All Yahoo listings redirect now?

U.S. directory using 302s - not showing in backlinks

[sherwoodseo]

In the past, I've seen some Yahoo directory links make use of tracking redirects (rds.yahoo.com...). Today, looking through a wide variety of categories in the U.S. directory, I'm seeing these redirects across the board.

I've taken a random sampling of listings, and ran their redirect links through an HTTP viewer - all are type "302 Temporary", which SE's do not recognize.

When checking Google's backlinks for these sites, the U.S. Yahoo listings aren't showing (I still see Canada and Singapore Yahoos, which continue to use direct links)

Can anyone confirm?

[steveb]

Look for US backlink listings among the US pages themselves and you'll see plenty.

[sherwoodseo]

steveb, are you referring to backlink checks of the Yahoo pages themselves?

I'm looking at backlinks for the sites listed on a particular Yahoo page. For example, say widget.com is listed on www.yahoo.com/.../widgets. A link:widgets.com check on Google no longer shows the Yahoo listing as an incoming link.

I've tried this with sites across several categories, and keep drawing the same conclusion.

[steveb]

I used a bad example since the linking is somewhat different internally, but in any case: I see backlinks to sites from dir.yahoo.com (I don't know if that means they will show up next time of course.)

[willybfriendly]

If Y is using 302's, how will it effect G results? See

[webmasterworld.com...]

which makes many references to page hijacking using meta and 302 redirects

WBF

[v7ma]

link:http://www.searchisfun.com/

Not my site, or one I'm associated with, but it has several Y! backlinks showing.

[sherwoodseo]

Thanks v7ma, that's a good test case. Right now, there are backlinks from four Yahoo directories, including a U.S. page.

There are also Yahoo links from the Asia, Canada, and Australia directories, but these have direct static links so I'd expect these not to disappear from a backlinks check.

According to Google's cache, that U.S. Yahoo page was cached on August 31st. The cached copy already has the 302-redirected link in it, though - so there's no "aha!" just yet.

Perhaps Google hasn't factored it into its backlinks yet.

[sherwoodseo]

Update: That Yahoo US page got respidered by Google on Sept 21, and is still showing-up in searchisfun's backlinks.

False alarm - looks like the 302's have no negative effect :)