Hi. My site, http://www.italycharms.com, used to rank #1 for about two years on yahoo for searches on 'italian charms', wholesale italian charms, etc... and I had a few dozen pages in their index. A few months ago however I disappeared from all SERPs and only my index page remains in their index. I still rank highly on MSN and Google.

I run a completely legitimate website, both wholesaling and retailing charms. Most of the information on my site is quite unique and related to my wholesale program. I also have a fully functional ecommerce store.

Before I fill out the help section form at yahoo, or email them at ystfeedback@yahoo.com I would greatly appreciate any advice you can provide. If you see something on my site that looks like it's causing the ban please let me know. I've looked over all of their requirements on their site and I don't think I'm doing anything wrong.

Also, I tried signing up for Yahoo Search Submit Express and was rejected b/c they said I had too many backlinks (6,200). The search submit express guidelines say they don't want sites who particpate heavily in link exchanges. So I don't think the reason for their rejection is the same as the reason for my 'ban' on regular Yahoo (since backlinks should be good especially since they are almost all jewelry related). But then again who knows what the real reasons are...

So again, I greatly appreciate your assistance.

Thank you very much.

Regards,

-- Josh

The site isn't banned in Yahoo! (at least not yet). I think they have an issue with all the off-topic links you have. Why would you possibly want to be listed on a page about Fruitware CGI Scripts? What does that have to do with italian charm bracelets?

If I were you, I would get rid of those off-topic links to your site and stop participating in link schemes and then nicely tell the Yahoo! folks that you've stopped participating in link schemes. They might not like your directory, either.

Links may be the culprit... or do you have affiliates that are using the same content... they may have forced the drop of your pages as they could be seen as the canonical page and your site pages the duplicated content... it is going around.

The site isn't banned in Yahoo! (at least not yet).
Are you saying that I'm not banned b/c my main index page is still listed? So even though none of my other pages show up and i'm not in the SERPs i'm still not technically 'banned'.


I think they have an issue with all the off-topic links you have. Why would you possibly want to be listed on a page about Fruitware CGI Scripts? What does that have to do with italian charm bracelets?

If I were you, I would get rid of those off-topic links to your site and stop participating in link schemes and then nicely tell the Yahoo! folks that you've stopped participating in link schemes. They might not like your directory, either.
I'm a bit confused by off-topic links. I'm not linking to many off-topic links, just a couple of directories here and there, but mainly I link to only jewelry sites. Regarding the CGI scripts...are you refering to my incoming backlinks? Because i can't help who links to me, right? If that were the case couldn't a competitor simply add my link to some link farms and get me banned? Or am I misunderstanding. I'm getting so confused with links now...

And regarding http://www.italycharms.com/directory/, it's just a categorized link partners section, like most of my competitors (who rank well in Yahoo) have. But do you think b/c it's called a directory, or has so many pages, that it's not good?

Sorry for all the questions :(

And thank you again for the help!

Links may be the culprit... or do you have affiliates that are using the same content... they may have forced the drop of your pages as they could be seen as the canonical page and your site pages the duplicated content... it is going around.
Hi. I do not have affiliates, but i'm actually signed up as an affiliate of a related site and I have 2 links to them on my home page, but the content is generally unique (1 identical banner, but all text is my own). Other than that there should be no affiliate issues.

When you say links are the culprit, do you mean the same thing as in the other post, where the incoming links to my site are 'bad'?

Thank you again!

-- Josh

Are you saying that I'm not banned b/c my main index page is still listed?
Yes, that's what I'm saying. Your site is not banned, just penalized. You would be wasting your time contacting Yahoo! Support, in my opinion.
I'm not linking to many off-topic links
You may not be, but you've got quite a few paid links on off-toipc sites. Yahoo! has probably identified those and penalized you for it. But that's just my guess at this point--no one really knows. If you paid for links, then stop it.

Yahoo! probably doesn't like your 'link directory', either. I would remove that, too. If you want a directory, then I suggest you put it on another domain.
it's just a categorized link partners section
To Yahoo! (and to me) it looks like a link farm.

I had a site that was penalized by both Yahoo and Google.com about 14 months ago. It has only recently (the past 4 months) been accepted back into MSN.com and is doing quite well. I believe that we were accepted back into MSN.com only because they launched their new beta search and we redesigned our web site about 12 months ago.

It is not fair that you get penalized for all these sites linking to you, but that appears to be the case with our particular site and probably your site as well. To let you know, our site was ranked number one under just about every single term imaginable utilizing real estate in our region of choice. It offered great content and was very helpful to people looking for real estate in the area. Content was not the issue, it was the link exchanges we were doing that ultimately led to our penalization.

It was very disappointing to see this site drop, but as another poster has stated, our links directory was getting to big and it began to look like a link farm (even though this was not our intention). We have not yet decided what we want to do with this site, but we understand that if we intend for it to be listed at the top again in Yahoo.com or Google.com we must start over with the link exchange program and be very careful with whom we elect to link with....

The real problem with this ratting people out system is that you can be sabotaged by competitors. We had a fallout with a competitor and about 4 weeks later our site mysteriously/coincidentally lost all of its rank and has never made a comeback. Of course, Google.com and Yahoo.com never sent us any type of email to tell us to stop doing anything. They, of course, DID listen to a competitor who ratted us out and they took their word for it without getting any type of defense from us. WELCOME TO SEO....

Our site has been redesigned since and we have done quite a bit of delisting of links to make some type of comeback, but it is not working at all and, I strongly suspect, it never will as these engines are always understaffed and have no vested interest in any particular site they have penalized. There are millions of web sites out there, why worry about one that may have been penalized incorrectly? It doesn't hurt their overall search...

We have since launched a few other web sites and have basically allowed the "penalized" site to sit where it is in msn.com. We cut our losses and have been riding the MSN wave since.

Who is site-link.net?