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We supplement this free crawl with the paid inclusion program, which allows us to add dynamic database content and other content that we could not otherwise discover and crawl. Currently less than 1% of our index is content that is included via our inclusion programs.
Our paid inclusion programs provide a superior way for sites to interact with us in a clearly structured fashion. These sites get the following
benefits:
1) Control over which URLs they include in the index (subject to content
guidelines)
2) Frequent refresh
3) Clearly defined way to interact with us (for example: clear feed
specifications)
4) Quality review and consultation (for feed customers)
5) Detailed reporting to track and optimize performance
6) Customer service
Participation in Yahoo!'s paid inclusion program does not guarantee rank in the search results. URLs are ranked in search results in the same way as all other URLs from the free crawl. The key drivers of ranking are keyword-specific relevance and site quality, as assessed by our regular search relevance algorithms with input from the quality review process.
(Note that Inktomi Index Connect clients are receiving Yahoo! Search traffic going forward, and Inktomi Search Submit customers are receiving a free trial of Yahoo! traffic until 4/15/04.)
We will also be launching free URL submission during the week of 3/1. This service allows content providers to suggest that the crawler should visit a site during the main crawl cycle. This service is different than paid inclusion in two ways:
1) There is no guarantee that we will crawl and include the URL in the index.
2) As this site potentially could be added to the main crawl, Yahoo! Slurp will follow links from that URL.
This service will reside on the Yahoo.com site and be accessible via a Yahoo! login. This service has been available for the AltaVista and Alltheweb Indices previously and the tradition will continue with Yahoo! Search.
As for Yahoo saying their ongoing changes will improve our overall search experience, how about my competitor, who I have been reporting to Yahoo for six months now, using four different URL’s that all redirect to the website, owns six of the top twenty search result in our main keyword search, and is listed twice under two URLs in the same business listing category (both redirecting to the same website). Even more ironic, we cancelled our Yahoo Sponsor Listing in November but they have yet to remove our sponsor listing status. We’re waiting for an IRS type email from Yahoo saying that even though we cancelled, it’s our responsibility to make sure they deleted our Sponsor Listing and now we have to pay (with interest) for all the months of free listings. It’s obvious that the big wigs at Yahoo (and other top search engines) are putting their entire resources into making as much money as possible and don’t much care about quality aspect of their product or the devastating effects these changes have on many of its loyal customers.
Search engines are supposed to produce best result out there without people to pay big money for their listing.
Yahoo highly disappointed in you:(
That being said, I don't know why anyone in their right mind would ever pay for site-match. And in fact, sadly, the only people who will pay for this is new webmasters who don't know any better.
Why pay when you can get it for free.
Now on the other hand, Site Match Xchange is just paid cloaking and I do have a MAJOR problem with that.
I doubt this is a problem. Yahoo! is only guaranteeing the chance to be crawled. So you pay per url if Yahoo doesnt/cant crawl them. Then pass the human review, then get added to the index. The algo then ranks the index.
The .15/.30 per click is the ongoing cost of 'customer service' (what every webmaster has been asking Google to provide - and answers to non-proprietary questions). If all pages are subject to the same algo, then they arent the same as sponsored listings which buy their way to the top.
The bottom line - PI cant provide a boost. Tim says it doesnt. I'm sure Google and M$ will put this to the test to see if there is anything their attorneys can use. I dont believe Y! is that stupid.
Yahoo knows that the public is not that sophisticated. They're happy with Yahoo news from the mainsteam sources. The public usually doesn't want anything but usual. Thus, Wal-Mart.
Yahoo is going to be the Wal-Mart of the web. Cheap and easy. And, if you're in the biz of selling over the web--well, just ask the folks (like Rubbermaid) who sell consumer products in stores. You want to do biz with Wal-Mart. And, for the serious players in news or travel, or whatever (including bird diapers) on the web, you're going to want to do business with Yahoo. You will not have any real choice.
Yahoo is going to do to the web what Wal-Mart did for retail. And, you can scream about that all you like, but consumers like it. And that's who Yahoo listens to. And we should as well.
