Why am I not in Yahoo?

[Jon12345]

I have a site that has top rankings in Google. But for some reason, I can't find it at all in Yahoo. The site has been running for about 5 years and has plenty of links coming in so should be found! There is even a discussion forum with 270,000 posts.

How can I find out what the problem is?

Regards,

Jon

[walkman]

do a search [webmasterworld.com...] for "Yahoo Ban" and you'll find out that a lot of us are in your shoes.

[Yahoo_Mike]

Jon, sorry to hear about this. If you think a penalty may have been levied against your site, you can email: [e-mail] and we'll review it to determine if that's indeed the case. You can also reference our guidelines at:
[help.yahoo.com...]

[Jon12345]

There used to be a popup on the home page, But it was removed recently. Could this have banned my site? If so, is that it or what can I do?

If I submit an email to [e-mail], who looks at it? Yahoo? Or someone from this site? Just curious...

Jon

[Yahoo_Mike]

Jon, Yahoo's editorial team will review your site.

[bwhitey]

About how long does it take them to respond?
I believe that I am being penalized, too. I sent them an email last Thursday.

[Richvikki]

I just sent an email as well we will see what if anything comes back. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

[kennebec]

I am glad I found this thread. Our content site, similar to Jim's has been running for more than five years - and since very early on, we've been a "cool shades" selection within our niche in the Yahoo directory. We've always gotten a lot of traffic from Yahoo.

Last night I noticed that at some point in the past four or five days, we have dropped completely out of any and all search results that people logically use to find us.

I suspect we are being penalized (or whatever one calls it) because we run a second content site in a related niche - and the two sites have quite a few crosslinks. Content is quite a bit different between the two sites, but in many cases page titles are pretty similar. Would that be the type of thing that would get us dropped?

Ken

[atlrus]

Yahoo_Mike,

is there any way we could check if our websites have been penaltized by Yahoo, without having to contact you (I have sent emails weeks ago and nobody had responded yet)?
If here has been a penalty, would the site still show if you search for the domain name?

Because, our website shows to have over 11,000 backlinks on yahoo, it's #9 on AllTheWeb,#6 on MSN, #17 on Google, but it's nowhere to find on Yahoo for that keyword.

At the same time www.mydomain.com/something.htm ranks #9 on Yahoo for slightly simillar keyword.

Could this be a penalty, or we just dont rank good on Yahoo?

[atlrus]

Oh, yeah, and I forgot to mention that I am #6 on Overture, after the sponsored results.

[Yahoo_Mike]

Response times will vary, depending to some extent on the case, but it's something our team realizes has been frustrating to say the least, and we're making it a top priority to try and cut the turnaround time down.

[Good_Vibes]

Yahoo Mike, dude, you totally ignored atlrus's questions:

is there any way we could check if our websites have been penaltized by Yahoo, without having to contact you

At least say yes or no out of courtesy :-)

- Your friendly neighbourhood discussion group "social faux-pas" watcher

[rankme]

Here's another perspective. One of my sites was penalized and/or had redirect problems...low or no rankings. About the time other sites dropped, we were magically picked up and ranked highly on 5/29.

I had written to yahoo. Never got a response. Now, I'm getting superstitious...Will the inclusion stick? Is this a blip, and when other sites come back, we'll be gone again?

The lack of communication from Yahoo is a bit Orwellian. "You'll learn the rules when you break them and if your deductive reasoning matches ours. But we'll never tell."

Board postings point to many legitimate optimizers/webmasters befuddled by the lack of conclusion. It strikes me as absurd that Yahoo can't give constructive feedback without divulging proprietary info or spoon-feeding engine spammers with tricks.

I think we're all hoping, Yahoo Mike, that when things settle down at Yahoo, Yahooligans will be more communicative and cooperative with us.

[Luxor1]

Direct response by Yahoo_Mike to Atlrus's question is also something that I am interested in.I don't think that Yahoo can or should do manual review of all domains to ensure editorial quality provided that we talk about Yahoo search engine not directory.Any search engine has algo filters,anti-spam techniques and similar automatic tools to provide for clean index.
However,it appears that many sites are cut in half by
some kind of mistake and we don't know for sure what causes these site being penalised or banned forever.

[buzzbeat]

RE: How long will it take?

I sent a request to the email suggested on 5/26 and am still awaiting a response.

[soapystar]

what is Yahoo's goal? ..the greatest monetarisation of a serps ever!.....what would be the easiest and most affecient means of doing that?....manual control of serps perhaps?...

[donstar]

dear Mike,

Sir, Someone has copied our entire site using website copier. It hurts to see our hardwork being stolen like this :(
Could this lead to a yahoo filter penalty? His site is new, We have all the proof to show.

[Asifm]

Yahoo_Mike,
I have sent an email at [e-mail] and waiting. Is There any way to find out what could be the posible time line to get a response back?

[Workin]

Your Just 1 Of Thousands Of Sites That Are Excluded From Yahoo.
What Dose It matter, Yahoo, Its Self, has Never Provided A Quality Search Result. Honestly, Yahoo Is A Giant Failure That is propped up By Overture. Overtime As Their market share Dwindles (No More MSN)The Yainkture! Demise Is Eminent.
As Great President Once Said
"Yahoo, You Say You Want A Quality Result, Then Tear Down These Walls"

FORGET YAHOO!

