Yahoo site Flag Clarification

[contentsiteguy]

Can anyone tell me what actually happens when a site is flagged by Yahoo? It has been posted previously here by a Yahoo representative that many factors can "flag" a site up for review. How does this work? What is a flag? Who sees it?

Someone else also previously posted these questions but the message was locked before anyone got a chance to answer I believe because he directed it to a particular person. I don't care who answers it but I am looking for answers because I can't find them anywhere else.

[helenp]

Yahoo Mike answered that in thread 4/15

>>>>
Can i ask you take this opportunity to clarify what actually happens when a site is flagged as you call it! You say many factors can 'flag' a site up for review and i find it hard to imagine how this actually works. What actually is a flag? Where does it show? Who see's it
>>>>
I didn't realize the "Yahoo Questions" thread was closed as well, so...

A site might be more closely reviewed if there is something suspicious about it. For example, if it has a lot of incoming and outgoing links, we may examine the site more in order to determine if it's trying to spam or if the site makes good / valid use of the links. We have internal systems that can alert us to these situations, or a reviewer may notice these issues when they look at new sites.

[soapystar]

We have internal systems that can alert us to these situations

that was the question. Calling it an internal system alert doesnt chnage it from a flag. The question is how are you alerted? Because you must have a million alerts on day 1. Its hard to imagine how this sytem works.

[soapystar]

is anyone anywhere near to understanding the editorial process and how sites become subject to it? We know its not done on a weighted basis with the worst spammers being looked at first since they still flourish while small beer mom and pop sites guilty of over-tweaking perish alongside some established informational and non-profit sites. Obviously there is some sort of policy in place for plucking these sites out but what that policy is and how its implemented remains a mnystery. We also know that some early email replies to the [e-mail] stated DEMOTION PENALTIES, later emails have mentioned editorial decisions. They are being very careful with their wording and what they give away. A demotion penalty would not be the same as ban, so why is their no more talk of demotion penalties? Some people were told to check their backlinks. Think about this, we kno from the question of shared IPs that Yahoo are prepared to drop you for having a percentage chance of being a spammer, not for actually being one. The only conclusion i can draw is that inbound links alone can take you down. I know this was later denied but why else would they state this in an email? We also have the INK penalties for droping paid inclusion and for using the free add url. Some early posters including moderators that posted in the first few days of the Yahoo changes and complained of unfair penalties were reincluded with a couple of weeks. A two teir system?

[DaveN]

lets us just say inktomi had a spammers database the guy that ran that database hates spammers..... wonder where he is today ;)

DaveN

[soapystar]

are we really saying that one single guy can project his own prejudices and subjectve opinions deep enough to become the whole basis of a billion dollar company? And how does that guy (whoever he is :-)) square that with the way Yahoo itself operates and builds it pages?

[dhatz]

lets us just say inktomi had a spammers database the guy that ran that database hates spammers..... wonder where he is today ;)

Unless I get my Y results from another server, spam rules in the SERPs in competitive sectors (in Google too, but a bit less so).

About 40 days ago, I said I'd look again after 15-Apr so I did, this past weekend. Different sites, same "content".

In the top20 of Y SERPs in all "competitive" sectors I've looked for (most intensely I've look into travel SERPs), more than half of the top20 results are spam.

Spam per my defintion: Machine generated affiliate "sites" with 50-100 links per page, all with the "keyword" in anchor repeated again and again and AGAIN and 20-25% "keyword density". Keywords are everywhere in the URI often more than once, e.g.

country-hotel-city-hotel.com/city-hotel-hotelname-hotel.html (this is from #2 site in SERPs from over 2M pages, I'm not kidding)

"Content" is usually 50 words in the middle of the page. "Site" is usually one click deep, or two at most, then it'll tele-transport up to some third site for the rest.

At the end of every page there'll be 30-40 links to other affiliated sites. Sometimes of similar scope (ie travel) other times unrelated (e.g. links to lingerie site, even sex)

In a sense it's funny, but I guess it depends on one's mood.

I believe it is this type of sites (run by SEOs/SEMs) that Yahoo has/prefers to work with, because they bring revenue (use Y services for 48hr updates to test tweaks to the pages and achieve top rankings, use PPC etc). Even if that doesn't grant them a small boost in the search algo, as Y says (believe what you want ;-)

These results afterall come after Y own services and after sponsored listings, clearly labeled as ads.

