Yahoo! Search Update, July 14, 2006

[Marcia]

According to Rajat Mukherjee in the latest Yahoo! Search Blog Weather Report (http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000327.html) dated July 14, 2006:

We rolled out an index update last night. As usual, you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index.

Remember, we recently beefed up our online help and resources, and the best way to provide us with feedback is via the online form.

Please write in and let us know what you think.So what do we think?

[Brian M]

The results on the sites that I watch look better, but I just wish they would give us the means to delete old pages from their index.

I see many old pages that were 404'ed two years ago that are still in their index (albeit with no snippet), and I would delete them in a second if I had the chance.

Or, set a time limit on 404'ed pages - say 60 days. If a webmaster allows a page to 404 for two months - delete it from the index! If they put it back, the bots will find it and index it as a new page once again.

Anything would be better than what we have now...

[dazzlindonna]

I think I love Yahoo! She was very, very good to me in this update. :)

[evilgreenmonkey]

Hi dazzlindonna,

I think I love Yahoo! She was very, very good to me in this update. :)

Have you found any patterns in which pages/terms have improved?

If the update altered your site ranking, was this at the expense of spammy/blackhat sites or genuine trustworthy competitors?

Thanks,

Rob

[dazzlindonna]

Honestly, Rob, I don't know. I had over 30 sites (about 98% of my sites) drastically increase their rankings on nearly all the phrases I track, so it was almost across the board for me. In addition, I haven't been keeping track of all the competition across all those sites in Yahoo, so I'm not sure who fell by the wayside. The only thing I can say is that the increases happened across sites of various ages, some old, some new...so age likely wasn't a factor. Other than that, no idea, sorry.

[Marcia]

I just wish they would give us the means to delete old pages from their index.That's one of the things that used to cause grief back in Inktomi days, long after pages were 301'd and the old pages down you'd still get hit for duplicate content.

This update, I get the definite impression they've turned the knobs for the amount of weight links carry. That's a good thing, IMHO - "authority" isn't always an indicator of what's relevant for what the searcher is looking for.

[TheotherTim]

Hi Brian
Can you please send me via forum mail some examples of the deleted pages so we can look into the issue.
Thanks, Tim

[webkidsan]

Although my ranking dropped on Yahoo after this update ... but I am definitly seeing fewer spammy sites ... but then I am seeing lot of my old pages indexed which have not been there for more than 6 months ... another thing I noticed that I am not having my internal pages ranked ... only the home page shows up in the results ... I dont if its just my site or other people seeing that too ...

[airtravelcenter]

Hi Brian
Can you please send me via forum mail some examples of the deleted pages so we can look into the issue.
Thanks, Tim

Google and Yahoo both provide a means of listing url to be crawled and both ignore the lists given. Both companies could save themselves huge space by dumping pages that no longer exist. It seems a bit anal retentive to cling to ghost pages that died years ago.

Worse, if a webmaster would come to realize that a given page violates a guideline and chooses to delete that page or move it behind a robots exclusion, the correction is futile.

Why not use the xml list or urllist.txt given? Especially when that list is several hundred pages fewer than you have in your index?

[Marcia]

deleted pages so we can look into the issueTim, in addition to 301'd pages staying in, in some cases I believe it's happening because there's still a link someplace pointing to a page that's no longer up. One page on a site was taken down about a year ago, and it's still listed. It'll look like this, at the end of the list when doing a site: search:

http://www.example.com/cosmetics/brandname.html
www.example.com/cosmetics/brandname.html - More from this site - Save

I'm seeing it with URL only listings in the index, not cached. It also can happen with a mis-spelling in a link. The mis-spelled URL returns a 404, but there will still be a page listed because the link gets picked up.

[jackson992]

If a site is only showing the url for listings does this mean Yahoo banned the site?

[Marcia]

If a site is only showing the url for listings does this mean Yahoo banned the site?If I'm not mistaken, I believe a banned site will turn up with only the homepage listed in the index.

Getting banned by Yahoo isn't exactly my area of expertise, but I'll see if I can find out for sure from someone who is an expert at it.

[Wilksy]

That's right Marcia, homepage only.

[jackson992]

so what does the partial listings mean I wonder. I've seen this on some sites for a few months now.