Is it true that PPC results will be shown random with the organic results.
And wil the PPC user will get any preference while displaying the results.
Is it true that PPC results will be shown random with the organic results.
Not random, but they will just be included based on whatever algo Yahoo uses to rank the free sites as well.
And wil the PPC user will get any preference while displaying the results.
If by PPC you are talking about the site-match listings... no preference will be given.
This seems like the most intelligent thing said in this forum. Just like a small business cannot get into Wal-Mart easily small websites are not going to be able to afford Yahoo! To me site match seems to penalize a site for ranking well and generating clicks. The customer has no idea that the site has to pay for a click so they just search for you and charge another .15 or .30 everytime they find you. I run a website for a very small company (staff salesperson that also gets web duty) and I just don't see that this is going to be possible for our business. We often have a 3 or 4 month turnaround from finding our site to order. People still look for us in search engines every time.
The days for the free web are over. I just hope that small business can survive the transfer. Adwords and PFI and paid inclusion may end up with us just pulling the plug and becoming a manufacturer only.
To me site match seems to penalize a site for ranking well and generating clicks.
Not exactly. This statement is only true if your site does not convert. If you have a site that makes $1 per visitor, and you pay 30c per visitor, don't you want all the 30c clicks you can get?
MQ
How am I going to track it?
Meaning if I submit 2 of my pages into PI, and then my site gets spidered and indexed, how am going to be able to distinguish between natural clicks and PI clicks?
How many people make 30c per visitor on every single term that leads to their site - truly, anyone? (Well some will but for most of us that is one 'ell of a claim.)
The only way I can see this working is for a small number of pages that are highly focused to only recieve targeted visitors from a narrow target of keyword phrases - (which would mean ensuring your site does not recieve visitors from untargeted keyword matches - which would mean minimal content on these pages - IMO)
Is this good for Yahoo and the Searching Public, only time will tell and how well other (free) results are added to the mix.
All of these search companies have one thing in common: they are in business to make money. It affects us all, especially those of us who are in business to make money. Search is just a product like any other. And Google proved that if a better search product could be given they could make money at it, While LookSmart <sic> proved that just concentrating on making money and not providing a better search product could be downright disasterous.
All Yahoo is really doing is adding another product to its mix. But if the search is not improved or worse yet is further narrowed to just players who can afford, searchers will continue to look for a place where search is good.
The only thing that really worries me in this category of business is that the price of entry is getting cost prohibitive for us to see another Google in the future. To be sure, Bill Gates knows of the cost versu reward quagmire and I'm sure their slowness to develop a search product of their own is guided by that perception.
Heres the deal:
A) PPC guarantees you a position at the highest possible price
B) PFI gurantees that your site will be crawled at a lower price than PPC.
C) A spot on the first page of Google gurantees that you get a lot of visitors.
Now, go figure out what you should be doing to secure more business.
Site Match makes sense for a narrow but possibly active segment of the market who have commercial web pages that frequently change. Say, for example, you are an online travel agent with a "bargain of the week" page that changes its essential content at least once per week on average. You have little hope that search engine spiders would find and index that page quickly or frequently enough to get you in the SERPs accurately on a given day. But you can subscribe that page to Site Match and guarantee that current content will be indexed. Possibly the price of $40 per year plus $0.30 per click would seem like a fine price for the service.
So in summary, Site Match could well be an economical and useful service for some people; it is not in itself a vast right wing conspiracy to kill off small business; and it does not in itself represent the end of free natural listings.
That is not to say the overall trend is not tough for us little guys, however.
You have little hope that search engine spiders would find and index that page quickly or frequently enough to get you in the SERPs accurately on a given day
Google refreshes my entire site daily. I make a change, within hours the change is visible on Google.
Funny thing is I haven't seen my pages change on Yahoo in weeks... Lets not confuse not wanting to spider quickly and not being able to spider quickly. It can be done, but with the new Yahoo program there won't be any incentive for them to do it...
