I've been reading that it helps your search engine rankings on Google and Yahoo (to name a couple) to have more inbound links from other sites. Since my site is to sell products I've started adding my products to shopping search engines like Shopzilla and Froogle. Do these kind of inbound links help rankings?

They certainly do help rankings yes, Kelkoo is another good example, try and stay away from link directories (apart from the obvios Dmoz etc) - as alot of these now are recognised as poor inbound link sources.

 

They help rankings and bring you targeted traffic. "Two-In-One Shampoo Plus Conditioner". I wouldn't agree with Ben at the "stay away from link directories". I'd say: stay away from poor quality link directories. They are recongnizable: low PR, adsense or sponsored links and ads everywhere, poor structure or no structure at all.

^^ What Pamil said ^^

 

Don't stay away from link directories. Link directories are great! Stay away from poor link directories that have thousands upon thousands of links and no PR.

Having backlinks on relevant sites generally help in SERP.

 

My views are also the same on directories as pamil and fpforum.

 

Made a thread that may be relevant on the issue http://www.webdesignerforum.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=5501