[missycook]

I love the latest Yahoo update! My two sites are now top #3 for most of my keywords, a nice improvement. I use only white hat methods for optimization, and it's nice to see results finally. :)

I've noticed that some of my competitors who use more black hat techniques have all but disappeared from the rankings. One competitor in particular who uses all kinds or smammy methods is gone for all but one or two keywords.

As for links, not sure of their role in this latest update. I have a lot of incoming links from some very relevant sites, so perhaps, but then so do my competitors.

[tonerman]

How do you determine ranking on Yahoo? Just do a regular search for a particular term and see where you wind up in the SERPS? Or is there something more sophisticated but legal?

[jackson992]

still seeing messed up results:

http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=sfp&p=site%3Atires-to-go.com

[Marcia]

jackson, I see all those URL only, non cached listings, but when clicking on some of them there isn't any page showing up.

How do you determine ranking on Yahoo? Just do a regular search for a particular term and see where you wind up in the SERPS? It's kind of an easy way unless there are a load of search terms, and you also get to see first hand who is ranking for the phrases. I also use the "last 300 visitors" in Cpanel to see what's coming in from where real-time, generally when I'm fixing to update pages so I'll make sure the ones getting visits are visitor-ready and current.

Or is there something more sophisticated but legal?I've never seen that Yahoo has a prohibition against using rank-checking software, maybe someone else has.

[Marcia]

Incidentally, I have seen some movement since this update, possibly because of Site Submit is what I'd guess. I'm not happy about a dive of about 6 spots a site of mine took to the 2nd page, but I suppose others who get frequent spidering and updates did some peaking and tweaking in the interim, since it's a very seasonally hot search term.

[Asia]

I've had no luck with Yahoo for 3 years now. One of my sites has been penalized and no one at Yahoo or it's partners can shed light. We hired on recommended SEO companies through Overture/yahoo and that did not help, even through multiple customer reps at Yahoo manually putting our domains into the searches, nothing has helped.

We did have 1 domain 301 to our main domain. This domain was doing "okay" although we did absolutely no SEO for the 301 in regards to linking - as I am not a fan of duplicate content. I assume the 301 was regarded as duplication and the penalty imposed, we have now dropped this 301 yet it still ranks in the top 10 for a popular keyword even though the domain has been 404'd.

I cannot tell you the amount of frustration this has caused me. It's almost a personal issue with me and Yahoo. I hope that Tim can assist me with this, and hopefully we get past this and move on.

[Marcia]

This gets me concerned. I've wondered what the pages in the SERPs are with the strange letters appended, and just saw this in the last 300 visitors on a site in Cpanel:

Host: 72.30.132.139

/holiday?N=D
Http Code: 301 Date: Jul 28 19:14:47 Http Version: HTTP/1.0 Size in Bytes: 337
Referer: -
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)

/holiday/?N=D
Http Code: 200 Date: Jul 28 19:14:48 Http Version: HTTP/1.0 Size in Bytes: 3884
Referer: -
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp) Those will show up sometimes with multiple letter combinations (maybe 3 or 4) and of course, all are identical. I don't know about anyone else, but when those show up in search it looks to me like multiple URLs with identical content - and it's got nothing to do with this site or any other I've seen it for.

We did have 1 domain 301 to our main domain. This domain was doing "okay" although we did absolutely no SEO for the 301 in regards to linking - as I am not a fan of duplicate content. I assume the 301 was regarded as duplication and the penalty imposed, we have now dropped this 301 yet it still ranks in the top 10 for a popular keyword even though the domain has been 404'd. Asia, I can sympathize with your plight. I had that same thing happen with a site several years ago with a 301 redirect. I even paid for the old Inktomi annual inclusion for the new, and it did no good. The new location was penalized for duplicate content, and there was no way to get rid of that old URL - there was nothing there any more for ages, and there it sat at #29. It had been top 3 and the new site was after the penalty "went away" a year or so later, but in the meantime it was very aggravating.

If you'd care to post the URL, we'll be glad to have a look.

[Asia]

I sent you a private message, any help would be appreciated - I'm frustrated however - but I keep trying and hopefully I can pull this out of the water.

[Marcia]

We hired on recommended SEO companies through Overture/yahoo and that did not helpWho recommended that SEO company? And how long have you been using them? Are they also doing link development services for you, or has that been taken care of by you or someone else?

