top to nowhere in a weekend....

still in serps but dropped from all keywords

[soapystar]

when the new Yahoo hit i was number 1# for a competitive term, friday it was number two, today its nowhere for any keyword search, not on any page. Search for site shows its still in the index. I thought only google was that unstable and unpredictable.

[soapystar]

ok, i guess we are not talking about the same thing then. I have 1500 pages indexed but the only way to find them is to type the exact url. Up to this weekend i was #a for a competitive term on yahoo.com. But i also had subs ranking well for other terms. Now all pages are gone from actual serps but not the index. Sites linking to me are being indexed as my site and show up low down in the serps but still above me.

[Marval]

I'm seeing this as well where in my case there were old mirrors on different domains that I had made just as filler content (ex. I own the .com, .net and .org of a domain) and had the index page on all three. I did use the Ink PFI way back and it is still in effect. As I rank #1 for numerous phrases across the industry Im in in Google for sub pages and have been classed and "authority site" at Google, as well as holding those positions on Alta and Alltheweb, I thought I would see my pages come in to Yahoo relatively in the same positions.
I am also in the Y directory (paid) and DMOZ. I can find the pages with a similar query as stated here - by the exact domain string with the .com, but without there are some 1400 sites that link to me or use a recip to me.
I have seen a second effect, where someone else in my industry is considered the #1 "authority" and has been since 1996. All I can find of him is a bunch of "similar" domains he uses for trademark protection that all use 301 redirects to his main site and they are ranking great, but his original site is no where to be found.
This will get interesting when Alta and Alltheweb complete their switchover

[kanetrain]

soapystar - I think you've been hit with an editorial penalty or "ban" of some kind.

Marvel - I think yours is the "vanishing PFI phenomenon." or the "PFI phantomed homepage". Are you seeing a phantom of all your pages or just the homepage?

Once you sign up for PFI with Inktomi (Yahoo now) you put your site in danger of the vanishing index page penalty. It only happens to PFI pages.

And from what I have found, you get hit with this penalty once and your homepage is gone forver. Even if you pull out of PFI and get crawled regularly, your site is gone for good from the Ink serps unless you do a searrch for the exact url. There is a lot of buzz right now on several forums about this problem and how much of an issue it is causing. Everybody is scared to death of the new Yahoo PFI because they assume that they are putting their site in danger if they try it.

It is one of the most mystifying phenomenons I have ever seen in 6 years in this industry. Only PFI pages get punished and it appears that the automated filter that Ink uses to ban these pages has far too much collateral damage (i.e. totally clean authority sites getting dropped for no justifiable reason).

Send an email to [e-mail]. If they tell you that there is no filter on your site, tell them they are mistaken. :) You, my friend, have been hit with the "PFI phantom curse". Even Positiontech and all other resellers didn't know (or wouldn't admit it existed) until 3 weeks ago... when I finally got Positiontech to admit that there is a problem.

[freejung]

I just got this reply from Tim,

"You have a demotion penalty. I will send it off and they will rereview it as it does not look too bad from a quick look.
Tim"

Now I am sad :-( Is my site really that bad? Does this mean that a human looked at my site and thinks it sucks? I'm just glad Tim doesn't seem to think so! Would someone kindly look at my site and say something nice about it?

The question now is: is the demotion penalty automated, or was it applied by a human?

[walkman]

freejung,
congrats. At least you'll get a new lease on life :)

[freejung]

Maybe, assuming they don't look at my site and decide that it sucks again. What I want to know is, why don't they like it? Am I doing something they consider shady, like keyword stuffing, or do they just not like my content?

Perhaps it would be helpful if this sort of penalty were accompanied by an email from the editor saying "your site sucks and here's why. Fix it and maybe we'll put you back in."

[soapystar]

I just got this reply from Tim,
"You have a demotion penalty. I will send it off and they will rereview it as it does not look too bad from a quick look. Tim"

was that a reply to the webmasterworldfeedback@? i have yet to recieve a reply.

