Big problem with Yahoo

redirecting links cause sites to be dropped

[allanp73]

I noticed a real big problem with Yahoo. This is one that should be looked at asap. I hope Tim is listening. My sites used to be well ranked on Yahoo and as a proud webmaster I checked my ranks from time to time. Today the sites were gone. However, they weren't completely gone. I noticed that they were replaced by directory sites redirect links to my sites.
ex. www.directorydomain.com/cgi-bin/customermail.cgi?mess=real&name=
These links go directly to my site but through another domain. Yahoo doesn't seem to recognize these as links and instead thinks of them as the direct URL of the websites. Because I got links from many directories who use this type of linking technique many of my domains are dropped.
These are major directories linking to me in this manner and they link to thousands of sites which are too being affected. This means there is a very serious problem with Yahoo.
Basically if you want to be unscrupulous you could just link (using one of these crazy links) to the top ranked sites and steal their positioning.
I hope this problem can get resolved. I am not quite sure how to proceed. It is not really the directories fault, but right now they are causing a severe loss of business for me. Yahoo has Achilles's heel which has an arrow sticking out of it.

HELP!

[soapystar]

i think there is a lot of confusion over the mixing of filters, penalties and bans. It would be helpful if Tim or Yahoo_mike could make clear that when they are talking of penalties are they talking about filters or something else. Do they also make a distinction between INK imported and Yahoo handed bans when using that term. Since the two things are becoming thought of under the same terms when they are clearly (to me) different, can we know that their use of the word 'penalties' does not include sites affected by bans?

[Kirby]

Allan, all I know is that the problem is multi-faceted. I believe the issues with INK are very much related.

A page that was confused for my main site's homepage was indexed in its place in INK. It stayed this way when Y! dropped Google, with the serps almost identical to INK. I then dropped all content from it and simply parked the domain. It dropped out of the serps, then came back at the same position on page one as before, but this time with the "Domain parked" snippet.

It seems that there is some type of 'memory' issue, where Y! defaults back to what it was in INK. I think this is related to the imported INK bans that Soapy has mentioned.

[allanp73]

Kirby,

This sounds like another issue. My was never banned in Inktomi. The problem that I experienced only arose when Yahoo indexed a directory that linked to my site that used a scripted redirecting link.

I see this as the main issue (not to say that there aren't other issues) because effectively it gives others the ability to destroy reputable sites by linking to them in this manner. In fact I was thinking if I linked to Yahoo using this type of script could Yahoo loose its own ranking on Yahoo?

[Kirby]

>I see this as the main issue (not to say that there aren't other issues) because effectively it gives others the ability to destroy reputable sites by linking to them in this manner. In fact I was thinking if I linked to Yahoo using this type of script could Yahoo loose its own ranking on Yahoo?

The reason I think its related is that I did forward this domain to another competitor and it popped up in the serps at #16. I think we are talking two sides of the same coin.

[Robert Charlton]

In fact I was thinking if I linked to Yahoo using this type of script could Yahoo loose its own ranking on Yahoo?

I've observed that the directory link problem only occurs when a page with high PR "links" through a click counting page to a page whose PR is lower.

[allanp73]

Hi Robert,

Actually, this could be the case. In my case my pr 4 site was linked from a pr0 page with the redirect link coming from a pr5 site. So it could be not the page with the link that is used to determine the link pr, but instead the pr of the main site where the link originates that is used. If this is true then it will affect more sites because large directories usually have much higher pr's than the sites they link to.

[helenp]

<<Kirby: It seems that there is some type of 'memory' issue, where Y! defaults back to what it was in INK. I think this is related to the imported INK bans that Soapy has mentioned. >>>>

Just checked all my backlinks.

As backlinks I have (wrongly)
2 redirections url from 2 diferents directories to another company, called for exampel companyB.
I havnīt got anything to do with companyB.

As well I have 4 pages from companyB indexed as backlinks for my site.....as if pages were mine, or as if they were linking me, they arenīt.
The funniest, companyB is alive, but these 4 pages seems to be old pages, thereīs no images in them (an x instead of the images), and canīt find them from their homepage. Seems to be memory issue.....

Seems our domain are mixed up.
CompanyB is not penalized.
The directories are not penalized.
Only me.

And those 2 directories have a lot better ranking than me in google.
CompanyB has same googleranking as me

[kanetrain]

This is, in my opinion, the biggest problem with Yahoo's search engine. There are tons of reports of this. My site was dropped from Inktomi 10 months ago because of this exact problem.
It's always a dynamic redirect from another site to the legitimate one... and the legitimate one gets the boot.

