Yahoo! search feedback blackhole

[I, Brian]

So I have a site completely missing in Yahoo!, even though it is well represented on other search engines, and has been for six months.

Last month, slurp came in and grabbed about 2 MB of bandwidth, compared to Google's 2 GB. The site does not appear in Yahoo! for it's own unique name.

The site is clean, so any kind of penalty wouldn't make sense.

However, when I first set it up by merging a few other domains, I accidentally used a few 302's for a few days, before redirecting with 301.

So my chief suspicion is that the site fell foul of Yahoo!'s old 302 problem before they apparently fixed it.

My problem now is trying to get Yahoo! to recognise the site. There are plenty of links to it, but if it was snared by a 302 issue, then how do I work with Yahoo! to clear it?

What is particularly frustrating is that I have tried a range of Yahoo! e-mail addresses, from search feedback to reinclusion request - and heard absolutely nothing back in reply.

I don't expect a personalised response, but at least Google has it's template responses based on whether the site needs to clean up, or wait for engineers to fix things. That at least showed that a) acknowleded that they had received your e-mail, and b) that the issue was duly noticed.

I'm disappointed with Yahoo!'s complete lack of response - surely being able to acknowledge e-mails shouldn't be beneath a billion-dollar internet company?

[JohnGalt]

How long has it been?

I got a reply from them regarding one of my sites that is only showing the home page in Yahoo's index, but it took over 2 weeks. Their reply was cheeky and it said they'd get back to me after they look into it. I don't want to post their actual response, because they might then be able to trace that back to my posting here. Yes, I am paranoid.

[I, Brian]

No responses so far on any e-mails sent - I sent a few last night again, and managed to get two auto-responder responses for two different addys, so I'll see what happens.

For the moment, Yahoo! doesn't appear to even recognise the site for its own unique name, despite about 6 months and about 200,000+ links indexed on Yahoo! search (the numbers are mainly just bulked up with sitewides on just a couple of forums I admin).

If Yahoo! have a technical problem - and I've long suspected that it's a redirects issue behind it all - then I'll be happy to help try and get this resolved, if there's anything I can help with.

It's just a reference site, too, so I should have thought it had quality original content that Yahoo! surfers may find helpful.

I dread to think what the consequences might be if I had a commerce site in a similar situation, where loss of Yahoo! traffic could have serious financial consequences.

The lack of response so far is particularly disappointing, but I guess if Yahoo! actually had a technical problem with their indexing, then the last thing they should want to do is face the embarrassment of admitting it.

[David Wallace]

I'm in the same boat in that I have a site where only the root page is indexed. I sent an email to a prior email address I had which used to connect but now Yahoo has killed that address. Therefore I used their contact system. No response thus so far.

It is too bad that they rid themselves of the prior address because I was actually able to get a site that had been penalized (due to client's actions) back in.

Possibly a Yahoo rep will see this thread and provide a valid email address/contact where indexing problems can be addressed.

[JohnGalt]

I, Brian: So Yahoo is not even showing your site's home page in its index?

I got a response after several weeks from:

reportsearchspam@yahoo-inc.com

Although the response was just to say they'd look into it, with no indication of how long (or even if) I should expect to hear anything back. I'd be happy with no email response but a thorough spidering/indexing of the site!

From reading some other posts here and on webmasterworld, it seems that a penalty on yahoo is often manifested by the home page only showing up in the index. Maybe there are all sorts of flavors.

The more I think about it, the more I am liking the idea that it may be caused by a technical problem that the spider encounters such as dynamic URLs, etc, instead of by some kind of conspiracy theorist's ideas that "yahoo is out to get me!" ...Maybe not in all cases, but in many.

If that's the case, Yahoo really does need a better method for re-trying pages that have previously stopped it up somehow. This whole thing about yahoo removing large established sites "forever" is a huge barrier. I need to figure this out!

[I, Brian]

The suggestion at WMW is certainly that a 1 page listing for a site in Yahoo! can be suggestive of a penalty (not linking to the discussion because the content is all registered user only).

However, there is also the suggestion - perhaps unfairly - that once penalised in Yahoo! then for the majority that's it, the site is done for.

Whilst there have been various complaints about how Google handles various issues, it does seem to have a much fairer system of customer communication, with e-mails that clearly suggest penalisation, and other stock responses suggesting a technical process being looked into.

