New Sitemap Protocol Halves our Listings

Beware!

[Angonasec]

The day after switching to the new sitemap.org protocol recognised by the big three, our Y! siteexplorer interface showed a 50% reduction in pages listed in Y!

This was confirmed with a site:domain search two days later.

Why Y!

Please fix this, or must we switch back to using the crude urlist.txt format?

Tim?

[Angonasec]

Traffic is still halved after using the new sitemaps.org protocol, so we have switched back to the plain old urllist.txt format in the hope that our listings in Y! will recover.

Any news Tim?

[scottsmind]

This also happened to me. But I believe it was primarily because they still had a bunch of old URLs of mine in their db.

I did some structure moving this year and 301'd them to a new location.

When I submitted the sitemap I think that it effectively dropped all of my old URLs and only kept what was listed in my sitemap (the new URLs).

Just a hunch but that seems to be what happened to me. My yahoo traffic dropped dramatically after I submitted the sitemap.

[Angonasec]

That wasn't the reason in my case, because I used the identical urls in both sitemap versions I used, only changing the protocol of the sitemap.

I've now switched back to urllist.txt until Y! sort themselves out.

[Tim]

Angonasec,
It is very unlikely that this has something to do with your submission to sitemaps. I am sure there is some other issue happening with your site that somehow happened at the same time. Happy to look at it. Send me a stickymail with the info.
Tim

[extremegolfer]

Tim,

Every SEO I spoke to, and some of these firms are well known, are stating Yahoo is currently using a database that does not include newer sites, and will continue to do so during the Christmas season. What are your thoughts on the matter?

[Angonasec]

"Send me a stickymail with the info.
Tim"

Thanks Tim : Done!

[Tim]

Hi Extremegolfer,
Why would we do that? It doesnt make any sense if you think about it. Why would users want old content during the holiday season? We add new sites/pages to our index on a sub daily basis and refresh large portions of our index every few days.
If one of the people that is saying that can be more specific in what they are talking about I would be happy to discuss.
Thanks,
Tim

[Tim]

Agonasec
We are looking into your site. Have the # of referrals changed?
Tim

[Angonasec]

"Agonasec
We are looking into your site. Have the # of referrals changed?
Tim"

Thanks Tim I appreciate it.

Our Y! referrals halved since we switched to the sitemaps.org protocol along with the halving of our Y! listings.

Since we switched back to the urllist.txt protocol nothing has changed.

[extremegolfer]

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the response. They are stating the sites less than 6 months old, that have reaped the benefit of being on the first page for a month or two and then lost their rankings will have the most incentive to buy ads from overture.

Any thoughts?

[Tim]

We are in the midsts of an update so I would doubt we are going to be using an old index through the christmas season. Maybe this is a sales tactic some SEOs are using? I really have no idea. Would be happy to talk to "them" to clear things up.
Thanks, Tim

[extremegolfer]

Hi Tim,

Thanks again for the very quick response. I'll call a couple of the SEO tmrw. However, they are stating it is going to take longer due to the usage of the old index from yahoo during the Christmas season, so I dont think that is a selling tactic on their part.

[Kennyh]

Something very similar happened to my site. It was doing well, had nearly all its pages indexed. In the last few weeks following the sitemaps change, indexed pages have dropped to around 20% of the total.

I emailed Y! using the form in SiteExplorer and got a reply saying that it had been determined that my site 'may' have fallen foul of Y!'s guidelines.

I find that staggering as I've deliberately erred on the side of caution. Neither Google nor MSN has a problem with it. Also if it did contravene the guidelines why not de-index all the pages?

[Angonasec]

Sorry to hear that Kennyh, but that may have been an automated response you received from Y!, and the drop is either due to a bug in Y! dealing with the new sitemaps.org protocol, (as I suspect in my case), or the drop is due to their current update. Your listings may improve, as Tim works on the bug.

I suggest you return to the old sitemap protocol, or use urllist.txt until Y! get it sorted.

[Kennyh]

Thanks Angonasec

[Angonasec]

Good news!

Our listings have regained their previous total; in fact a few more.

Thanks Tim!

Please let us know when it is safe to switch to the new sitemaps.org protocol from the urllist.txt we are currently submitting to SiteExplorer.