DMOZ has been and still is a human edited directly making it's links very valuable and trsted to Google. Yahoo!'s web directory was paid at one point, now I don't think it is, but all around it's only worth anything because it's run by Yahoo!. Paid directories, heck most all directories are frowned upon by the Google gods.
Not quite. Google divides paid directories into 2 types: those that guarantee inclusion and those that don't, but still ask a non-refundable fee. Yahoo is the latter, which makes it trusted by Google. There's a video (probably Matt Cutts) where they say exactly what I just said.
Note: I wasn't asking for rationalisations, I was asking for anecdotal evidence. Does anyone have experience in improved rankings that they would attribute to Yahoo or DMOZ?
