominant, and none so more than Yahoo's.

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II. Yahoo's Directory

       Yahoo remains the most popular directory resource on the Internet. The Yahoo directory of book reviews sends more than ten times as many users to the complete review than any other search engine directory, for example. This would suggest some consumer satisfaction -- as well as convenience and ease of use.
       Beside its directories, Yahoo also offers a Google-based search engine, as well as a great deal of additional content, links, and features. There is no doubt that it is a useful (and much relied-on) all-purpose site.
       If the book review directory at Yahoo is any indication, directories are no longer an area of highest priority for the company. Yahoo was built on its directories -- and one wonders whether it will also crumble under them. The directory of book reviews certainly suggests endemic problems which surely need to be corrected if the site is to continue to attract and satisfy users.
       The major problems with this particular directory are:        When first surveyed in June, 2001, Yahoo provided 157 review-links on its directory page; by early July only 148 were listed. (A rare addition was then made in July, upping the total to 149.) These totals include links from the second-tier directories that are also listed there. Some of these more specialized second-tier directories -- like the Magazine directory -- would appear to also be useful, but in fact are plagued by the same problems. Indeed, the Magazine directory (with a measly 13 links) and the Newspaper directory (only 11 links !) are symptomatic of Yahoo's weak book review links. (They also show the muddle of link-placement, as bona fide print publications such as The New York Review of Books and ForeWord are found on neither of these pages, though they are found on Yahoo's main directory page.)

       We restricted our survey to those sites listed directly on the main book review directory page. We assumed these would be the most focussed book review sites. Certainly, many are to be found there: from The New York Review of Books to Salon's book page to stalwart Danny Yee's Book Reviews and old hand Ed's Internet Book Review (as well as the Complete Review).
       Just over 90 are listed there -- suspiciously (though at least manageably) few. There are resources that anyone who has surfed even a bit for reviews will find missing, including such sites as the Brothers Judd or goodreports.net (though Yahoo does link to that site on its Literary News page). There are relatively few newspaper or magazine review sites (either on this page or elsewhere). But it's the Yahoo list -- and that surely means it is one that can be relied on.

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III. Dead Links

       One hopes (and expects) that the 90 or so links on the main page of the directory are the cream of the Internet crop, carefully edited by Yahoo. No such luck. Of the 90-odd links, when we examined them in June, there were 10 that did not even reach their destination sites because these had been closed. Our favourite ? Perhaps: Sleepless Resources, which leads to a page telling users only that "This Space Intentionally Left Blank". Fiction Addiction [Howard V. Barton] is perhaps the most outrageous of these links.
       It is not just small-time amateur sites that have gone by the wayside unnoticed. There are a number of once good resources that have gone missing -- notably Time Out's once excellent Neonlit: Time Out Books Online.
       The problems with Yahoo's directory became apparent to us months ago, when we found Neonlit had gone under but saw that the link was still up at Yahoo. When Yahoo then put the Neonlit-link under its "Most Popular" top-ten list on the directory page we finally got fed up and contacted Yahoo to tell them that this was probably a mistake. (It also calls their whole "Most Popular" list into question -- what exactly does it mean when a site that doesn't exist is touted as one of the most popular sites ?)
       So we contacted Yahoo -- or tried to contact them: if you aren't the one who put the information up, it is very difficult to change a directory listing -- or to find an e-mail address where you can make Yahoo aware of the problem. Naturally, they don't want to be bothered by all the people who whine about their lowly positions and non-inclusions, but this also prevents genuinely helpful customer feedback (as we thought ours might be) from ever reaching the powers that be. After a few weeks the Neonlit-link was removed from the "Most Popular"-list -- but still left on the directory page (where it remains today (end of July, as of this writing), still doornail-dead). Presumably there are still dozens of people daily who waste their time clicking to this non-site.

