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This is my first post at WebmasterWorld. I expect variants of this question have been asked lots of times before, but I can't find the discussions right now, so please forgive me for asking it.
The company I work for pays for adverts to be displayed on Yahoo!'s search results pages, and these adverts come up fine.
However, our pages don't come up in the normal search results, even for the company's name. This suggests we've been excluded from the index for some reason. Except not entirely, as if I restrict the search to just the company's main domain, the index page does show up. (None of our other pages, though.) Can anyone explain this?
It has been suggested that we may have been (mostly) excluded for reciprocal linking with a large number of other domains which have very similar content on them. However, this is essential, as a large part of our business is selling domains. We have too many for it to be realistic to write unique content for each one, and we have to have links from them to our main site so that people know who to buy the domains from. So are we being penalised for what is, as far as I can see, a necessary business practice? And if so, what can be done to get around it?
Okay, that's three questions, but I hope they can be answered. I would be grateful for any advice.
Is there another forum where I should be asking this? Would I get a better response in the Supporters Forum?
Sorry if I seem pushy, but I am new here, and so could do with some help, and the company has paid the subscription to support WebmasterWorld, and they want me to get their money's worth out of it!
As for why you are not getting answers one possibility is that people here may dislike companies that are in the domain selling business: domains that are held for sale make life harder/more expensive for webmaster setting up new sites.
I hadn't thought of that reason. I hope that's not what most people are thinking. For what it's worth, I believe that most people find it more convenient to buy from sellers like us. If they try visiting a domain and just find empty space, they wouldn't know what to do. Whereas if they find a convenient set of links leading to a site that guides them through the process of buying it, it would make life a lot easier for them. Not that I'm trying to use this forum to promote the business, but just by way of an explanation.
Thanks for replying, anyway.
domains that are held for sale make life harder/more expensive for webmaster setting up new sites.
Hogwash. Any webmaster having trouble thinking up a domain name has more issues with lack of imagination. Blaming it on people who are trading in domains is pure blame shifting.
Interlinking many websites under ones control can get you banned. You are free to do what you feel is expedient but shortcuts can lead to being excluded from the search engines. So you have to weigh your risks against the benefits.
I encourage you to read through the Yahoo Search forum for similar cases as your own.
I am still hoping that after our latest message to them Yahoo! will recognise that the banning is inappropriate, and rectify the situation.
Failing that, we have to work on other plans. Working out what is expedient is tricky. We don't want to meta noindex the domains, as we want people to be able to find those pages from search engines.
We might add rel="nofollow" to the links from the domains back to our site. My hope would be that it would make it clear that the links weren't an attempt to boost our site's apparent importance. Do you think that would do it?
