Getting ready to get ready

But before I submit

[cynthia]

I have a commercial site, so I have to pay. I've been putting this off forever with the excuse that I needed to make our primary site look as good as I can.
Now having twitched and tweaked this thing most of the last several days, triple checked all links, I'm ready to send it in.
So now, has any one ever paid and not gotten in the directory?

[JamesR]

Yes, on a client's site once. Yahoo stated a lack of unique content which may have been justifiable. Primarily it was because it was an attempt at a meta search engine and another service that I think was offered elsewhere. I think you will get several replies around here from people who have paid and not gotten in.

Before submitting:

1) check site in all browsers under various resolutions
2) check all links on site
3) follow their guidelines to a T
4) make sure you do have unique content, not just stuff borrowed from other places, mostly affiliate links, or anything else that could be considered not unique

Additions to this list would be appreciated but that is what I can come up with off the top of my head.

[cynthia]

Did nos 1 & 2. By unique content, that doesn't mean that there is no one else out there offering a similar service, does it. Otherwise there would only be one item per category. No competition. We are trying to be competition.
If they do turn you down, can you try again?
Thanks for answering

[Brett_Tabke]

Unique content can mean alot of things. Mostly, they want to see Original Content and not something rerolled from other sites.

Did you run your pages through a good html validator?

Yes, you can try again. They'll give you a week to make changes and resumit.

[markd]

Just had a clients site turned down today, with Yahoo stating that there were:

'broken links'
'pages underconstruction'

and at the foot of their email a seemingly 'random' piece of text stating 'text obscured by graphics'.

The site actually is not guilty of any of the above!!

It does use DHTML, which has a high level of interactivty in encouraging the user to roll over text to reveal blocks of text. It really is a good, innovative site - just the thing the web needs!

I intend to appeal, but wonder if the editor has just 'glanced' at the site, not seen a site which looks like the 'norm' and returned a 'refusal'.

Any tips from those successful with an appeal would be appreciated?

Thanks

[Macguru]

Got many sites rejected because they were JavaScript dependant. If your site is not surfable with JavaScript off they will reject it.

[Rusky]

Macguru

Was this the only reason that they gave you ?

Most if not all of the sites that are produced from our web department use complicated navigational systems that are javascript dependent, so I would appreciate confirmation of this before I waste any money trying to get our clients listed.

What would their reasoning be behind this ?

To accomadate older browsers ?

Thanks in advance

[markd]

Could understand this if Javascript was some kind of 'new technology', but it's been in use extensively for ages and can be read by most browsers.

This would seem to exclude many sites which try to offer a more 'interactive' experience for the user as well as many e-commerce sites. Would they also exclude sites which use 'graphics' or 'imagemaps', just in case a user turns off graphics in their browser?

Hope not or I'm really in trouble!

[Eric_Jarvis]

markd...yes

try submitting a site that uses image links only for navigation...you might get away with it if you use good alt text...but, yes, they check to see a site can be used with images off

[Macguru]

Hi Rusky and Markd,

I do not have to justify Yahoo's criterias. It is black on white on the gidelines (e.g. Javascript dependant sites will be rejected ) I do not know since when they apply this.

JavaScript dependant sites are not a good idea for the rest of real search engines. Robots can't read JavaScript, so they will not crawl the site properly. To circumvent this a good old HTML map of the site will do.

I suggest making a non JavaScript version of navigation devices to be presented to non JavaScript enabled Browsers, such as Yahoo's.

[Rusky]

I was not questioning the truthfulness of the situation, I was just curious as to their reasoning behind it. It would seem to be an outdated criteria in my opinion.

What next...that it has to be viewable in Netscape as well ? :)

[Macguru]

Yahoo's Websurfers are actually using both browsers, if you fail to produce non browser dependant sites, your site will also be rejected. Nearly half of them uses 640X480 Macs with Nescape and zilch plug ins. If your web site depends on proprietary technologies, most are the chances Yahoo will reject it.