Additionally, I've encountered many stories of sites being penalised in Google, and allowed back in after cleaning up - whereas I'm currently having difficulty finding similar instances regarding Yahoo!

I've complained about the Yahoo! process on my blog, but especially raise a point that for MSN and Yahoo! to expand on Google's market share, they need to take search much more seriously.

Threads like these on SEW and WMW, and a copmplete lack of enthusiasm for a Yahoo! update on this same board, suggest that Yahoo! haven't yet grasped that opportunity.

[David Wallace]

I got a response after several weeks from:

reportsearchspam@yahoo-inc.com

Thanks for posting that email. The email I used prior to this was reportsearchspam@yahoo.com which is the same thing but different domain.

[I, Brian]

I have autoresponses from:

ystfeedback@yahoo.com
url-support@cc.yahoo-inc.com

I'll post back if I actually get a human response from these over the next couple of weeks.

[Marcia]

Brian, are they showing backlinks to the site?

[I, Brian]

Plenty - Yahoo! link command shows 223,000. Sounds a lot, but as above, a few forum sitewides bulk up the numbers.

A search of "domain.com" shows 17,600 instance on the web - looks like mixture of directory submissions, natural links, and scrapers.

Slurp also took a small couple of megs from the site last month.

Overall, no reason I can fathom for it being missing, hence strong suspicion it fell foul of redirects processing. I since took off all redirects to the site, but there's been no change.

[I, Brian]

Impressive - I have a reply already.

And, reassuringly, it doesn't involve stabbing a finger at the Yahoo! guidlines and glowering at me. :)


search-abuse@cc.yahoo-inc.com

Hello,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Search.

Yahoo! Search crawls the web every 2-4 weeks and automatically finds new content for indexing. If pages already in the Yahoo! Search index link
to your site, it will be considered for inclusion in the next update of
the index. Getting your site listed in major directory services such as
the Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ is an excellent way to be sure that there
are links to your site. For information on all the possibilities please
see our site submit information page at:

http://submit.search.yahoo.com/

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.


Regards,

Evan

Yahoo! Customer Care

For assistance with all Yahoo! services please visit:

http://help.yahoo.com/

[JohnGalt]

But their response still makes no sense in your situation. Your site has been doing well in the Google & MSN indices for the past 6 months. Yahoo is saying 2-4 weeks. What gives?

Please let us know if your site does start to show in the Yahoo index (now that you've gotten their attention, is that how this works?)

[Marcia]

It looks to me like they just don't tell.

[I, Brian]

Wowsers - search spam just got back with a rather astonishing reply:


Yahoo removed your entire site from Yahoo! search results because of a DMCA. Please talk to Yahoo's legal department at:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/copyright/copyright.html (http://javascript%3Cimg%20src=%22images/smilies/redface.gif%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20tit le=%22Embarrassment%22%20smilieid=%222%22%20class= %22inlineimg%22%20/%3El%28%27http://docs.yahoo.com/info/copyright/copyright.html%27%29;)
Further contact information is given, but I'll leave that out while I chase this up.

I sincerely hope it isn't this easy for third-parties to have other people's sites removed from a search engine. Having never knowingly used copyrighted material, nor ever having been contacted about any potential copyright complaints, I'm rather astonished.

EDIT: Or perhaps Yahoo! doesn't even know, so search support are clutching at straws??

[JohnGalt]

Wow! That's scary stuff!!!

Can you divulge the nature of your site?

Did Yahoo provide a clear path you could follow to get them to review your site and get it back in their index once you correct the problem - if there even is one? Makes no sense if you are definitely not using copywrited material. What about images?

[fahmed]

My site was indexed thoroughly for about one month. Then all pages except the front page dropped out. Its been a month now, Yahoo visits my site daily but does not index the other pages. I traded full-site links with about 6 sites within 3-4 weeks. I guess that's what did me in? Is there a way to reverse this my cancelling my partnerships?

thank you

[Marcia]

have a site where only the root page is indexed.That's become fairly self-evident at this point, but a bit more mysterious is the phenomenon where the site is in the index, but the first page that comes up in the site: search isn't the homepage.

[luckycharmz336]

This is so strange, I have a site in a similar situation. :-(

[jimbeetle]

I have a site in a similar situation
Which situation? There were at least two discussed above: site removed because of a DMCA, and a site where only the root page is indexed.