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The end of May was a mixed bag for us. On one hand, some of the newer sites (3-6 months) started to rank within the first 100, which we expected them to. However, a few steadfast rankings from a couple older sites disappeared completely.
The trickiness of the disappearing rankings is that a query to Yahoo's quality team returns that the sites were not penalized...they simply no longer rank in the first 1000. Two of the sites had a variety of odd variable strings indexed, strings that do not exist within the sites' architecture; another simply dropped without any indexing changes.
As a final note as a new poster to WWW (I mod under 'Cygnus' at SEOGuy and am a regular at a few other forums); I am concerned that Yahoo seems to be unable to deal with false authority sites (blogspot, spaces, etc) -- each update I see more of these popping in as a percentage of the first 100 results.
JoeSinkwitz
[I am concerned that Yahoo seems to be unable to deal with false authority sites (blogspot, spaces, etc) -- each update I see more of these popping in as a percentage of the first 100 results.]
Yeah Joe...
You aren't the only one who's facing those strange strings in the URL. I know of at least 3 others who have the same prob.
...and yes... in my category, there's a site that's ranking in the top 10 that's not even related to the category and without a single keyword! there's even a page that's actually a chain letter.
please do keep us informed about your status... I'm sure there are lots of webbies who are wondering about those strings too (and their suddenly MIA sites). Mebbe this thread will alert Y! to the situation and they'll loook into it...
If you have mod_rewrite enabled, this is the easiest fix --- it strips the ? and everything after from an original request and redirects to the non-query_string version of the page:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \?.*\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /$1? [R=301,L]
(Works great unless you need to use query_strings in an original request --- then it gets a little more complicated.)
Hope this helps.
Justin
Added: There is almost nothing you can do to hurt a competitor... but maybe adding a bunch of duplicate content on their site through some creative links is one of them.
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
To me the biggest issue is Yahoo does not make any use of their directory data. Imagine a phonebook, where you paid for a prominant ad in the phonebook directory, but when you searched the phonebook you couldnt find the listing/banned. Its ridiculous and all those listings that are usually the most important arent there for no apparent reason. You'll find more yahoo directory results in google and msn, then you find even in yahoo's search.
They had it good for about a 3-4 weeks, but they just went down the toilet again. Its a shame someone had to go and mess up what was really the best results they've had in several YEARS.
Hopefully someone will get this message. Even while the results were looking pretty good, the clicks were skimpy at best... they really need to leave some good results alone for a few months and spend time repairing their reputation for being a search engine to go to.
Between what i read on this forum and on the overture/thread on WebmasterWorld, losing MSN/adcenter, i believe yahoo is in serious decline. Clicks that used to bid for 2.00 a couple of years ago, now are barely above .20 cents and these are very competitive / high volume words. The overture/ysm thread is full of posters who are cutting back overture ad spends do to poor performance.
They arent business friendly by any stretch of the imagination.
Whatever they did the past 24 hours really ruined what was in my opinion the best serps they've results they've had in 2+ years. Hopefully it is just a temporary glitch.
We do use mod_rewrite on all our PHP sites, but on the aspx/IIS sites, we don't. The site most affected ranks #1 in Google and MSN for a highly coveted phrase, and is awol in Y...as much as I'd like the Y traffic back, I don't want to change the architecture and risk losing the other rankings.
Even still, it becomes comical, because this one site in particular, using .aspx extensions on everything somehow has index.php?phpnuke junk indexed, despite not using php whatsoever. Yahoobowling becomes a very distinct possibility given that flaw.
Anyhow, I'll update should any changes occur.
Cygnus
I am not sure of the exact ISAPI fix, but you can match the variable names, or the pattern of the defined variable (or both) to keep from having to change your structure.
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} !\?var1=[a-z0-9]+&var2=[a-z0-9]+\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} \?.*\ HTTP/ [NC]
RewriteRule (.*) /$1? [R=301,L]
This one says if THE_REQUEST is for anypage.ext?var1=any-combination-of-A-TO-Z-or-0-TO-9&var2=any-combination-of-A-TO-Z-or-0-TO-9 don't do anything, otherwise, strip the query_string.
Justin
Added:
You could also just deny .php requests like this:
RewriteRule \.php$ - [F]
As of today, the sites are gone again.
Furthermore, as I have posted in other threads, searching site:mysite.com brings up dozens of url-only listings with no title, description, and many nonexistent urls with query strings.
I don't know what to make of this. For my site in particular, Yahoo has gone from showing all pages indexed fully with title and description now down to all url-only. The index page no longer ranks for anything. [webmasterworld.com...]
Me thinks that since Y! started rolling out these frequent updates, they've encountered more problems than anticipated and they're probably sorting them out one by one. just have to sit tight I suppose...
and i really think you're right followgreg... the top site in my category is unshakeable... almost as if it was hard coded... and it's just made up of affiliate links... no original content of its own! go figger!
Another observation I have made is that on the site: search, yahoo is showing nearly all of my pages, url only, with no title and description, but leaving the 'www' off the url. They are lising the non-www version of my urls despite a rewrite rule I have had in place for a year.
Also, regarding the earlier post about query string rewrite rules, I have had such a rule in place for a year, to return a 410/Gone for any url containing a query string. Yahoo still indexing fake urls with query strings evident in a site: search. These, too, are url only, and use the title of the anchor text where Yahoo found the link in the first place.
For example:
example.com/&y=0286936E06E3F7D4&i=51&c=4901&q=02^
This does not exist on my site, and clicking on it would return a 410/Gone.
What a mess.
the serps in my category seem to have stabilized for about 2 weeks now (fingers crossed again) except for if i search in .co.uk. whooooaaa... lots of fluctuations in uk's serps man! no wonder i get very little traffic from .co.uk. I'm like on page #... never mind...