My sites was out in Ink and it carried over into Yahoo (since Yahoo is just Ink with a bunch more pages and a better algorithm).

I was able to find resolution finally about 6 weeks ago and we were reincluded. It was one of the best days I've had this year. Yahoo is aware of the problem. I hope they get it fixed asap. Best of luck to everyone!

[helenp]

>>Best of luck to everyone!<<<

Thanks,

Donīt know if signative, but slurp hasnīt been for my robots.txt for 5 days now.....

Happened to me before, from 22/3 till 6/4 didnīt pass by at all, but on the 6/4 started again going for my robots several times per day, maybe when found strange redirection was banned again?

Hopefully this is good news, next time slurp will come back for my (and yours) homepage hopefully :)

Lets cross our fingers....

[IITian]

helenp
>Hopefully this is good news, next time slurp will come back for my (and yours) homepage hopefully :)

slurp came to my new pages last week, they show up when I type in site:http://www.domain.com but vanish when I type site:www.domain.com. Almost zero hits from these pages. What does it mean? Does slurp visit translate to being put in index?

[helenp]

>>>>slurp came to my new pages last week, they show up when I type in site:http://www.domain.com but vanish when I type site:www.domain.com. Almost zero hits from these pages. What does it mean? Does slurp visit translate to being put in index? >>>>

Donīt have a clue, I have almost all my pages when typing site:www......and site:http://www.......
Seems like for some site they save google backup, not to show in serps, but for some reason they keep it.

If youre pages are spidered by slurp, not only robots.txt, supose you will be in serps when actualizing.

My guessings :)

[helenp]

jeje,
Yahoo is doing updates...........
has now an more info arrow below results.
but that arrows donīt work on these redirections links wrongly indexed...:) there are no more information for them.

except for one of my backlinks that is another company....cached did work, showed homepage of another company....without any link to my site, more pages from this site didnīt show up.
www.anysearchengine.com/cgi-bin/links/jump.cgi?ID=37507 = backlink of mine, redirection another company.

why is it so dificult to eliminate them?

edited:
update really is happening, my site disapeard search for [www....] only found if using only www., update is happening.

In my opinion, bad to say more info from this site, when there arenīt any...confusing for users.

[edited by: helenp at 10:44 pm (utc) on May 7, 2004]

[crobb305]

I saw an update yesterday, but today it has reverted back.

[jentotaltravel]

We remain banished from the australian version of Yahoo but seem to have been bouncing in the .com version for the last couple of days ... ours pages listed had remained at "about 14,900" but also disappeared a couple of times recently from .com.

So, how is everyone else faring? This thread seems to have gone quiet so has everyone been re-included to their satisfaction or sitting back watching & waiting?

[jrs_66]

No sign of being reincluded here. Also, no sign of Yahoo properly handling redirects...

[bbonline]

There is no sign of any changes, no sign of interest in explaining and still huge numbers of sites are not in Yahoo search. Yahoo continues to favor search engine spam pages, mirrors and redirect links.

[helenp]

wow.

Just went in to yahoo and they done an big update,
searching for exact titel for an big company I always use for checking.

Searhing for their titel: reviews of vacations, hotels, resorts,

Yesterday on top was an redirection to their site from snipped and guess what.......now on top their is another redirecting from an searchengine to that big company, and rest of results are diferent.

Maybe they fixed one redirection problem and found another, lol

[edited by: DaveAtIFG at 11:20 am (utc) on May 28, 2004]
[edit reason] Removed specifics [/edit]

[Visit Thailand]

agree SERPS seem very different today, and my site is back in so am very, very pleased about that. Hope it sticks and this indicates they have finally solved the 301 problem which is what my site was suffering from.

[helenp]

Added, my site is not in,
but seen this:

Another observation, interesting
The ocs disappeared from the string when searching for my domain, now there is DUI=1,
most sites have that on their pages but not all.....

[soapystar]

the funny thing is that the top hote review site on the net doesnt show for a search on hotel reviews..but it does show for city hotels searches.....but of course for city hotels its actually only got affiliate links...one particular search for cty hotels used to bring up sitex which was a good result....now sitex is only top for city hotel reviews when its actually selling not reviewing and the big hotel review site is now top for city hotels which it doesnt really do...so..it may be an algo chnage but the guy who turned the knob must have coughed at the wrong time i guess....on the other hand it makes yahoo's own product links more relevant than the actual serps..conclusion?