So in the SERPs page, after Y own properties (#1), the sponsored listings (#2), those "tweaked" sites by SEO/SEMs, there might be some room left for non-SEOs or sites with a biz model and/or brand that doesn't allow them to have a KWD of 20% and use 100s of throwaway domains, because they have a brandname to protect.

Yahoo decides how to run its business. Ofcourse some people will argue that Y SERPs are not the "most relevant" and I agree.

Btw the Slurp spider is very active, but we never got any real traffic from Yahoo (under 5% at this point across several sites in completely different sectors, although none of them SEOed but tons of content).

Sub-directory stats 1-Jan-2004 to 10-Mar-2004

#reqs:
-----: ------------
11483: inktomisearch.com
3118: alexa.com
2586: teoma.com
2498: overture.com
2418: googlebot.com

Google did the least # of requests, yet supplied close to 80% of the SE referrals...

The only site where we did some promotion is banned from Yahoo SERPs (yet it's listed with several deeplinks in Dmoz, in Y's own directory, 100s of real backlinks since 1996, PageRank6 etc etc).

[soapystar]

DHATZ
you make some good points. However whats mising in your definition of spam is the content. If the site only serves to point at another site then i would agee with your comments. However do they actually have useful content? Would they be relevant for their target users? Seems to me the point of searching is getting lost in the subjective arguements over how a site should look and be structured. This seems to have been my downfall with Yahoo, not looking like they wanted me to look even if the content is actually their for the user, But you dont know that unless you actually spend time going through the site. They dont. Anyway bringing it back to the general point, if what you see is truly spam the question still needs to be asked. How are these sites not flaged and others sites are? How are they doing this? When you come at it from that angle your point of

I believe it is this type of sites (run by SEOs/SEMs) that Yahoo has/prefers to work with, because they bring revenue (use Y services for 48hr updates to test tweaks to the pages and achieve top rankings, use PPC etc). Even if that doesn't grant them a small boost in the search algo, as Y says (believe what you want ;-)

begins to have a lot of validity.

[makemetop]

Wow, this reminds me of old Google threads!

For people doing badly, Yahoo is rubbish.

For people doing well, Yahoo is fine.

All it seems to prove is that we all like to hate the SE that is not doing what we want and like to love the one that does!

But I suppose that's only human nature.

[soapystar]

nope this is nothing like Google bashing. This is a whole new ballgame and the more people wake up to this the better.

[dhatz]

However whats mising in your definition of spam is the content. If the site only serves to point at another site then i would agee with your comments. However do they actually have useful content? Would they be relevant for their target users? Seems to me the point of searching is getting lost in the subjective arguements over how a site should look and be structured.

"useful content"? I guess it depends. I know what *I* would be looking for, if I were in the users' position. Most such sites have no real content (e.g. 30-50 words, all capitals, from some database).

In practically every single case I've taken the time to look into, there are no contact details (phone, fax, or postal address) whatsoever. Just an email, sometimes a freemail one (hotmail). Amazing. If I do a WHOIS search, it's usually some far-away country, not even on the same continent.

This is off-topic, so I won't go into details, but let me say this: I have been involved with directory publishing several times and I can tell you that the most difficult part is VALIDATION. And you can't simply rely on the person who has to gain (ie owner of the property in this case) to provide accurate data to build a database. Not if you want to provide a reliable service to your visitors.

Now, if only/primarily such sites are presented as the "most relevant" by a SE on many different areas, I would imagine that it won't be good in the longer term.

Wow, this reminds me of old Google threads!
For people doing badly, Yahoo is rubbish. For people doing well, Yahoo is fine.

I try hard to be objective in my assessments. If I don't have some facts or have some facts wrong, by all means step forward and let me know.

The points about SEOs/SEMs were actually made by other people actually practicing this (see thread "don't game, CHEAT").

And I did point out that Google also has this problem, although at a smaller scale, in heavily spammed sectors.

[outland88]

I have to totally agree with Soapystar that this is not the same thing as Google.

[DaveN]

soapystar don't under estimate the spam crusader ;-) he is miles faster than anyone out there

DaveN

[soapystar]

i dont see it as case of either under or over estimating him or anyone else. I do however know what i see and whatever is going on isnt resulting in a better experience for the user from where i sit, it does work for Yahoo though.

BTW: less haste more speed.