I think its relevant to this update. For a 3-4 weeks i saw some hope when they appeared to have unbanned their directory listings.. you know their actual customers.. who pay and a human actually reviews it and either approves or rejects it based on the quality of the site. But now at the moment it seems back to where there are far more yahoo/directory listed sites in Google or MSN then in yahoo search itself.
I feel yahoo has just banned to many legitimate/authority/industry leader/well known sites over the past couple of years.. and including pre-inktomi bans that carried over with no rhyme or reason of any kind.., there are entire sectors that are missing now. Im not kidding either and its no suprise their marketshare is falling. I did some spot checks across some industries. I searched for a term on yahoo directory, then compared it to the web results. And in some cases about 90% of entire business sectore/industries were banned. (more-results came back with no results other then the domain).. So its gotten to the point where entire sectors(large i might add) are banned and what are returned to the searcher is 0-2% relevancy at best.
Example you search for wholesaler of widgest/products... the serps return almost 90% retail sites/or spam, completely unrelated to the actual term. (google/msn handle it well and bring back what i expect)
Based on that report, and just what im seeing talking to colleagues in the industry. I feel that Yahoo is really falling alot farther then that study is indicating.
I think the bottom line is they have just banned to many directory listings, authority sites, industry leader sites, popular/well known sites and the mix...and whats left is lower relevancy and spammers. And until this practice changes and is corrected, they will continue to lose marketshare.
Word cant express how bad the UK serps are at the moment - unfortunately they also appear on .com for me often too.
I dont get it, prior to this update the serps on UK were superb. Now its a real mix of junk.
As they say, dont fix it if it isnt broke, ive no idea why they felt the need to change the make up of the serps so radically. Add more sites etc sure, but take away relevancy, its madness!
Yahoo UK SERPS are now plain awfull imo
Yep, Yahoo Australia and some regionals (not the UK) have the OK results.
Yahoo.com switches between some really good results and then the rubbish UK, Alta and ATW set.
I see an improvement here too.
In fact, for one of my test phrases they've seemed to have overcome a problem that MSN and Google have not addressed (even though I've pointed out this problem).
But it's difficult to see because despite the fact you search on au.search.yahoo.com or search.yahoo.com, results depend on your IP....
We get here ( Italy ) different results that australian get in Australia or Americans in USA.
Last week, I mentioned in another thread that there were several search phrases I use to test how accurate the various search engines are. I mentioned that there is one particular tiny little island in the Caribbean for which neither MSN or Yahoo could ever correctly identify the right website in the past. Its name contains two common words used often and without reference to the island. However, when strung together, there is only one site in the world which is www.word1word2.com and in that order.
Last week MSN finally found this website and this week, its Yahoo's turn! In fact, I have 9 different (2 word) search phrases I use to test the SE's. Yahoo just passed 5 of them. MSN passed 6 and Google passed all 9. :)
Obviously, Yahoo have turned up the relevancy factor in regards to domain names, keywords in the URL and keywords in the title just as MSN did. Its going to cause havock for a while, and like MSN, they will likely have to dial it back some and put more relevance on the on page factors as well as IBL's ... but at least we know they are working on "something". The status quo has been pretty pathetic for quite a looooong time if you ask me.
I gave up on Yahoo search years ago! They were never able to find the most relevant sites for any given search in my opinion. Who knows, we may see a real three way race instead of "all Google all the time"!
Go for it Yahoo ... let's see what you can do!
.com seems to be getting better for me... starting to rank higher on some secondary key phrases and surprise! i was so busy with Y! that I didn't notice i went to #1 in msn. Now if only i could multiply MSN's traffic by mebbe 100x or 1000x? wishful thinking huh?
Not to mention another example where a popular search presented 18 results all the same from the same site one after the other all sub.thisisXXX, sub.thisis#*$!x, sub.thisisxxx, sub.thisisxxx you get the idea.
Then you have search results with no relevency at all, its like they just picked any old site and listed it for anything. Its a complete mix, they are listing sites that dont even contain information of the search subject - whats that about?
I dont get it, results were so relevent before the update and then they roll this out.
The laugh of it is, we have some sites that rank ok in Yahoo and they also rank for keywords that are not relevent to them, but they are surrounded by junk.
Meanwhile some of our quality authority sites have fallen back against junk - You couldnt make it up.
Never has Yahoo been so POOR if you ask me - its amazing they havent rolled these back - they obviously like what they have!
My category's serps have more or less stabilized although it could do with losing those crap sites in the top ten. Example : there's a chain letter in #3!
Also, no one's been able to answer this :
when you key in "money making ideas" a webhost appears in the top 20 - no relevance and NO keywords! When you key in "free money making ideas" Yahoo! Geocities Webhost appears in the top 10! It's almost as though Y! is somehow inserting paid ads quietly into the serps!
yep, yahoo.co.uk = POOR results
i also don't know why it's taking Y! so long to get their act together for .co.uk.
in .co.uk and .au, i'm like on page .... never mind... if i rank in .co.uk like i do on .com the extra traffic would really be nice!
It looks like Yahoo dont care about the UK market - or the UK market is not that important to them as far as Search is concerned.
Sometimes the bad Yahoo results are on .com as well but I dont know if this is because I am accessing from the UK.
Chances are there will be an update in 1-2 weeks as Yahoo seem to refresh/update results around the 21st - 27th ish of the month.
One of our sites has listings without the www prefix yet that site has a 301 set up and has been that way since the start! Likewise 9 other sites on similar search terms so its not a cannical issue, yahoo are just displaying some results in the serps without the www prefix for some reason.
If they do another update at least we know the results cant be any worse! - they can only go up from here