       Remarkably, Yahoo apparently did do some "editing" of the directory in mid-June, 2001, reducing the total number of sites listed to 148. We expected that meant that they culled all the non-functioning sites. And, to their credit, they did cut some no longer existent sites. But not, for example, any of the examples given above.
       They also managed to cut at least one site that actually continues to exist: Blind Monkey Review (which they had an incorrect address for). (We also found another cut site -- Barny's Review Page (which apparently changed addresses) -- but that site seems to have re-disappeared.) Certainly, it was the responsibility of the webmaster of this site to see that the listings were correct; still, we had no difficulty in stumbling across the correct address, so it strikes us as a bit odd that the Yahoos whose job it is to edit this directory couldn't.
       In addition, we found two additional sites that apparently died between our first closer look in June, and our second look in July. "Karl", of Post-Apocalyptic Books, for example, apparently graduated and the school presumably removed his web page. Yahoo apparently remains unaware of this fact. (To their credit, Yahoo did finally catch this and removed Post-Apocalyptic Books from the directory on July 27, after this piece was first posted (reducing the total number of review sites listed to 148 again). Unfortunately, they did not remove any of the numerous other dead or inactive links on the directory at that time.)
       It would be understandable if they missed one or two of these dead pages, but there still appear to be more than ten of them listed -- more than ten percent of the total. That seems unacceptable.

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IV. Stale Sites -- and Others

       The Yahoo directory is also a bit stale. When we first combed through it in June at least 14 sites were no longer being updated -- and some hadn't been updated since July, 1995. (Our closer examination in July suggested that there are probably at least 25 sites that aren't actively being updated.) Some of these are admittedly still of some use -- reviews can, after all, be timeless. Others -- less so. Consider for example the Independent Review of Books -- where, we are told on the Yahoo directory page, we will find "submissions welcome". It hasn't been updated since May, 1998, and has only ten books under review.
       If the Yahoo list were truly all-inclusive and listed all book review sites, then sites such as this would probably be worthy of inclusion, but since Yahoo's directory is so limited in scope one must question the inclusion of puny, obsolete sites such as this.

       There are other sites which are also of extremely limited value (and, one must assume, are also no longer being updated -- even if that information is not readily discernible from the site itself). Sites with as few as one review (!) are included. At least one of these minimalist sites -- with only five reviews -- comes close to living up to its name: Without Literary Merit.
       These reviews may be of interest, but to list these sites in the book review directory (while ignoring dozens of much larger sites, as the Yahoo directory does) is ridiculous.

       A considerable number of links also lead to sites that are not primarily review sites, with most of the content consisting of material that can not be described as book reviews. This includes sites such as that of the excellent journal, The Republic of Letters. Unfortunately, this journal has few book reviews -- and besides that, little of the content from the journal is available online.
       Other sites are merely advertisements for newsletters or, in one case, bizarrely apparently just recycle and re-present Amazon.com reviews.

       These sites are almost all of some value, but most of them do not lead users who are looking for book review information to where they might want to go. That there are far more options out there for book-review information can be seen at superior directories, such as the more comprehensive one from the Open Directory -- or at a more carefully edited one, such as the complete review's very own Book Review Links page.
       Yahoo enjoys great success: as we mentioned, more than ten times as many people link to the complete review via their directory that the Open Directory. We hope that those users who find the complete review via Yahoo are pleased at having been directed to a site that meets some of their needs. But how many give up in frustration after getting yet another link to essentially nowhere ?

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V. New Listings

       Upkeep on a directory -- indeed on any page with links -- is labour-intensive, boring work. Yahoo has apparently decided to largely forgo it, at least regarding their book review directory. They have also made it exceptionally difficult for users to bring problems (such as obsolete links) to their attention.
       Perhaps the greatest problem is that Yahoo has also closed itself off. Not only does Yahoo appear not to be actively trying to get new and useful sites listed -- at least for its book review directory --, Yahoo is apparently not particularly receptive to new submissions. (A rare exception was the acceptance in early July of The Book Barn, a worthy addition that brought the total number of listings to 149.)
       We have not explored this more closely, but most of the sites that are listed seem to have been around for a long time, and very few new sites have appeared on the list -- despite many new book review sites (often of high quality) appearing on the Internet. It seems likely that most sites would try to get listed on Yahoo, but few seem to be finding success. (Perhaps they are getting listed elsewhere at Yahoo, but for review sites that also seems to defeat the purpose and usefulness of such a specific directory.)
       Our experiences are perhaps instructive -- though we do not know whether they are the exception or the norm. The complete review managed to get itself listed on the Yahoo book review directory without too much difficulty in the summer of 1999 (well, we submitted the site four times over the course of four months before being accepted). Things seem to have gotten considerably worse over the past two years. We have tried to submit each of our Author Pages to Yahoo (under the various author listings), but only two (out of over twenty) have been accepted. (These two were among the first we submitted.) Several have been submitted as many as nine times (including fairly useful resources such as our Patrick White page), and, despite the fact that some of these pages present the most extensive coverage available on the Internet regarding these authors, none of the others have been accepted.
       Because the Yahoo author-directory links provide such a tiny amount of traffic we haven't pursued it as actively as we otherwise might (submitting the pages more frequently, for example). Unfortunately, Yahoo's directory users are thereby possibly misled into believing that no information about these authors exists.
       Possibly upkeep on the literary directory pages (the book review pages, author pages, genre pages and others) isn't a high priority for Yahoo because of the limited traffic they generate. Still, it seems remarkable how little attention is paid specifically to them -- and especially to the book review directory.