I've had no luck with Yahoo for 3 years now.Asia, keep in mind that Yahoo switched over to using their own search technology mid-February, 2004 - which was about 2-1/2 years ago. Prior to that they used Google search, so if that's about the timing, then you were doing OK with Yahoo used Google search, but seem to have been having issues with Yahoo's own search, if the timing coincides with when you experienced the change. Is that when you experienced the change?

One of my sites has been penalizedDo a site: search and you'll see that one of the domains has only the homepage listed, indicating that it's not a penalty, but has been banned.

We did have 1 domain 301 to our main domain. This domain was doing "okay" although we did absolutely no SEO for the 301 in regards to linking - as I am not a fan of duplicate content. I assume the 301 was regarded as duplication and the penalty imposed, we have now dropped this 301 yet it still ranks in the top 10 for a popular keyword even though the domain has been 404'd.This is where it gets very tangled up.

The domain that was 301'd and is now a 404 for the homepage still has plenty of pages still indexed at MSN and Yahoo, but 8 are indexed at Google, out of which 7 are Supplemental. When looking at the cache for the Supplemental pages, it shows that there are links from that 301'd domain (now a 404) to the one that I assume is your main domain, that you're now wanting to rank at Yahoo, and can't (because of a ban). There's also another domain involved, which is linked to from the one I assume is your "main" domain.

I really wouldn't be so sure it's necessarily a 301 issue, there's a very tangled linking pattern involving the "main" domain and it looks like some seriously aggressive link development has been done.

[Asia]

Who recommended that SEO company? And how long have you been using them? Are they also doing link development services for you, or has that been taken care of by you or someone else?

This was done through Overture and yahoo websites. When we were removed from Yahoo, we went through Yahoo's paid searches. They (overture and yahoo) suggested 3 SEO companies. We hired one and removed a lot of issues and Yahoo declined us after this was done.

Asia, keep in mind that Yahoo switched over to using their own search technology mid-February, 2004 - which was about 2-1/2 years ago. Prior to that they used Google search, so if that's about the timing, then you were doing OK with Yahoo used Google search, but seem to have been having issues with Yahoo's own search, if the timing coincides with when you experienced the change. Is that when you experienced the change?

We were on Yahoo's algorithm at #3 and removed after a few months. I got my years wrong but 2 1/2 years seems like 3 in my world these days :)

Do a site: search and you'll see that one of the domains has only the homepage listed, indicating that it's not a penalty, but has been banned.

We are aware of this ban, that is what we've been working with Yahoo customer service with over the past 2 years. In fact, the Customer Service Representatives, have even tried putting us back in manually to no avail.

The domain that was 301'd and is now a 404 for the homepage still has plenty of pages still indexed at MSN and Yahoo, but 8 are indexed at Google, out of which 7 are Supplemental. When looking at the cache for the Supplemental pages, it shows that there are links from that 301'd domain (now a 404) to the one that I assume is your main domain, that you're now wanting to rank at Yahoo, and can't (because of a ban). There's also another domain involved, which is linked to from the one I assume is your "main" domain.

We had a 301 then removed the 301 and produced a custom error page to not lose the hits from this domain. 2 days before I wrote this post, we had 404'd the domain so that there was absolutely no confusion.

The indexed pages you are looking at is from the 301 produced. All those pages that come up for the currently 404'd site is the 301 redirect. The entire domain was 301'd.

This is where we were very confused. We had assumed, if the domain is 301'd then there should be no indexing. However, Yahoo indexed the site through the 301 and ignored the main domain - even though it was the exact same website.


I really wouldn't be so sure it's necessarily a 301 issue, there's a very tangled linking pattern involving the "main" domain and it looks like some seriously aggressive link development has been done.

When you say aggressive linking - what are you referring to? We produce seperate websites for seperate destinations. We have paid ads that are only on "targetted websites" that produce our demographic.

What would you suggest be done to remove the ban? That is what we're working on. Should I remove the links from the other destinations? I am not quite sure what is the best way to handle this.

As for the linking, we hired on a professional link developer who was recommended through one of the articles here at SEW. He worked to get us linked in through other sites and that is where I am now.

If you know anyone that can clean it up, or if you can. Let me know, and we will discuss the payments as necessary. However please know that we are seriously trying to get out of being banned from Yahoo - we've taken the advice of others where we were told to produce another website, which we did and removed, because we did not want to affect google.