I have a client who recently lost their directory entry on Yahoo. I tried to log in using our corp. login (a common account we use for listing many of our clients in the Yahoo directory) - but I got a message saying that listing already exists. It does not show up as one of our existing listings, so I can now safely assume that we were not the ones who originally submitted that listing.

So, it's telling me that the listing already exists. It's gone from the directory. The client says they never submitted a Yahoo directory listing in the past.

Additionally, the client's pages are completely gone from the Yahoo search index (in addition to their directory listing having disappeared) except their home page.

I am not seeing any similar issues with them on Google or MSN.

Any ideas? What are my options here?

Thanks!

What are my options here?
Has your client made any changes to the site or do they use any risky methods?

If they have not made any changes to the site and they don't use high risk methods, you might want to contact yahoo.

On a side note, old free listings in the Y directory are often dropped.

They recently made their site much more search engine friendly (got rid of dynamic URLs) but they had only their homepage in Yahoo's index even before the URL improvement. There were noticeable and very positive changes in the number of their pages in both Google's and MSN's indexes after the URL improvement. Basically I thought I would see an improvement in the number of their pages in Yahoo's index, but nada. The dropping out of the Yahoo directory was much more recent, like in the past couple of weeks. So they could be completely unrelated as far as I know.

I thought Yahoo never replied to emailed inquires - except with canned responses. That's what I've read on these forums, anyhow. I tried calling one of our Yahoo paid reps but she's not responding to my voicemail. Who else is there to call? This is a large corporate site I am dealing with, not a mom and pop. They are not doing anything shady.

Thanks!

What kind of redirects were used from the old URLs to the new ones?

I thought Yahoo never replied to emailed inquires They have replied to me and a few of my clients on several occasions.

They did not do any redirects.

They were so poorly indexed, so we felt that we should not push our luck and ask for redirects. I had to pick the number one thing I wanted them to do.

Do you think this could be a factor?

Looking at the logs, the Yahoo bots appear to be mostly requesting the robots.txt page, which does not exist. I have asked them to create one that excludes non-existent directories & pages that the bots seem to be still requesting. I'm hoping that if they do that, the Yahoo bots will then decide to actually spider the entire site.

Do you think this could be a factor? Yes, I do.

After "search friendlying" the URLs without redirects, what you have in effect is a brand new site, with only the index page remaining the same.

Ok I buy that, but they didn't have anything in the Yahoo index before fixing the URLs, either. Are you saying that even though they were only showing the home page originally, they may have had the old (very long and dynamic) URLs in their index but just weren't showing them with the "site:" command, and thus when they changed all the URLs they confused the Yahoo bots and they decided that they would only show the homepage in their index?

I have asked them to create one that excludes non-existent directories & pages that the bots seem to be still requesting. I would not do that. If your not going to use redirects, let the bots find the 404, they will request them all a bunch of times, until they are satisfied the pages aren’t coming back


Are you saying that even though they were only showing the home page originally, they may have had the old (very long and dynamic) URLs in their index but just weren't showing them with the "site:" command,Hard to say for sure, without looking at the site. The old dynamic URls could have been preventing slurp from indexing them.

BUT... if slurp is requesting the old dynamic URLs, it is a sure bet Yahoo had the URls in their index.

<ADDED>
Ok I buy that Nope this is free advice. I just charged a client over $5,000 for similar advice... ;)

Never had an e-mail from Yahoo! either - I'm not even important enough for a canned response.

As for losing out - a few people mentioned problems with Yahoo! after this new update:

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=5036

More here after the backslapping:
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=5010

Never had an e-mail from Yahoo! either From what I have seen, if the problem is just with your site and not their index or their results, they won't answer.

Johngalt's problem has nothing to do with the update at all, bringing that into it is just confusing the issue.

Well, I have a funny feeling that the pages that slurp is requesting are from several iterations ago of this site - before my time. I am going to try to find out. Course most of the slurp requests are for robots.txt. If it's true that these pages slurp is requesting are from long long ago, why not at least try excluding them using robots.txt? At least that way the bot might be "jarred" into realizing that maybe it should try following links from the current home page? Or is that just wishful thinking.

I would be surprized, if the pages slurp is requesting are more than a few months old.

The older logs (before the site update) would show what pages were getting traffic. The pages getting real traffic (human) should be redirected, in my opinion.

If the client is not willing to redirect for some reason, they are just going to have to wait for the site to be indexed. With some large sites that can take a long time.

Of course, this all assumes that the site now has good code, site structure, navagation and a few good IBLs.

I got a form mail reply from Yahoo! regarding the client's site where only their home page is being indexed. I have included it below. It does not do me any good as far as figuring out what is actually causing a penalty - none of the things they mention as no-nos are happening on the site in question - and - this form mail doesn't even confirm that the site has been penalized:

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to write us.

Yahoo!'s Site Guidelines are designed to ensure that poor-quality pages do not degrade the user experience in any way. Unfortunately, not all web pages contain information that is valuable to a user. Some pages are created deliberately to trick the search engine into offering inappropriate, redundant, or poor-quality search results; this is often called "spam". Yahoo! does not want these pages in the index.
Our guidelines help us insure the quality of our index.

Below are some answers to common questions regarding this issue:

Q: What are some of the common reasons that a site may be in found in violation of Yahoo!'s Content Policy Guidelines?

A: Yahoo!'s Content Policy Guidelines
(http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/deletions/deletions-05.html)
outline what we are and are not looking for in pages that we index.
Listed below are some of the more common reasons that a site may violate these guidelines:
-Pages dedicated to directing the user to another page.
-Pages that have substantially the same content as other pages
- Cloaking (showing crawlers deceptive content about a site)
- Massive domain interlinking
- Use of affiliate programs without the addition of substantial unique content
- Use of reciprocal link programs (aka "link farms")
- Hidden text
- Excessive keyword repetition

Q: If my site is found to be in violation of Yahoo!'s Content Policy Guidelines, can I use the Yahoo! Search Submit inclusion program?

A: All pages submitted to Yahoo! Search Submit are editorially reviewed.
If a site does not comply with Yahoo!'s Content Policy Guidelines, it is likely to be rejected by the Search Submit program.

For answers to other questions you may have regarding Yahoo! Search, please see:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/

For answers to other questions you may have regarding the Yahoo!
Directory, please see:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/dir/

Search & Directory Support
Yahoo! Inc.