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We submitted a site a few months back which was included in sitematch and then about a month ago was rejected. I have never received a clear reason why this happened and in conversations with PositionTech, they claim that the site has duplicate content. The only duplicate content I can find is a directory that is using our sites home page content for our list (we are working to get that changed) and another directory that uses a func/goto?id= type redirect for all the sites in the directory.
I tried to call sitematch, but you can't speak to anyone in editorial. Does anyone have any further suggestions.
Thanks
You should be able to request your deposit back (the money you paid up front for clicks) but you will not be able to get your quality review fee back.
When you say duplicate content you have assumed that a site has exactly the same content as yours. However, I have seen sites rejected which simply use a template and a new page per product. Very little changes between the pages i.e. maybe 3 sentances. These "duplicate" pages do not add value to the index.
Perhaps this is the duplicate content that is being referred to.
Any credit card company can investigate and determine what they feel to be right. The sole determiner is not Yahoo or PT. I would think well versed credit card companies wouldn’t side with Yahoo no matter what you signed. You assumed their would be no risks called into play and the other party cannot divorce itself entirely from the risks of doing business with a contract.
Ask the credit card company to place your complaint about Yahoo and its resellers into a national database to alert others to similar problems. Once they get enough complaints they’ll nix taking orders for that program and others Yahoo is involved in.
I’ll be damn if they would get any of my money without a good fight.
Regardless of the fact you entered into a good faith agreement that your site would be placed in Yahoo Site Match for X amount of money.
As part of the sign up process, you agree to have your site quality reviewed. Should it be accepted then you agreed that your site will be included in the index. Should it be rejected, you agree that your site will not be included in the index and that you have paid a non-refunded amount to have been quality reviewed.
This is all called out in the Terms of Service and that you agree to the Editorial Guidelines.
I recognize in many cases people are just testing the waters with penalized sites to get back into Yahoo, through Site Match. The fault lays with Yahoo creating this chaotic state. But on the other hand I can’t argue any fairness in Yahoo taking money from thousands and giving them nothing in return. You've got to provide that tangible proof of a quality review not the mere mention of violations that could fit thousands of sites.
Yes I do work for another PFI reseller.
When answering questins like this, I try and be very general and not specific about the company I work for - I feel that it would go against the spirit of the WebmasterWorld board.
In this case, all the "agreeing" you have to do is part of the conditions that every reseller must do when they sign up a new cusomer.
The information which is passed back from the quality review is the same per reseller.
It is through my experience in dealing with customers that I have started to be able to recognize reasons as to why customers would not pass quality review. In many instances it is quite easy to spot why.
I do believe that the quality review process is being looked at with the intent of improving it. I do not know a timeline on this however nor do I know what exactly is being looked. This is the same as with any process - it should always be looked at to ensure it is working smoothly and efficiently.
to be able to recognize reasons as to why customers would not pass quality review
thats quite interesting. You seem to be saying the published guidelines are quite useless in determining why a site may be penalised and infact only by watching the results of many ongoing reviews can you now start to pick the reasons a site might be penalised. How then would any normal webmaster be able to decifer the generalised maze of what has become known as the GUIDELINES when troubleshooting his own sites. Seems yahoo constantly reply to review requests by pointing the average webmaster there, you seem to be saying its useless for troubleshooting. Would you also say these markers you can now recognise are absent in yaho's own site?
to be able to recognize reasons as to why customers would not pass quality review
thats quite interesting. You seem to be saying the published guidelines are quite useless in determining why a site may be penalised and infact only by watching the results of many ongoing reviews can you now start to pick the reasons a site might be penalised.
Actually that is not what I am saying.
The published guidelines tell you what is acceptable and what isn't. Because I am farmilar with the guidelines and have seen sites that have been rejected and approved, I have built up some experience in that area.
I have also been fortunate enough to work with Yahoo! Editorial staff on a handful of occassions assisting my customers to get the most out of their Site Match experience. I have taken the opportunity to learn from this.
Warren should very easily be able to determine why the site is being rejected without Yahoo. That is what people are paying these resellers for.
IMO there is no quality control but only the Yahoo filtering. Once the site is bounced the reseller goes back to Yahoo to find out why. That’s why you’re back dealing with Yahoo because no quality control took place to begin with. The customer gets a vague reply because Yahoo doesn’t want to reveal it.
I don’t think most of the contracts would hold up in any courtroom setting. To many slick attorneys would see you’re charging for a possibility a gamble. Not a fair exchange.
