Did not renew and now dead

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Did not renew and now dead

nombre

9:32 pm on Jan 27, 2003 (gmt 0)

I recently canceled 2 upcoming renewals for biz express. The two that I dropped were not making enough to justify the expense. A couple days later two sites that were doing well for some reason disappeared from the "most popular" listings. They have both been in the middle of the mostpopular list since it started and the directory hits have not changed to any degree. I do not believe in coincidence but find it odd that even the Yahoo greed machine would stoop so low. I am now with no doubt out of business having gone from $12k/mo via Yahoo and Google to less than $1k.
has this happened to anyone else?

jadakiss2

2:40 am on Jan 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

Hi Nombre: I too share your pain and know EXACTLY HOW YOU FEEL! I was making anywhere from $15K - $17K a month and was nearly reaching my goal of $20K a month by Dec. 2002 before Black October hit. Now I know about 75% of my traffic was coming from my yahoo traffic because it decreased my income by about that much. It dropped to $7k in October and now it's down to about $4K but I've made up for some of it by doing other online businesses such as auctions. BUT MAN does it HURT when I look back on my reports - those months I was rich and then to be dropped on my head. It's darn right depressing sometimes - so I try not to think about it. I think the only thing keeping me afloat right now are my PPC listings and a few listings in Google and Inktomi that I have. I PRAY THEY CHANGE THE DIRECTORY BACK or bring it into play somehow. But for now I'm just trying to swim and keep up so I don't drown. I don't want to be out of this business. I love this business. I miss making sites and cranking em out for submission. I really do. I want those times back so bad. Maybe oneday things will change. DON'T GIVE UP! Send me a PM if you want to talk. I share your pain.

Go60Guy

2:51 am on Jan 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

Surely neither one of you is saying that removal from the Yahoo Directory resulted in a serious drop in rankings on Google, I hope. My belief has been that weighting of a Yahoo listing is almost negliglble in the Google algo.

Was the lost traffic primarily from the Directory listings themselves?

I too sympathize.

jadakiss2

12:49 pm on Jan 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

My sites are still in the yahoo directory - just not being seen. The traffic was lost from the YAHOO SWITCH that everyone is talking about that happend in October when yahoo replaced it's directory with Google. If you didn't have good google listings then you were pretty much screwed because the directory results are no longer on the forefront. I have over 25 sites in the yahoo directory and see NO BENEFIT when it comes to having a site in the yahoo directory and it positively affecting my google listing - I had GREAT YAHOO listing and sucky google listings and it still stands the same today - except now I have great yahoo listings that aren't being seen unless you click on the directory link and still sucky google listings.

nombre

1:13 pm on Jan 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

Some of my listings are still in the Yahoo directory. They produce very little compared to the former Google and Yahoo search results though. When Google went through the October changes, I lost about 20-30% of my traffic and income. When Yahoo did its major change I lost another 50%. Now that I have been for some reason removed from most popular listings, another 10% of my September Gross has disappeared. I am now making in the neighborhood of 10% of what I was making in Sept. Fortunately, I knew that my income was tenuous and never use credit so I may be able to find a job before the savings run out.
I have tried various permutations of PPC and have found that I spend about $3.00 for every $1.00 produced. It seems that my competitors either have deep pockets or have a much better response than I, although I see little difference between their offerings and mine.

maccas

2:04 pm on Jan 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

I am in the complete opposite boat, my sales went up about 50 - 75% after Yahoo switched to Google. Nombre have a good read through the various posts in the Google forum and in a couple of months with a bit of hard work and a lot of reading you will be back to where you were.

nombre

2:16 pm on Jan 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

Thanks, and I will.
After being mostly self employed for 20 years the thought of working for someone else makes me feel pretty low...

Go60Guy

2:21 pm on Jan 28, 2003 (gmt 0)

What you're saying would support the conclusion that the value of a Yahoo listing is that its nothing more than just another external link as far as Google is concerned.

As for the climb back to earnings stardom, I would second the recommendation to go about the business of learning and applying everything Google. The materials available here at WebmasterWorld are awesome in their thoroughness and scope.

And, if Y switches to Inktomi, you'll get a boost there, too.

WindSun

1:17 am on Jan 30, 2003 (gmt 0)

OK, I guess I am missing something here.

I checked who referred what to us, and I see an increase in Yahoo.

