seoapprentice
07-06-2006, 12:21 PM
I've sent many, many emails to Yahoo! support over the past year and have probably received every 'canned' email they have in their database. The question I have is there any real clues in these that I can use?
I've asked really specific questions and really broad questions and have been trying to compare these responses to find any useful information.
They all have the same characteristics:
*Check our guidelines
*Don't reply if you want a re-review
*Visit the SEO section of the Y! directory
But they all have a different sentence or two. For instance, I asked if a particular site was penalized and here's the response (at the end of the canned email):
"At this time, we cannot give you specific details why your site has been penalized."
So, we are penalized...right? They never directly answered, but that last sentence implied that we are. Okay, so I look at a previous email where I asked why we are not ranking for even very long search terms even though we have 7k+ pages in the index. Here's the canned response:
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Search.
Generally, you can ensure you have unique and targeted content for your audience. Here are a few tips that can help your page be found by a focused search on the Internet:
- Think carefully of the key terms that your users will search on to
find content like yours. Use those terms to guide the text and construction of your page.
- Users are more likely to click a link if the title matches their
search. Choose terms for the title that match the concept of your document.
- Use a "description" meta-tag and write your description accurately
and carefully. After the title, the description is the most important draw for users. Make sure the document title and description attract the interest of the user but also fit the content on your site.
- Use a "keyword" meta-tag to list key words for the document. Use a
distinct list of keywords that relate to the specific page on your site instead of using one broad set of keywords for every page.
- Keep relevant text and links in HTML. Placing them in graphics or
image maps means search engines can't always search for the text, and the crawler can't follow links to your site's other pages. An HTML site map, with a link from your welcome page, can help make sure all your pages are crawled.
- Use ALT text for graphics. It's good page design to accommodate text
browsers or visually impaired visitors, and it helps improve the text content of your page for search purposes.
- Correspond with webmasters and other content providers and build
rich linkages between related pages.
Note: "Link farms" create links between unrelated pages for no reason except to increase page link counts. Using link farms violates Yahoo!'s Site Guidelines and will not improve your page ranking.
Do these really mean anything? We have unique content, meta's and alt text. We have rich linkages, but does that note at the bottom imply we are linking to a link farm? I'm validating all of our out bound links to make sure, but would this be an indicator from Y! that this is the problem? I sure would like to stop playing the chasing my tail game with Y!.
Has anyone found real nuggets in these emails? I just want to comply, not do anything sneaky.
I've asked really specific questions and really broad questions and have been trying to compare these responses to find any useful information.
They all have the same characteristics:
*Check our guidelines
*Don't reply if you want a re-review
*Visit the SEO section of the Y! directory
But they all have a different sentence or two. For instance, I asked if a particular site was penalized and here's the response (at the end of the canned email):
"At this time, we cannot give you specific details why your site has been penalized."
So, we are penalized...right? They never directly answered, but that last sentence implied that we are. Okay, so I look at a previous email where I asked why we are not ranking for even very long search terms even though we have 7k+ pages in the index. Here's the canned response:
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Search.
Generally, you can ensure you have unique and targeted content for your audience. Here are a few tips that can help your page be found by a focused search on the Internet:
- Think carefully of the key terms that your users will search on to
find content like yours. Use those terms to guide the text and construction of your page.
- Users are more likely to click a link if the title matches their
search. Choose terms for the title that match the concept of your document.
- Use a "description" meta-tag and write your description accurately
and carefully. After the title, the description is the most important draw for users. Make sure the document title and description attract the interest of the user but also fit the content on your site.
- Use a "keyword" meta-tag to list key words for the document. Use a
distinct list of keywords that relate to the specific page on your site instead of using one broad set of keywords for every page.
- Keep relevant text and links in HTML. Placing them in graphics or
image maps means search engines can't always search for the text, and the crawler can't follow links to your site's other pages. An HTML site map, with a link from your welcome page, can help make sure all your pages are crawled.
- Use ALT text for graphics. It's good page design to accommodate text
browsers or visually impaired visitors, and it helps improve the text content of your page for search purposes.
- Correspond with webmasters and other content providers and build
rich linkages between related pages.
Note: "Link farms" create links between unrelated pages for no reason except to increase page link counts. Using link farms violates Yahoo!'s Site Guidelines and will not improve your page ranking.
Do these really mean anything? We have unique content, meta's and alt text. We have rich linkages, but does that note at the bottom imply we are linking to a link farm? I'm validating all of our out bound links to make sure, but would this be an indicator from Y! that this is the problem? I sure would like to stop playing the chasing my tail game with Y!.
Has anyone found real nuggets in these emails? I just want to comply, not do anything sneaky.