Just wait until they dump that database for the new Yahoo PFIPPC database.
Oh, and don't forget, Inktomi is a complete and separate cost.
All that free stuff you have today will be tomorrows tears...
Where is my crystal ball...
-s-
Yahoo is going to be the Wal-Mart of the web. Cheap and easy. And, if you're in the biz of selling over the web . . . you're going to want to do business with Yahoo. You will not have any real choice.
I could not disagree more. Wal-Mart offers cheaper prices better selection and more convenience than their competitors. Search engines are all free to the end user, so Yahoo! is not any cheaper. Because Yahoo! uses PFI it will likely have less sites indexed (selection) than Google and therefore will likely be less relevent. Further, Yahoo! is less convenient because users will have to scroll past more PPC listings than with Google.
In the end, switching which SE ones uses takes no work at all, unlike switching which traditional store one shops at. People will migrate when the relevance on Yahoo! suffers because merchants will not pay the current going PFI rates. Yahoo! is no Wal-Mart and if they continue down this course they could become an Alta Vista.
James
Very good point "NeTrafic"
Well said, short and sweet.
PS - I did just grab some of that Yahoo toolbar stock from (VWPT)
I did not get any Yahoo, did when it was at $9.00 though.
This new Yahoo idea is terrible... now everyone will use a Yellow-pages book online in reality... but the BIG PROBLEM is that not like the old days when you see your competitors add in the Yellow pages it did not cost to view..... now your competitors can make you pay for it by clicking on your adds to produce non natural click-throughs.
I can admit that at times even I will click a competitors adds, now the rest of you,, can 'ya admit it, you know yo 'be clickin away.
Now to those thinking about the new PFI program (Pay for inclusion) watch your backs.
My point is, this is not the way to go Yahoo!
In theory I don't have any problem with the new site-match program. All you are getting is your site slurped quickly. As long as Yahoo can crawl non site-match sites quickly also (which has yet to be seen on my site) there is no down side.That being said, I don't know why anyone in their right mind would ever pay for site-match. And in fact, sadly, the only people who will pay for this is new webmasters who don't know any better.
Well there *is* a potential problem...
Despite what some have said, it's pretty well established that with INK, if you had just a few pages in PFI, those pages would appear in the SERP's, BUT your other important pages (not in PFI) would be missing.
Only those sites that had *never* paid INK did well at getting many of their pages into the SERP's.
IF Yahoo truly does plan to include all relevant pages in the SERP's - paid or not - according to how the pages fare with the algo, then great...I have no problem. If that's true, then I can choose to pay for more frequent updating or not. Either way, I succeed on the merits of my site and its pages.
Will it be that way? I doubt it. Why? Because on one particular site, we have only a couple of pages PFI'd and those pages do well in Y! - But most of the other subpages (that do very well on the other SE's) are *still* nowhere to be found in Y!, and they are not PFI pages. Just as it always was with INK.
So, I did a test. On the site with the well ranking (and PFI'd) homepage, I PFI'd a few other pages a couple days ago. Not surprisingly, those pages showed up like magic on page one of their respective SERP's - yesterday.
So Y can tell me that PFI doesn't help rankings. But it just did.
The caveat: Y is saying that they are crawling the Web agressively and that they have not got it all done yet. The current Y! SERP's look a lot like INK, but Y! seems to suggest that we're already looking at the new Yahoo, not the old INK. So maybe they just haven't found all those subpages yet. But in thise case, we're talking about pages that have been there for 24 months, on a site that's in the Y directory, and where the homepage is #1 in Y and INK for its most important kw's. I find it hard to believe that Y! had never found those non-PFI'd subpages in their recent crawling. And it can't be that these were just poor pages, because as soon as I paid for them, they appeared and the algo ranked them well.
If this continues to be the case, then the issues that people have raised about FTC will apply, because paying for inclusion will help. We can only hope that they stop this practice very soon. If they do, the program might have a chance.
