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Is your site clean?
i just tried one search that brought up 4 clones of my site. How can all the clones get listed but not the real site? What a joke.
However, several prominant sites also appear to have suffered the same fate. They are high-ranked in Google, but have disappeared from Yahoo. I think this problem may be more widespread than we realized.
Theres no autorepsonse on that email address so can it be assumed that a real world reply will be made for email sent to that address? If a site was penalised would yahoo be honest and confirm this? Indeed would any reason be given as a matter of course? So basically, will i get a reply? :-)
I got a reply from Yahoo, but they just say my site is not banned (I know that) and that this sort of thing is to be expected as their algo is different from Google's. I don't buy that. If it were just in competitive SERPs, sure, that would be reasonable, but it's not. If I do a search for my exact title, which is unique, I come up #14, behind several totally unrelated sites which do not even use that exact phrase. No other site uses this title, yet #1 on this SERP is a page which appears to duplicate my content.
This is not a feature, it's a bug. A site should always come up first for its exact title if that title is unique. Anything else is just silly.
I've removed myself from the site that was duplicating my content, so once Yahoo updates, we should see if that fixes the problem, at least for me.
Too many people are seeing this same phenomenon, and it's too similar to just be a matter of different algos. Something else is going on. Now how do we convince Yahoo that it's a real bug, not just sour grapes because our rankings are not as good in Yahoo as in Google?
I would recommend relaxation. I think this is unlikely to last long. I'm just trying to get the ball rolling. They have to fix it sooner or later, I'm just hoping sooner.
yet #1 on this SERP is a page which appears to duplicate my content.
just what im seeing. All my pages are fully indexed yet the only search i can get listed for is my url which happens to be what the yahoo directory use as my description. Searching for my title brings up sites credited as me but in fact they are just pointing to me. The search i used to be number one for has one of these redirect sites at 453 with me not listed.
I just need to see the light at the of the tunnel. No matter how dim
Lets hope its not a train coming your way :-)
that really would be dim!
is is a train? I report, you decide!
[webmasterworld.com...]
But you're not banned, I checked. You still come up for your url just like everyone else who is having this problem. This is not a ban, but some sort of penalty.
However, we appear to be on the wrong track. As per your suggestion in stickymail, I checked out other sites whose content was also being "duplicated" by the same site which was "duplicating" mine. They are doing fine. They have not incurred the penalty. So I don't get it. There is no consistent factor in all of this. Some sites are just very low ranked, for no apparent reason.
Perhaps this is simply a reflection of the incompleteness of their new crawl. I say we give it time, check back in a week or so and see if the problem persists.
Most common philosophy as to what causes it: Ink indexes a redirect to your site incorrectly and shows it as duplicate content, or indexes dupe content from a site copying your content. Then Ink bans your site and drops you from the serps while still showing the dupe content. You disapear and don't come back for a looooooong time even when searching for your exact title. Some of that is theory (backed up by many users reporting the same problem) and part of it is conjecture.
The common denominator in this equation is usually that the site that gets penalized (or banned) is usually a site that used PFI. Did you guys use PFI with Inktomi? That seems to be what triggers the vanishing home page.
I got hit with it and disappeared from the index for 8 months (still gone). I know Yahoo is aware of the issue, but it evidently it is still a problem. Reports of this are growing at an alarming rate now that Yahoo is using the ink database and applying the ink penalties to thier serps. I'm seeing more webmasters complaining of this here at ww and at other forums across the web.
For the sake of explanation, let me compare Google and Ink and how they treat off page factors and some of these other issues (including inbound links and **percived** dupe content):
Google and Ink treat off-page "spam" differently. Google sees the dupe content on two or more pages and ranks the page with the most inboud links and higher page rank. If your site is the legitimate one, you (generally) are never affected by the dupe content or other off page factors. The illigitimate dupe content is dropped low in the seps and won't even show up. In Google, generally, one site will not get penalized for what another site does unless there is indisputable evidence that the two sites are really coming from the same company. From what I can surmise, a penalty (for off page factors) is only applied by a Google editor. That's conjecture, by the way.
Ink, unfortunately, seems to have an automated system of penalizing sites for off page factors. The automated system has some problems identifying which is the legitimate site and may penalize the legitimate site in some cases. If they find "percieved" dupe content (or other off-page factors that they consider spam), then there is evidence that they will actually put an automated ban or "penalty" on the legitimate site. This is especially true if the legitimate site is a PFI page and the dupe content or dynamic redirect is from a non-pfi page. In fact, I've only seen PFI pages get hit with the penalty (though that doens't mean that an organic page couldn't get hit with it... I just haven't seen it).
Like I said, I've spent hundreds of hours researching the issue. It is fairly widespread... and it's going to get even worse now that Yahoo is using Ink's technology.
Tim (from Yahoo) is aware of this issue. I believe they are working to improve the system and correct the errors. There are always bugs and issues with any search engine, so it's understandable. I just hope they get this one fixed sooner rather than later!
Tim (from Yahoo) is aware of this issue. I believe they are working to improve the system and correct the errors.
id be interested to know how you know that and why he hasnt hinted at it all the threads/posts complaining of the apparent connection between a penalty and sites linking to the dropped site being credited as actually being it. I made that connection before you mentioned this so it would seem to be the problem.
Sorry if that was unclear. I said that Tim is aware of the "vanishing page" issue. Not that the redirect or dupe content causes it. The part about what causes it and how I think Ink treats off page factors in determining how to penalize is strictly conjecture on my part (and many other webmasters). This topic has been hammered to death in the paid inclusion forum for over 3 months. I'm guessing based on things that I have seen and research. :)
If you want to send me your url by the way, I'd be happy to take a look at it and see if I can find any other common factors that may cause the vanishing page. sticky me.
