Jack, there's more to life than just Google. IMHO it's worth it if Yahoo! SERPs are indicated for the site (and on-page optimization is good), given Y's demographic; the traffic they send converts very well in certain verticals. It's my belief/suspicion that Yahoo puts value on trusted authority links.

I highly suspect that a site I'm now working on to "clean up" would be totally out of the water altogether with Yahoo if it weren't for the Yahoo & ODP links. As it is at this point in the process, the homepage ranks (relevant to its category and directory descriptions), but everything else on the site is seriously lacking, which is strictly an on-page, on-site fixer-upper situation.

I've also seen the benefit on other sites, so for a site in certain verticals, I'd definitely go for it.

I'm still a believer in the Yahoo directory as one of the very vew directories that carry significant weight as far as links go.

On a different note, does a link from a regional Yahoo (France, Spain, Germany, for example) directory listing contribute to your rankings in those local SERPS, in the same way?

That would depend on who you are and the purpose of the link.

If I were to look at it with a little professionalism I would ask myself first - what is the return on investment of it? - if any? - that would be my first thought, if I did it for whatever purpose I had.. there's other ways to look at it of course, branding, and so on -

In my private opinion - it would be a no way and never ever. But I don't throw money around either - especially not on the internet, and I don't run a business either or have any commercial interests. So, for me, it would be alot of money, for one link which could pay for alot of other things - but then again - perhaps it isn't in the long run - I wouldn't know.

The only two links I have to my homepage are BOTW and Yahoo. Those two were enough to get my stores homepage to PR1. You'll get backlinks from yahoo canada, yahoo UK, yahoo australia, etc.

As far as getting any traffic from those - I don't think I ever have.

My product pages that are doing the best in google are the ones that show up in Google Webmaster Tools with external links to them. For example a certain type of widget I sell shows 40 links from various Yahoo Shopping categories. I'm in the top 5 results for that widget on google even though it's page is PR0. I get free Yahoo Shopping links since I have a Yahoo Store however GWT only shows a handful of links to specific product pages.

If I had an existing store that already had links and decent PR I probably wouldn't pay for the Yahoo or BOTW links again.