[Rusky]

It was just my sad attempt at a joke...sorry

[Eric_Jarvis]

think about it from Yahoo's POV

right now you may feel that nearly everyone uses IE5/6 (you'd be wrong, but it's not totally ridiculous atm)...but Yahoo aren't looking at your site for right now...they are expecting it to be in the directory for years to come...and there is no way of knowing what browser usage will be in six months, let alone any later than that

so they insist that a site be at least basically usable with any browser...it's the only thing they can do

[markd]

Likewise Macguru - your explanations and help are much appreciated and a lot clearer than Yahoo's.

I have seen a multitude of sites in the directory which extensively use Java for navigation etc.

I do agree with Rusky - this does seem to rule out much of the technology that is the backbone of many modern sites. I suppose I will have to appeal for my rejected site and see what happens.

[Macguru]

<<I have seen a multitude of sites in the directory which extensively use Java for navigation etc>>

May be those sites have been "updated" after inclusion?

[Rusky]

Justifying the extra work of building two seperate navigational systems to the web designers and clients is next to impossible, especially as the non javascript based nav will only be in place for as long as it takes to get into Yahoo. Also the only reason that the javascript navigation is being used in most cases, is to incorporate the complicated hierarchies and levels of navigation that most business sites demand as well as looking aesthetically better.

In an ideal world, I would not have to contend with frames, javascript bells and whistles, flash sites, dynamic content etc. but I do. Unfortunately these sites are not my own to do as I please, and the SEO part of the whole operation has to fit around the end product that is produced to our clients specification, with very little consideration given to getting into Yahoo (which I would dearly love to do !!)

[graffix]

don't want to be accused of "promoting" in a post but I have had good results using certain "garage" sites to check links, browser compatibility etc.

[Marcia]

Borrrowed bill's post from this thread in the HTML and Browsers forum:

[webmasterworld.com...]

"Testing CSS is one reason for having multiple browsers. For instance, IE 3 will completely choke on a lot of standards compliant CSS...but so will Netscape 4.x It's not just HTML you've got to worry about either...There's DHTML, Java, JavaScript, and a host of other technologies you may be using on your site. It's always better to check on these older browsers to make sure your site degrades as gracefully as possible."

I can understand them going back to 4.0 browsers, but I wonder if it's still necessary to check for 3.0 compatibility also. I've basically stayed away from CSS for compabitibility reasons.

I'd also like to start doing pages for 800x600 resolution. I wonder if sideways scrolling is reason enough for refusal if all else is OK.

[bill]

I can understand them going back to 4.0 browsers, but I wonder if it's still necessary to check for 3.0 compatibility also.

You might want to qualify that a bit...Netscape 3.x browsers are still pretty widespread, but they don't have any CSS support. IE 3.x browsers don't show up much at all anymore in my logs...in fact I've got more IE 2.1 browser visits than 3.x combined. Like we were saying in the other thread, IE won't let you install multiple versions, so older IE versions tend to disappear. So, it's just about time now that you can safely ignore IE 3 compatibility.

[glengara]

From what I've understood, you submit lean&mean to Yahoo, and after you're listed, "update".
I was wondering whether a listed site is ever re-visited by yahoo,and an "updated" site fall foul of the original criteria.

[Macguru]

There is a rumor circulating that sites could be revisited by the Websurfers 3 months after inclusion.

[glengara]

That's a rumor worth keeping an ear out for.Could be somewhat problematic if it's true.

[grnidone]

>Mostly, they want to see Original Content and not something rerolled from other sites.

That is what they say, but I submitted a site with a service that nobody else had, and was rejected because it was a subdomain of a site already listed.

The thing to remember with Yahoo: the editors are extremely busy people. Since they have several hundred emails to go through, they are going to find every reason in the world to reject your site because it means less work for them.

-G

[Macguru]

This is weird!
I sucessfully registered the same portal to 28 categories using sub domains too.

EX:
cars.domain.com (2 cats)
loto.domain.com (1 cat)
health.domain.com (1 cat)
games.domain.com (2 cats)
news.domain.com (2 cat)

I submitted them in bulk beeing open about everything in a e-mail proposal. Total cost of reviews 4.4k (ouch!). They rejected 4 lisings because of category relevance. Using keywords in domain names and all those yahoo listings really cranked up Google ratings!

