warthog - 5:12 am on Sep 12, 2005 (gmt 0)

I search link:www.mysite.com in yahoo - 98,000 results
(and every one of those links is on a very specific niche industry category) a mere fraction of yahoo's 800,000

site:mysite.com - 1 result out of several thousand pages with unique content.

My site has been around for several years and was redesigned last year to a directory based on specific business's listed by city and state. My site represents over 5000 individual business entities.

I decided last month to buy a directory listing in the yahoo directory. They take my $300 and add me to the directory - 1 week later they ban my site and remove thousands of pages. And now I am at the bottom of the directory page as least popular. (93,000 unique visitors in the last 30 days from google)

After several emails I get the canned response - your site "may" not comply and the link to the list

- Cloaking
- Massive domain interlinking
- Use of affiliate programs without...
- Use of reciprocal link programs (aka "link farms")
- Hidden text
- Excessive keyword repetition

I do have a 7 page affiliate program, among several thousand pages of original unique content so I do not see how the hell that could be an issue.

It has to be this
- Massive domain interlinking

I do have several sub domains for geographical areas -but the content changes depending on where you are obviously - its meant to show people business listings in their city.

Im not spending another dime on overture - <snip> They use the exact same methodolgy in their web structure - they are complete hypocrites.

[edited by: martinibuster at 6:23 am (utc) on Sep. 12, 2005]
[edit reason] No insults please. Thanks. [/edit]