[freejung]

was that a reply to the webmasterworldfeedback@?

Yes. Not sure why they answered me. I sent one email, got a canned response about algos being different, sent another email arguing that there was no way that was the case here, and got the above quoted reply.

[seindal]

I still have to get any kind of answer from Yahoo on this. Maybe I was too nice and constructive in my emails :-)

René

[soapystar]

I still have to get any kind of answer from Yahoo on this. Maybe I was too nice and constructive in my emails :-)
René

im hoping its because its not a straightforward YOUVE BEEN PENALISED answer.

[sem4u]

Demotion penalty? Sounds interesting.

Let us know when you have more details please.

[soapystar]

Demotion penalty? Sounds interesting.
Let us know when you have more details please.

Now, wouldnt this be a handy pr opportunity if Tim gave an open candid reply right here on the subject? :-)

[Marval]

kanetrain - it's all of the pages of that one domain - it's funny because I have at least 60 other sites listed on those pages (linked) and every one of them is in the Y web search in the top 10 with the exact keywords of the link.
Think Im just gonna re-put up the mirrors - they seem to be working for everyone else with a 301.
Other thing I noticed in one area - for every major keyword or phrase the exact same 20 sites come up in the same order - this over a selection of 50 keyword phrases and 2 very competitive single words. Weird thing is that the list is the rankings that were there before Y started using Google - and now some of these sites don't even have the same "industry theme" - they've moved on to something else

[walkman]

soapystar, seindial,
I'm in the same boat. No answer from webmasterworldfeedback@ and it's demotion too I guess. You can find my site (first page PFI) if you search by [domain.com...] and I have some 2000+ pages in Google backfill results. Those G results show only if there's no other match I think, very rarely as you might imagine. Thank God my Google referrals have doubled this month. But still, between MSN and Y! about 40% of people are automatically shut out.

[soapystar]

walkman
yeah, google is kinda like custers last stand now. Will the calvary arrive in time? (this analogy may be way off but i still like it)

[DaveN]

Dudes google has been doing this to me for years..

DaveN

[Abigail]

If we are all being penalized ie. major symptom seems to be all pages in index but no serp results - then why is the Yahoo spider gobbling up pages fast and furiously for the last 2 weeks, several hundred every day in may case.

[DaveN]

spider spider spider.... test test test....filter filter filter

DaveN

[Abigail]

So this response from Tim to my question in the other forum here? What do you make of that?

"Tim, why is it that some of us are in the index but are not to be found in the serps, even if we call up a page by title and .com?"

Tim Response:

>>We are still migrating our product to the new Yahoo Search technology

[seindal]

I guess we have to be a bit patient here, even though it is very frustrating to be left out of the index for absolutely no reason, other than maybe a software bug (the duplicate content penalty due to links through redirects).

René

[DaveN]

seindal we all have too....same boat for everyone

DaveN

[seindal]

Well, right now I feel more like outside the boat than in it with the rest of you :-(

[Abigail]

No you're not, just climb on in - there's a sit right here beside me! :)

[DaveN]

seindal ... remember google update florida?

Daven

[Abigail]

Now this is an odd coincidence - my page count in the Yahoo index I can call up by entering my www.mysite.com into the search has dropped significantly from yesterday AND the same thing has just happened in Google AND the count matches - that is very strange.......

[seindal]

remember google update florida?

Yes I do, but in my case it's a poor comparison, because I benefitted handsomely from that weird experiment.

There was no whining from me back then :-)

René

[soapystar]

is it my imagination or is this boat leaking?

[sem4u]

I wasn't affected much either. Abigail's offer sounds good though :)

We will all have to wait and see what happens.

[seindal]

Abigail, I get the same result. Not only is the number of backlinks the same, the order is also, so Y! must be showing Google results there.

René

[DaveN]

I'm still seeing slight differences, but NO overture listings....

DaveN