![[Home]](/wiki.gif)
How Can You Tell If Yahoo Has Banned Or Penalized Your SiteHow Can You Tell If Yahoo Has Banned Or Penalized Your Site|
Links:
|
Subjects > Computers > Internet > Web > Search Engine News > Search Engine News Yahoo
In March of 2004, Yahoo discontinued using search results from Google. This caused the traffic of some webmasters to fluctuate wildly.
Your site could have had #1 ranking on google, but even if the Yahoo spider, (called Slurp) can be seen in your web logs, you might not appear at all in the Yahoo results. Sometimes you can even see backlinks to your site in Yahoo, but no listing of your site itself. You can check for backlinks by using link:http://www.mysite.com
Some webmasters have emailed Yahoo, but received no response at all. Some have suggested mailing webmasterworldfeedback@yahoo.com. Many webmasters have gotten no response from doing that. Others have received emails that their site received a "demotion penalty". Some were promised a re-review.
Other webmasters claimed that Yahoo told them their site was banned because of having affiliate links, and for trading links with other webmasters. Those same webmasters claim reasonable numbers of sponsors per page (0-3), and having only traded with other quality sites. Other webmasters have commented that the top Yahoo results still show plenty of sites that seem to be violating the very rules they were penalized for.
Others have reported that sites with large amount of affiliate content will loose their entire site from the yahoo index. Those webmasters claim that even if you use Yahoo's Pay-For-Inclusion (PFI) program, this will not get the site back into Yahoo's directory. Others have gotten replies from Yahoo that while Yahoo doesn't oppose affiliate sites, they are trying to make sure their index is not full of dozens of copies of the same information copied from a very few affiliate programs.
Despite all this, many webmasters have noticed how Yahoo continues to be dominated by affiliate sites with no original content. Some speculate that only successful affiliate sites are being hit after they rise to the top of the search engine results. Many webmasters are complaining that Yahoo results are getting even more spammy as a result of these changes.
Some have commented that Yahoo themselves use many of the techniques that they appear to be penalizing for:
Some have received emails confirming penalties against their sites, and that Yahoo is "considering" designing an appeals process in the next few "months". Others have told them that their sites were banned because they were set up for "link inflation purposes". The site was a website for a meditation center, http://www.meditateinla.org
This page might provide some insite into yahoos processes: [Yahoo guidelines on spam]. Additionally [spam and deletion information for yahoo] might help.
Here is what is supposed to be a typical Yahoo response:
Your site is blocked from inclusion in the Yahoo! index (probably as a result of the past practices that you have mentioned below). We appreciate your work to improve the site and remove any past spam activity; and are currently considering offering an appeal process. We appreciate your patience while we look into this option, please stay tuned.
Many webmasters are being frightened to use pay for inclusion programs. Yahoo keeps claiming that pay for inclusion has no real effect on your position in the results, so many are asking, "What the point?" Considerable evidence points to Yahoo using Inktomi's old site ban lists, which seem to have no reason attached to the bans. Others have concluded that as soon as you stop paying for inclusion, you can get banned very quickly.
Many characterize the new Site Match as something that will make money for Yahoo, but is too costly, and questionable, for most sites to use. Combined with the dubious penalties, and starting with the Inktomi bans, many webmasters dont want to spend the time to get into Yahoo, and later see all the traffic evaporate when Yahoo misapplies some random penalty.
Any sufficiently complicated and subjective manual review process is likely to be able to find a reason to penalize just about any site on the net.
A good alternative to Yahoo could be to find the right category at [Truly Open Directory] and register your site there. Their top levels include:
This page summarizes the 98 messages ending at 9pm 14 March 2004 at http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum35/1845-7-15.htm
|
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0001XQNSE.01-A1KDZ23Y0QWKQ3.MZZZZZZZ.jpg
|
Search for books about:
|
Interested in Web Style Commentary?
