diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 58d609bb..71855337 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -5,3 +5,5 @@ __pycache__
 /yamllint.egg-info
 /build
 /.eggs
+*.yaml
+!*.yaml/
diff --git a/yamllint/conf/default.yaml b/yamllint/conf/default.yaml
index 0720dede..e0c59b78 100644
--- a/yamllint/conf/default.yaml
+++ b/yamllint/conf/default.yaml
@@ -2,8 +2,11 @@
 
 yaml-files:
   - '*.yaml'
+  - '!*.yaml/'
   - '*.yml'
+  - '!*.yml/'
   - '.yamllint'
+  - '!.yamllint/'
 
 rules:
   braces: enable
diff --git a/yamllint/config.py b/yamllint/config.py
index a42e7448..ad6848c2 100644
--- a/yamllint/config.py
+++ b/yamllint/config.py
@@ -32,8 +32,14 @@ def __init__(self, content=None, file=None):
 
         self.ignore = None
 
-        self.yaml_files = pathspec.PathSpec.from_lines(
-            'gitwildmatch', ['*.yaml', '*.yml', '.yamllint'])
+        self.yaml_files = pathspec.PathSpec.from_lines('gitwildmatch', [
+            '*.yaml',
+            '!*.yaml/',
+            '*.yml',
+            '!*.yml/',
+            '.yamllint',
+            '!.yamllint/',
+        ])
 
         self.locale = None
 
@@ -48,7 +54,7 @@ def is_file_ignored(self, filepath):
         return self.ignore and self.ignore.match_file(filepath)
 
     def is_yaml_file(self, filepath):
-        return self.yaml_files.match_file(os.path.basename(filepath))
+        return self.yaml_files.match_file(filepath)
 
     def enabled_rules(self, filepath):
         return [yamllint.rules.get(id) for id, val in self.rules.items()