However, I also see that since Yahoo is using Google, we show up twice on the first page for most common keyword searches for our little niche product.

I see no sign of the Yahoo directory anyplace, unless you actually click on the "directory" link, and we come up on the 2nd page there.

Soooooooo.......

Is there any way to track what comes from the Google results on Yahoo vs the directory and/or sponsored links that show up on Yahoo?

Just for the record, what they have now seems to pretty much make being in the directory nearly worthless.

ckern

7:50 am on Jan 30, 2003 (gmt 0)

jadakiss2: I know exactly how you feel and I know many others do too. I had awesome listings in Yahoo in all my niche's. And when Black Wednesday hit, I went from making roughly 15k a month to umm 3k. Sounds like your google results were better than mine and maybe still are. Right now, I am suffering to try and play around and figure out google, no luck yet. It just doesn't make sense. As for Yahoo I still dominate my niche's under Directory Listings (but, who in the world is going to view the Directory Listings when they are not default, besides us webmasters?). I sure hope with the buyout of INKTOMI, Yahoo will go back to the directory and apply an INK Algo. That would be awesome. Well good luck Jadakiss2, and everyone else.

WindSun

7:45 pm on Jan 30, 2003 (gmt 0)

Lucky for us we never relied much on Yahoo listings. Good thing too, apparently, as they seem to be so well hidden as to be essentially as important as HotBot...

Rumbas

7:54 pm on Jan 30, 2003 (gmt 0)

>The two that I dropped were not making enough to justify the expense

If you make $20K a month wouldn't it be quite easy to cough up $25 a month to stay in? Why not pay up and get back in - that should be more than justifiable.

I just don't get it?

jadakiss2

12:37 am on Feb 5, 2003 (gmt 0)

Rumbas - what is so hard NOT TO GET. He just told you that his income dropped from 20K to zippo. So is he supposed to pull the extra funds out of his hat. I don't think you get it.

jadakiss2

12:39 am on Feb 5, 2003 (gmt 0)

CKern - I hope and pray you are right. That would be the right thing for yahoo to do. Why would they want to duplicate another search engines results (Google) it just doesn't make since. It did'nt in October and now 4 months later, it still doesn't. Plus I want my thrill back and my income of course. :) I'm tired of working like a slave. =:0

ckern

1:23 am on Feb 5, 2003 (gmt 0)

jadakiss2: I agree life sure has been hard these last 4 months. I sure hope Yahoo uses INK soon and goes back to the Directory results. It sure has never made sense why they mimic google.com results exactly. But, I think they will somehow use INK and go back to the directory. We shall see. Although the best thing out of all this is, that it sure taught me to save rather than spending it on toys when times are good, because now I am working my a$$ off just to scrape by. Good luck to all.

Rumbas

1:37 am on Feb 5, 2003 (gmt 0)

For arguments sake let's say that not-renewing caused him to drop out (which I dont believe). Hence renewing would get him back in and more than make up for the loss? That seems like a good investment to me.

I too feel for you guys. Taking a huge dive in traffic and sales in not something anybody would like - me neither, but the inital questions was wether nombre should renew or not and if not-renewing caused the drop. I think the questions was answered pretty throughly.

Good luck guys :)

scorpion

7:07 pm on Feb 5, 2003 (gmt 0)

Since I also have a business using yahoo, google I suggest creating what's called a "margin of safety", that is, diversify your reliance on one specific attribute (such as their search algorithm) in such a way that any change (short of SE's going out of business!) will result in a limited decrease in income, this is what we did, and I hardly ever worry anymore :)

mayor

4:36 pm on Feb 11, 2003 (gmt 0)

ckern >> with the buyout of INKTOMI

Yes, that's Yahoo's wild card and they haven't played it yet. Give them a month or two until the deal is done, then we'll likely see what their game plan is. I really doubt they plan on the backfill from MSN paying for their acquisition financing of Inktomi.

Maybe the Ink card does has something to do with their directory. After all, Yahoo holds a significant chunk of Google and it wouldn't surprise me if their fractional holding in Google doesn't outweigh their asset valuation of Inktomi. So they would be cutting off their own nose if they tossed Google from their serps, tarnishing their crown jewels. Anyhow, what they plan to do with Ink is still a big mystery so I would wait before giving up on Yahoo.