[glengara]

That answers a question I was going to post; how doesYahoo handle sub-domains. Macguru, you seem to be using the canonical sub-domain structure, was this the first time you submitted it to yahoo? Seems it may be harder to get them to accept sub-domains after the main site's already listed. If the guys use Macs, does this also answer the question on whether to design a site for that minority?

[glengara]

Macguru, tried to sticky this to you, but you're x-directory. Came across your posts on "Why Frames Suck", one of your tips:
C- Use an external JavaScript redirect for all content pages to open the proper frameset.
On the other hand, one of your posts to this thread:
It is black on white on the guidelines (e.g. Javascript dependant sites will be rejected )
Confusion reigns here, so is it that(a) Yahoo is Ok with external JS files, (b) you do not submit framed sites to Yahoo,or(c) it's the old "update" story.

[Macguru]

>>was this the first time you submitted it to yahoo?

I have to mention the portal in question is very rich in content and constantly updated with hundreds of pages a week. It was already listed before we split content in sub categories. May be the size and reputation of the
portal did weight in the balance.

>>If the guys use Macs, does this also answer the question on whether to design a site for that minority?

The fact that almost half of them use old Macs or else have nothing to do with theyre criterias. The point is that the sites they admit are not dependant on some technology that some cannot use. For instance, I never saw a 100% flash site on Yahoo neither. All flash sites listed also have an HTML version to offer.

>>Confusion reigns here, so is it that
>>(a) Yahoo is Ok with external JS files,

Yahoo will not reject your site as soon JavaScript is used, internal or external to the page. But they will if your site cannot be used without it. The test is simple; disable JS on your browser and try it on your site. If you click buttons and nothing happens than your site depends on JS. Most of the site that got rejected used JS to display some roll over sub menues to a main article. If you cliked on the main article witouth JS nothing happened.

>>(b) you do not submit framed sites to Yahoo

Yes I do submitt framed sites to Yahoo. The redirection script used is to avoid that a frame page to be opened form a search engine SERP without navigation devices to allow visitors to go elswere in the site. Since Yahoo Web surfers start from the index page it never occurs to them.

>>(c) it's the old "update" story.

I never used this strategy. It is risky and does not fix the problem permanently. The best thing is to offer a permanent solution. I am currently working things with a web design agency. They used JS dependant navigation devices. We are working on some version of the site wich does not. Ironically, JS comes to the rescue! The programmer is working on a script that will detect if JS is on or off on visitors browsers and serve them the appropriate version of the site. From all content pages we will redirect JS enabled browsers to the current version and all 6 to 8% of the others will stay on the new plain vanilla HTML version.

But I want to point out that some of the sites I sucessfully submitted where updated after inclusion. It was no option for the clients to change to JSP servers where most links are JS. It did not affect the Yahoo! listing but they sank everywhere else :(

>>Macguru, tried to sticky this to you, but you're x-directory.

OOps! I do not understand what you are saying (I speak French) can you please explain "x-directory". It means my sticky mail does not work?

I hope my poor English skills did not lead to any confusion

[markd]

Sorry for the 'slight diversion', but as someone who finds your posts very interesting and informative, I had to say that your I wish my English was as 'poor as yours'! I on the other hand only number approx. 15 words of French in my international vocabulary!!

Someone who has the humour to post the picture in your personal profile speaks my sort of language anyway!

Back to the thread... I do find it alarming that Yahoo can be so strict on back browser compatibility (version 3 browsers) when most of my own and client logs show the lowest versions as IE and Netscape 4. Does this not exclude some users from their own 'shopping' and e-commerce facilities?

[Macguru]

>>15 words of French in my international vocabulary!!

As long you can order a beer, You will survive!

I too would like to see Yahoo update theyre inclusion criterias. I deal with frustrated Web designers every day when I submit them my SEO wish list. I often sit on a tight spot between the clients and the Web design agencies.

I like to take part of a project from scratch, a lot of mistakes are avoided this way. Sucess requires good planning and collaboration from the whole crew, otherwise it's all waste trying to patch a sinking ship.