;-)
Tim mentioned Inktomi was to be dismantled. Its all to be Yahoo Search.
<added>This may address your concerns as well caveman</added>
Anyway, perhaps the most pressing concern for this whole thing... and I haven't seen it addressed in this thread by Tim is this:
There seems to be a HUGE BUG in the Yahoo PFI system (on Inktomi), where your site can get hit with a penalty and completely disappear. There are several threads about it on my other forum and I'm sure there are tons here. It seems to an increasing problem and the disapearace ONLY happens to PFI pages. So when you sign up for PFI all of the sudden, your home page disappears from the index for good, or other PFI pages too.
There are tons of users who report that their PFI urls disappear immediately after signing up for PFI (even when they were doing great before signing up). Once they are gone, they are gone for good. This is a spreading problem. I've seen increasinig reports about it and Yahoo seems to just ignore the problem.
Soooo... It seems that Yahoo PFI actually PUTS YOUR SITE IN DANGER of getting penalized with no recourse. Everybody says that resellers won't even respond to emails (especially Positiontech) on the issue and won't try and find solutions or tell you how to fix it. Is this true? I'm scared to death to even consider PFI with Yahoo. And why would anybody in their right mind even consider PFI when all it does it get your site removed from Yahoo with absolutely no help or explanation?
I might try the program on one or two high ticket items to see how it goes, but I'm honestly petrified that my homepage will automatically get dropped from the SERPS immediately after signing up for PFI. Then I'll be forced to pay Yahoo to get my homepage back in the serps and pay PPC for everything after that.
Has anybody here experienced their homepage disappearing from the SERPS?
Tim - any explanation on this? Seems to be a growing problem and it seems underhanded to make peoples home pages disappear and then force them to PFI to get back in.
Wow. Does anybody think this will be an issue? The FTC has tipped their hand on this issue already.
But a larger issue, in my view, is that Yahoo has yet to demonstrate any commitment to crawling informational or noncommercial sites. They're trying to put nonprofit spin on their announcement by claiming that they will work with big nonprofits, such as National Public Radio and the Library of Congress, and this spin is coming out in the press as Yahoo's effort to include the "deep" web. But I'm not fooled. Slurp is not showing any evidence of deep crawling the noncommercial sector.
I think Yahoo wants to have its cake and eat it too. Google, for all of its faults, is doing much better deep crawling of noncommercial sites than Slurp. They have a reputation for being the engine to use if you want noncommercial information. A reputation like this cannot be won on the cheap, and Yahoo has yet to show that they can compete with Google in this sphere.
Yahoo did it backwards. They should have spent a few months showing that they are committed to noncommercial, informational crawling, and then announced their money-making incentives. I don't think an audio feed from National Public Radio or some stuff from the Library of Congress is going to make Yahoo look like a competitor to Google.
I don't think I saw where the URL to the free Yahoo! Slurp submit was posted. Was it supposed to launch on 3/1?
Has anybody seen that URL?
"There are tons of users who report that their PFI urls disappear immediately after signing up for PFI (even when they were doing great before signing up). Once they are gone, they are gone for good."
Yes, this happened to us. Our homepage vanished. No reason. We are completely clean and there is no spam.
"Soooo... It seems that Yahoo PFI actually PUTS YOUR SITE IN DANGER of getting penalized with no recourse."
Well... Inktomi PFI did put your site in danger of getting banned with no recourse if you used PFI. It was best to avoid pfi with Ink (I found this out too late). It remains to be seen if Yahoo PFI/PPC will be the same story. They are using the same technology though, so it's definately possible. I'm hoping that they get this situation figured out and fixed as soon as possible.
There are several threads on this issue here at Webmasterworld. If I weren't so busy today, I'd track them down and point you to them. Lots of people reporting the same thing you are seeing at the other forum <by the way, this one is better ;)>. Good news is that Yahoo has seen the problem and identified it. Hopefully they will get it fixed asap.
I would say, definately hold off on using Yahoo pfi for anything until they prove whether or not they can actually get this issue figured out and fixed.
