Forum Moderators: open
A way to find out if your site is penalized is to check your website log files and if you see Yahoo Slurp! activity only on your robots.txt and the main home page, then its a sign that your domain is penalized.
Try emailing Yahoo using the following form- [add.yahoo.com...] and if you are damn lucky, then you might get a positive response.
Good luck.
If yes, then there's a great chance that your domain is penalized.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Yahoo is randomizing their SERPs in this way to throw people off. It doesn't say much for their faith in their editors. At some stage some sites with directory listings appeared to be demoted both in regular search and searches limited to the directory. But who knows, really.
Slurp does come to lick around now and then, but its only the home pages and robots.txt
I still don't understand why we should be penalized by Yahoo because we are in their directory?
got a directory listing for one of my site which was pretty well crawled and ranked in Yahoo search results. One month later, the site got penalized...
Very unlikely that it is related.
webmasterworldfeedback@yahoo.com
Thanks,
Yahoo! Mike
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/ysearch/cgi_urlstatus
I have not seen that URL before.. very interesting..
Maybe this will work or get my site reviewed by a real person...
To paraphrase it: It told me to do a search for 5-10 unique words on my site, like my title. If my site comes up for these words, then I'm in the Index. I was told that if I come up in that search, then don't fill out the form, because it won't be processed.
If I don't come up in that search, then go to the url that soapystar is inquiring about and fill out the form.
Knew all this before, it's just a big circle.
What is that? That Yahoo doesn't like your website and that complaining about it on WebmasterWorld isn't helping?
Yeah, we all know that. Thanks for telling us again. And again. And again...
Look, instead of wasting your time complaining about your sites inability to rank on Yahoo, your time will be better spent building a new website specifically for Yahoo- in fact, build as many as you can.
new website specifically for Yahoo- in fact, build as many as you can.
It's very true that for most people going that road would save a lot of time and energy...it is the true end of the circle...if thats not a contradiction in terms..:)
To Martinibuster: What I am saying is that I'm trying to find help from Yahoo. Every help lead I follow takes me around in a circle to where I started. I'm sorry you don't like what I write. I'm sorry you think I am complaining. I have a website that is my company and my life. I'm trying to save it. I'm going under.
Thanks for being a helpful moderator.
It's not a good idea to rely on just one website. It's a good policy to constantly be expanding. Don't interlink, make them stand alone with their own backlinks. Use unique IP's, different hosts, too.
If you have expertise in one area, then build over there. If you have knowledge of side niches then expand into those. If you find a lucrative niche but don't know the subject, hire someone to research and write about it. Expand and build all the time.
Complaining about it here is not going to sway anybody at Yahoo to cut you a break. Nobody gets a break, not even me.
as its now being said that its not good to rely on a single site...for me this is the crux of my problem with yahoo.... what they are doing is only hurting the people like mastervisa who are truly not pro seo's (assumption). Poeple with single sites and who put real blood and sweat into those sites are exactly what the internet is about. Pro seo's like is being suggested above are simply creating made-for-yahoo spam and carrying on as normal...the blanket bombing of mom and pop sites is destroying the yahoo index as far as im concerned...
further...the only test of this blanket bombing (screening) of sites by yahoo seems to be through the members of this forum who have been allowed a route to appeal and through pay products such as sitematch..this is not a true cross section of sits affected...this is only screening mostly heavy seo'd sites. I believe Yahoo have a false imprssion of who has been affcted. Sitematch customers and webmasterworld members are not a cross section of the vast numbers of amateur webmasters and their sites out in the wild.
However in the real world as it is now, Martinbuster is giving genuine advice. If you are just looking to get back in then his route is the in reality the only way to go.
[edited by: soapystar at 8:34 pm (utc) on Jan. 26, 2005]
Now I see that doesn't cut it anymore. I have read so many threads on this Yahoo board, it boggles my mind. I already came to the conclusion you suggested. I didn't want to admit it. Since July, 04 I have been bringing a rifle to Y's shooting match when I needed a shotgun!
Bottom line of Martinibuster's advice: If your site is banned or penalized on Y, get a new site. Or two. And cover up your tracks behind you.