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VI. Alternatives and Consequences

       The Open Directory is much more efficient in processing and accepting new links. It is also more open to suggestions regarding problems with links etc., with an editor's e-mail address available on most every page. (This isn't to say that there aren't also problems with this particular directory .....) Nevertheless, it is dwarfed by the much more popular Yahoo: quality (and even quantity -- the Open Directory has far more extensive book review listings than Yahoo) apparently don't mean very much on the Internet, and consumers aren't very discriminating. Yahoo's name-brand recognition apparently counts for a lot.
       At some point, however, users will surely vent their disapproval. Yahoo has many marvelous and very useful features, and is a good site at which to begin looking for information -- especially since they switched to Google as their default search engine. Some of their directories, however, leave a lot to be desired -- and the book review directory, for one, is a shoddy piece of work. Disappointed users will, one imagines, eventually go elsewhere for their book review information -- or give up altogether. (As we mentioned, we were so frustrated by the lack of any book review links pages that met our needs that we created our own)
       Users who are not well-versed in navigating the Internet might also be disappointed in the Internet per se if this directory is representative of their experiences online. If they look up the sites on the Yahoo book review directory and believe that they have thereby explored most of what is available they will understandably wonder what all the fuss is about.

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Conclusion

       There are a large number of sites more or less devoted to book reviews on the Internet. The largest have an enormous number of users, while many niche sites have a smaller but strong and devoted following. The Yahoo directory -- the most popular one on the web -- does a poor job of providing its many users access to these sites. While the Yahoo directory does provide links to many leading book review sites it unaccountably ignores many others.
       A minimal effort appears to have been made to maintain the Yahoo directory in any sort of acceptable condition. The percentage of dead links is unacceptably high. The number of inappropriate listings (and descriptions), and the bad organization of the directory and the sub-directories is also disappointing.
       Perhaps Yahoo can not afford to devote the necessary manpower to clean the page up. Perhaps they have no interest in doing so. Obviously it is low on their list of priorities.
       The cost of this negligence is not clear. The number of users arriving at the complete review via the Yahoo book review directory has remained basically constant for a surprisingly long time, suggesting that the total number of users of the directory has also remained constant. Maybe that's good enough for Yahoo.

       Yahoo provides an astonishing amount of content, and ready access to a great deal more. Mere directories are clearly no longer the focus of the site. Still, it is disappointing to find a directory of such poor quality as Yahoo's book review directory. And one can't help but wonder whether or not it is a reflection of the site as a whole.
       Consumers appear to do little comparison shopping, turning to brand-name Yahoo for their information needs. No other directory attracts nearly as much traffic as Yahoo's. But, in the case of the book review directory, this leaves both users and book review sites short-changed.

        We would also suggest that the problems apparent at the Yahoo book review directory might help explain Yahoo's fall from highly respected Internet resource to just another semi-troubled site (though admittedly one that still attracts an enormous number of users). Despite the huge number of users that continue to come to the site, Yahoo's stock price has plummeted (at the time this survey was conducted (June and July, 2001) its share-price hovered around 20 dollars, down from its 52-week high of 150); possibly investors (and advertisers) have made a qualitative, rather than quantitative assessment, recognizing that even as users continue to flock to the immensely popular site the lower quality of the product available to them there ultimately makes it a less valuable property.

       The Internet is a repository of an incredible amount of information, but without easy access to that information it isn't of much use. Search engines such as Google and FAST facilitate finding much information, but they are most useful for very specific searches. A general query, like "book reviews", made on a search engine leads to far too many results to be of much use. Users looking for sites on a general topic, such as book reviews, should, one would think, be much better served by directories.
       There are numerous adequate book review directories available on the Internet. A fairly large number are certainly more useful in almost all respects than Yahoo's directory. But it is Yahoo's directory that gets the traffic. Given that it is a relatively poor resource the fact that it gets so much of the traffic is surely not a good thing for its misguided users. It is also not a good thing for book review sites. And it is probably not a good thing for the Internet.

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