Yahoo changed my category listing...

[Jill]

I just discovered that Yahoo has moved my site to a category that has all but buried it in search returns for relevant terms. I have changed NOTHING as to what we sell on our site that hasn't been there since day one.

The only thing that has happened is that Yahoo approached us about a sponsored listing and after talking to a sales rep about it a few times we declined because of the pricing. Two weeks later we've been moved to an adult category and our traffic has all but vanished. We sell l*ngerie, but so does Fredericks of Hollywood and they didn't move them into the adult category. I can't imagine what prompted this move.

To say the least I'm extremely upset by this. Now we do not qualify for a sponsored listing if we wanted one, not to mention that when you search l*ngerie the category we're in doesn't even appear!! Who can I contact at Yahoo to find out why this happened? Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed.

[JamesR]

Yahoo has horrible customer service, I don't know if you will be able to contact anyone unless someone gives you an inside phone number or email address. Are you sure there is nothing on your site that could be construed as adult?

[Jill]

Well l*ngerie is normally WORN by adults, but other than that surely nothing that any other l*ngerie sales site is showing and remaining in the category I was in. I have no earthly idea what prompted the change, we were certainly never notified... silly me what am I thinking this is Yahoo we're talking about. <smirk> We have emailed them and I'm waiting but not holding my breath. This could actually spell the end of this business that I have run online since 1996! I get about 3/4 of my traffic from Yahoo.

[trebor]

I too had my listing trashed. But it happened to me when I bought a sponsored listing.

For $75 a month I got almost no traffic and someone at Yahoo took a chainsaw to my listing and made it just about useless -- all without bothering to mention this to me, of course.

Polite inquiries as to what could be done were ignored.

I am reminded of Lily Tomlin's Phone Company riff - "We don't care, we don't have to."

[Hunter]

Trebor.

>But it happened to me when I bought a sponsored listing.

Are you saying that they altered your pre-existing title and or des when you elected a sponsored listing?

[trebor]

I'm saying that my listing was stable for years, but when I purchased a sponsored listing, it was edited. Coincidence? Unlikely.

You would think that if the editor felt that a change was required, they'd email and ask you before going ahead. You would be wrong.

[angiolo]

>I'm saying that my listing was stable for years, but when I purchased a sponsored listing, it was edited

Everybody here says that it is very improbable that Yahoo will change something after your entry in a category.

Probably, purchasing a sponsored listing you "forced" the editor to have a look at your listing.

Maybe, few years ago, a "novelty" editor accepted your old title and description; now a more skilled editor changed it to comply with the categories.

If I were you I should phone to Yahoo.

[JamesR]

I think angiolo has it. Once they rereviewed your listing for sponsorship, they probably found the description and title corresponding to their old format (decent descriptions) and changed it to their new and improvement format (useless descriptions). As for the title, did they change it to your existing business name or site name?

[trebor]

The title already was my business name. They edited and shortened my description, basically removing 3-4 important keywords -- and there was nothing in the removed elements that was not 100% appropriate for my site.

But what really boils me about this was that there was no warning about this. No warning that "we may decide to edit your listing to conform to our standards for commercial listings." Nothing.

When you consider that they are charging high prices for poor results with the sponsored listings, trashing the original listing is just adding insult to injury.

[JamesR]

I think Yahoo's main strategy has been to drive traffic to the categories to promote the sponsored listings rather than sending traffic to individual sites. Think about it, you are struggling for money and you see all your traffic leaving your site. Why not keep the traffic a bit longer, offer sponsored listings at the top of a category, and start making money off the traffic you are losing? I heard from a surfer (editor) at Yahoo that they will not allow the keyword in the category listing in the site listings in that category because they believe it is redundant. I think they want to give the cat. preference over the site.