[atlrus]

I just wanted to follow up, and say that today my weboste start showing for that keyword - #28 (with 14,300 back links to my website). I have no idea why I am showing just now - it's not sand boxing, because I was ranking on other keywords already.

P.S. Still no response from Yahoo, though.

[atlrus]

oops, I'm out again.

[carneddau]

I emailed Yahoo over a month ago asking why my site has dissappeared, still no response. Whilst I'm dissappointed by this cavalier attitude towards the people who provide the content for their search engine, I'm also quietly confident that it will be their downfall.

My site is listed in every other engine and was in Ink for 2 years before they started "tweaking" it. Still, at least I'll know the answer once I receive my generic email with a list of generic reasons for why my site may have been penalised.

[cbpayne]

I emailed Yahoo over a month ago asking why my site has dissappeared, still no response. Whilst I'm dissappointed by this cavalier attitude towards the people who provide the content for their search engine, I'm also quietly confident that it will be their downfall.

To paraphrase comments made in the Google forum:

"I emailed Google over a month ago asking why my site has dissappeared, still no response. Whilst I'm dissappointed by this cavalier attitude towards the people who provide the content for their search engine, I'm also quietly confident that it will be their downfall."

[qsilver911]

Hello all (especially the yahoo gents),

After speaking to Mike I believe a few months ago he suggested I send our site in to see if it was being penalised.

I did this and within days I got a btw email response saying some of the links on our front page had died and this would not effect our review. I thought fantastic I am impressed with someone taking the time to tell me this, its all going to work out OK. Unfortunately since then I have received no more emails, I have emailed 1 a week for the last month to ask if their is any update but received nothing.

I know they want to make processes like this work and i am sure they can and that will give google a good run for its money. But I am left frustrated and trapped in a no-mans land not knowing what to do.

1. So what can I do now?
2. If it was reviewed and OK'ed should they have emailed me?
3. Is there anyway I get some acknowledgement either way?

Yours hopefully

[AprilS]

I finally got a response from Yahoo! It sort of confirmed my thoughts... In a nutshell they said if our site is a "commercial" site then I "must" use the fee-based Yahoo! Express program.

The support person who wrote back saying "According to our records, we have not received a submission request for this URL." - what a joke as I have submitted to yahoo many many times over the past 3 years... and I also see their bot in our logs (looking at robots.txt only though).

It was nice for Yahoo to write back... but I don't think they should hide the fact that you MUST use their fee-based submit for commercial sites (unless I've missed it along the way). They should be straight forward on their submission page and state that paying $299/$600 is the ONLY way to submit a site for indexing. (and if you are a commercial site and never paid to get indexed and listed in results... it sounds like you were lucky and they are enforcing this from now on).

[cbpayne]

I finally got a response from Yahoo! It sort of confirmed my thoughts... In a nutshell they said if our site is a "commercial" site then I "must" use the fee-based Yahoo! Express program.

I think you are confused between the Yahoo Directory and Yahoo Search Index. Comercial sites have always had to pay to be in the Directory - the guidelines at Yahoo have clearly said that for a long time.

Commercial sites DO NOT have to pay to be in the search index. Good links and no penalty and you are in.

[AprilS]

cbpayne - I'm not confused between the Yahoo Directory and regular Yahoo search results. I was quite clear in my email to them that I was inquiring about being indexed for inclusion in their regular search results.

I was just relaying what Yahoo informed me. I can understand that these guys are probably getting bombarded by emails and mis-read my email (or bareley read it at all) which is why I have already replied to them. I justed wanted to inform others that I finally got a response.

Regarding a possible penalty - I asked about this as well...but the response I received didn't even acknowledge my question. I hope my response to them is actually read and replied to fully this time.

[Chris_D]

There is clearly some confusion here about the Yahoo/Overture products - so I'll spell it out:

1. Yahoo! Express is the submission for the Yahoo! Directory - you pay a a review fee of $299 ($600 for adult sites). [ecom.yahoo.com...]

2. Yahoo!/Overture Sitematch is the paid inclusion/ regular spidering service for inclusion in the Yahoo! Search Engine. You pay a fee per page, plus a fee per click.

[content.overture.com...]

First URL: $49
Next 2-10 URLs: $29 each
11th URL and beyond: $10 each
Cost-Per-Click Fee
Tier 1 Categories: 15 cents per click
Tier 2 Categories: 30 cents per click

3. Overture "Precision Match" - is the Overture PPC product. Pricing is determined by bidding at an online auction. These are the 'sponsored results' which appear above/ at the side of the Yahoo! search engine results (as well as other syndicated search engines, like MSN, AV etc).
[content.overture.com...]

4. Free inclusion in the Yahoo! Search Engine index
[submit.search.yahoo.com...]

[soapystar]

so you pay 30 cents a click for the Sitematch product and still appear below overture ppc on Yahoo's own serps? Am i missing something?

[Chris_D]

No - you didn't miss a thing. Except that you also paid the $49....