End of Discussion.
soapystar: Thanks, that is one of the best summaries of what is going on that I have read. I am not a pro seo, I am a mom and pop business, (my wife and I) and we have been doing this since '98. I've only been reading Webmasterworld for 2 or 3 months.
If you throw a traffic violater in with the hardcores, they will learn new tricks and come out, a hardcore.
I don't think so.
mastervisa is a mom and pop whose website does not rank. Period. Nobody is persecuting this guy, so get off that kick. The sooner he realizes that the better positioned he'll be to make more informed decisions.
As far as I can tell from a cursory check of the site in his profile, his site is not banned or penalized, it just does not have what it takes to rank. I did a very brief check of your backlinks. Nothing obvious popping out on the first page. Algorithms change, happens all the time.
Anchor text isn't going to help him in Yahoo like it does in Google.
I think it's a bit over the line and unproductive the way every time someone thinks they are banned the rest of the peanut gallery comes out with their torches and pitchforks.
It's unproductive because the discussion generally revolves around a false assumption and never comes to the resolution it should because you're frantically chasing red herrings.
mastervisa is a mom and pop whose website does not rank. Period.
As far as I can tell from a cursory check of the site in his profile, his site is not banned or penalized, it just does not have what it takes to rank.
When you have a site that loses position in the results your think Algorithm change.
When you have 10000 pages drop completely out of the index overnight you worry about bans.
When 1-200 of those 10000 pages come and go in the index and they are months old even though you see Slurp revisiting again and again them then you think technical issues.
Andy
I just took a quick look at his faqs page and it's duplicate content galore. So it looks like you have some dirt on your hands. Duplicate content is a no-no.
i have read your post a bunch of times, I've got no idea what you're talking about Martinibuster, you say my faqs page. The link marked "Questions"? I wrote that page years ago. Sorry I don't understand what you mean by dirt on my hands.
There is another domain out there that has that almost exact page and the rest of the site is so close that I got confused which site was yours.
Andy
I make pages for people first, and not for search engines. That is what Y wants right? Sorry I copied that page to another site. I was thinking of my site's visitors before I thought about what a search engine might think. What I thought was a helpful page to people is considered dirt on my hands and I am now a spammer.
Let me spell it out for you:
www.accept--------.com
I'm talking about the domain hosted on a separate ip that visually mirrors the website in your profile, and whose content is rewritten in parts but is exactly the same in other places.
You have at least one website out there with substantially the same content hosted on Pair on a unique ip address, registered under the same name as the site listed in your WebmasterWorld profile.
I'm going to have to start charging you for unraveling your network of duplicate websites that you previously expressed no interest in building.
I already busted you for lying about this being your only website. You've lost credibility with me.
This is precisely the kind of thing I'm talking about where people represent themselves as pollyannas and accuse search engines of unfair treatment but when you scratch a little bit the skeletons come falling out of the closet.
I've seen this scenario replay itself over and over- sorry if I sound tired of it, but it's so repetitive I'm getting dejavu all over again. ;)
One time there was an article in the NYTimes where someone accused Google of unfairness and we started ripping his spammy site on WebmasterWorld. I saw a similar one in the SF Chronicle and we unraveled his spammy site in supporters. Another time GoogleGuy himself ripped apart/critiqued someones spammy network and revealed it for the crap-website that it was. Over in AdSense forum they get a steady stream of people who were "unfairly" booted out of the program but virtually all of them have a violation justifying their penalty.
Can we please call a time out here, cut the dissimulation, and be real?
1. I said my main site is not in my profile. I never said I had one website. The site I always refer to having a problem on Y is not in my profile. I sell a widget machine on it. I expressed no interest in building more sites to replace this one.
2. I have 2 sites in the same financial field for 2 seperate banks, is that a network of duplicated websites?
3. I have posted many times that I had 4 sites in the InkPFI, that were all dropped by Y. www.accept-----.com was not one of them. When did I lie?
First business I own is the financial site in my profile.
Second business is in the same financial field, seperate name, different bank. www.accept----
I have another business where I sell a machine. That's the site I refer (complain) about all the time.
I have another business where I sell a type of lock.
Those are my businesses to clarify.
