Forum Moderators: open
Just before the summer our site lost thousands of pages in Yahoo. over 30,000. Then we started seeing pages indexed that were over 4 years old and equally as long since they've even been connected to our site. We have since deleted them and 301 redirected others. This has had an incredible impact on our business. We do have some duplicate content but this doesn't seem to bother Google. By duplicate content I mean the customer has different ways of finding product but the url's would be different as we cross link to give the customer ways of staying within their own world. In this case it's music so they can find the same product under let's say an artist or under an instrument such as flute.
What is Yahoo's problem lately? I know they took over their own search but it's like they started with the same database as before they go involved with Google. Is this something that you think will eventually fix itself?...or can we expect to go forward with the traffic and sales of 2 years ago.
I'm also completely dissalusioned with PPC. It used to be great but now we get half the sales for twice the money...click fraud no doubt!
any enlightened answers would be appreciated.
We have suffered a lot of pain with Yahoo. I would start your investigation with the above statement. Cross linking is something Yahoo is extremely sensitive to, and I am not talking link farms or anything extreme. Simply linking your sites together, A to B, B to A, just the home page can trigger it.
The other thing is be sure you have been penalized. Lots of confusion around this. IMHO, the best indicator the Yahoo gods are frowning on you is this command; url:http://www.widgets.com
If it comes up, sorry no information, you have been penalized. It could be something entirely different, so I would start there.
My question was should we be reindexed (Yahoo Xpress) and was told by both call center people.... that we are already in the Directory and indexed so the answer was "NO".... so now what? Some of the sites we know have been hurt ...others increased big time. These guys are playing with people's livelihoods here.
I've stopped even our PPC with Overture because it has become like the Ads did....money flying out the window...there's not doubt click fraud is rampant...because it takes 3 times the money now for the same sales.... also I'm a bit PO'd with them right now... so it's kind of a protest...they usually call us if we are offline for very long (We pay many thousands a month usually) and that's what I'm hoping for...so I can get my point across to someone.
Any suggestions?
Our cross linking (within our site) was so customers who let's say were into guitar could stay in a guitar world. Let's say they were into Classical Guitar...by linking correctly we could keep them only in the Classical Guitar world. Now you could find the same products on the producers of the book, or even the band etc..or under Classical Guitars. This makes for an enjoyable customer experience...so if Yahoo can't understand that....then ...well you know what they can do.... We can live without them until they smarten up or go out of business (which they will eventually do if they can not figure out how good business works)... We are hurt but not out of business. Unless Google messes around with us ...then it would be all over.
Basically both engines should take into account these factors.... How long have you been in business...the basic layout of your site....are you a BBB member...are there any complaints over the years....etc etc etc. We have been online for 5 1/2 years and dare say one of the best sites in our field... and will continue to be for the customer first and the engines second.
Sometimes you wonder how 'tight' some people wear their ties...
I engage in pay per sale. The potential of click fraud is growing to fast to pay Yahoo either 15 or 30 cents a click. You just have to look at all the companies in third world nations that set up web sites for click throughs. The front ends they utilize look like schools and they call their employees students. When you log in they have thousands of banners and text links to click on. Without a doubt these major search engines don't care because it enriches them. Yahoo like many needs to learn you can't keep killing sites and think they have the revenues to advertise with you. The index results lead to the money for additional advertising.
like I said....3 times the PPC money now for the same sales as a year ago....so something's wrong
