Yahoo appeal process

How many times can you reply?

[grnidone]

How does the appeal process work? I sent the $200 bucks and request, they sent me a "NO", I sent the appeal back and they said "NO" again.

I replied back to this second NO, but from the reply with the second NO, it doesn't seem like they are going to do anything about it. Should I give up?

-G

[Laisha]

Did they give a reason? Or just a "no"?

[bpurdy]

Your problem with Yahoo buyer protection really concerns me. Yahoo's auction site is really primitive compared to ebay. There appears to be no way to directly contact Yahoo to ask questions about such things as their protection policies (which are very poorly described on their website), etc. In desperation, I've tried to contact Yahoo through the seller complaint feature(?) with no success. I've also tried to ask questions of sellers and this feature(?) does not appear to work either. As far as I'm concerned, the Yahoo Auction site appears to be the perfect place for fraudulent sellers!!!!!!!!!! If I were you, I'd be contacting my State Attorney General about Yahoo. As for me, I'm going back to ebay before I lose any money.

[tedster]

Hi, bpurdy, and welcome to the forum.

I think there are two different issues being discussed here.

Your concern is about fraud protection on the Yahoo Auction site, right? As I understand it, grnidone is talking about getting a site included in the Yahoo Directory.

[seth_wilde]

Legally they don't have to do anything. The business express contract only includes 1 guaranteed appeal (within 30 days). I've been able to get changes to a title after they were denied on an appeal, but that took a letter from a lawyer(was listed under a competitors name).

If your feeling adventurous you can try calling the BizEx department. Dial the main line and when the automated
response starts, press 0 to get the operator. If you ask for the Business express department, and then go through some other prompts, you'll eventually get to them. (I tried, but with now luck)

[grnidone]

It was a script which, basically said, "Your domain is already in the directory...NO"

The kicker is, the service of this page can be found nowhere else on the web. It is truly unique.

I don't even think they looked at the page I sent in. I think they just looked at the url, typed it in, found the index page to the site with that url and sent off an email.

I wish you could do a "biz express" option for changes. It is ludicrous they don't do that.

-G

[bpurdy]

Thanks for your clarification, Tedster.

Sorry to confuse the issue.

[Napoleon]

>> "We're sorry to report that we've decided not to include your site in the Yahoo! directory at this time. We base our evaluation of each site solely on the content it has on the site at the time of evaluation. When we reviewed your site
today, we found that it did not have enough content to support a listing through the Business Express program." <<

So says [e-mail]

The problem is... the site has plenty of content. It reflects a new ISO standard (exciting stuff eh!) and includes an 11 full page presentation, information on the actual contents of the standard and other similar material.

In compares very favorably in the content stakes with many many Yahoo included sites - and as far as the subject matter itself is concerned, has more content than any other site on the web for this particular standard (I searched HARD for my client).

This obviously leaves me wondering about the REAL reason for the above statement? Maybe the layout is boring? Or maybe the boring layout and perceived boring content sent the guy to sleep?

Maybe though it's because the site also contains links to 10-15 other sites, and bills itself as a "Directory". Could it be some sort of ludicrous paranoia at Yahoo (obviously a Directory as well)? Who knows.

I have obviously appealed, but given the above, wonder about this particular editor. Anyone else had trouble with bizex17? I have never had problems with other submissions fielded by other editors.

Assuming the guy bounces the site again, can anyone with more experience than me offer advice on who to contact there? Is there any sort of ultimate 'super-editor' to field contentious unjustified rejections like this? If so, how do you get to him/her?

Final thought is whether there is any off-Yahoo authority or grouping in this area (other than litigation of course). Final final thought is what the hell do I tell the client.

[NFFC]

>This obviously leaves me wondering about the REAL reason for the above statement?

You won't what to hear it but IMHO they are right, the site is very light on content. Some of the links go to sites that are already in Yahoo, some of which are <cough> sister sites to this one.

>what the hell do I tell the client

That he needs to add a lot more content to the site but it is still unlikely to be listed.

[Napoleon]

Interesting.... but that means that the very many sites, on all sorts of topics, with much less content shouldn't be there either.

I wonder what the criteria is here. This site has at least 12 unique content pages. Yes, it's a directory so there are quite a few links to other sites as well (which are actually there to help people find what they are seeking), but most pages are indeed unique content.

Level playing fields? Consistancy? All words that spring to mind. It looks to me like an arbitary decision, impossible to justify in RELATIVE terms. Maybe the guy didn't see the presentation.

I think therefore that all the above questions remain.

By the way, if NFFC is what I think, how much did you pay the ref against PNEFC? If you have no idea what I am talking about, don't worry!

[NFFC]

Napoleon we have to be realistic, sometimes it is hard to see the wood for the trees:

>This site has at least 12 unique content pages

An eleven page slide show is not eleven pages of unique content. It is a couple of paragraphs of text spread out over eleven pages, there's a difference.

>there are quite a few links to other sites as well

Taking the bottom left hand column as an example, all lead to sites that have the same owner, many of the pages are the same, the downloads are the same etc etc.

Please don't take this the wrong way but I think that if the site is left as it is you have a zero chance of a Yahoo listing.

>how much did you pay the ref against PNEFC?

We made him an offer that could not be refused.

[Napoleon]

This may be the crux of the matter... I get the impression from experience that if I removed most of the links there would be little problem (there would be greater emphasis on the content and less on the links).

I see plenty of two and three page sites in there (excluding contact and web link type pages). So what's the difference?

Even accounting for the presentation type layout, there IS more content than many existing sites.

That I suspect is what will make my client feel sore. It does seem to be fairly arbitrary, and therefore wrong.

I guess the real solution is for Yahoo to be a bit more explicit in terms of criteria to be used... and then enforce this upon their editors.

A bit like refereeing.... unlike the clown who robbed PNEFC at NFFC, it requires an open and consistant approach.

[2_much]

We've also had problems with BizEx 17...We've only gotten about 1 out of 5 submissions in with BizEx 17, as oppossed to 4 out of 5 with other editors!!! This is the ONE editor we are always hoping to avoid with our submissions.
So without seeing the site in question, I will say that this is an extremely tough editor who doesn't like listing sites very often.

[Napoleon]

I suspected this to some degree, which was my point about consistancy. It makes Yahoo a bit of a lottery... played with my client's money. Yahoo itself should sort this out. The furstration is also in not being able to find an escalation process within Yahoo if 17 continues refuses the appeal.