Wondering why a site dropped in pages indexed

[hvostovh]

We have a site that was indexed by Yahoo Search since April 2005. Within the last week they have dropped all but our home page. The URL is www.valuadder.com.

Does anyone know what caused this? If so what are the actions we should take?

Thanks!

[Jeff Martin]

Welcome to the forums hvostovh!

Well at first glance I see 'hidden text':
<!-- ValuAdder is a smart business valuation software tool for small business buyers, business sellers, business brokers, and business appraisers. small business opportunity to buy, manufacturing companies for sale, closely held business valuation, business valuation guides, business valuation multipliers, small business valuation software, business valuation evolution, finding the value of a business, cost of business valuation, how to value a business, intrinsic value and business valuation, business valuation calculators -->

Ill keep looking but this is a no-no.

[bhartzer]

Jeff is right, hidden text (i.e., spam) will get your pages removed from the index.

[Marcia]

A lot of people consider text enclosed within HTML comment tags to be legitimate usage of W3C standards for code though, and don't think of it as hidden text.

Is Yahoo now checking for the content of comment tags algorithmically?

[hvostovh]

All,

This text was there since April 2005 - and Yahoo indexed the pages just fine. They got removed yesterday, after being in the index for over 3 months.

Is there a recent change in their indexing or does it take Yahoo time to get around to removing pages they index.

Also, what do you suggest we do to get ourselves reindexed (remove the comments tags?)

[Marcia]

The index page is in the Yahoo index and that's all, and on a whim (or hunch) I just decided to grab a small snippet of your text and do a search on it in quotes. This is what's out there for that short phrase

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22smart+business+valuation+tool%22&prssweb=Search&ei=UTF-8&fr=slv1-&fl=0&x=wrt

Doing a site: search, this is what those other folks have in the index

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=site%3Amybusinessspot.com&prssweb=Search&ei=UTF-8&fr=slv1-&fl=0&x=wrt

So now, let's take it from this point and see where to go with it.

[hvostovh]

Perhaps Yahoo editors did not like the site? If so what are the options:

1. Get a new domain for the site?
2. Wait to see if Yahoo come to their senses (perhaps it's a technical problem on Yahoo side)?

[Marcia]

Perhaps Yahoo editors did not like the site? Well, was it submitted for paid submit, and is it known that an editor looked at it, or is it that the algo detected something?

1. Get a new domain for the site?If it were to come to that, you'd have to completely re-do the content, squeaky clean and original, and start from scratch to avoid duplication of the text, but imho it's worth checking into what may have happened.

2. Wait to see if Yahoo come to their senses (perhaps it's a technical problem on Yahoo side)?Well, I dont think they lost their senses and it's unlikely to be a technical problem; it's more likely that something triggered a red flag in some way.

Here's what they have in the index for a search on just the name

http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8&fr=slv1-&p=valuadder

Were you running any kind of a promotional program or involved in any kind of submissions?

[hvostovh]

We are running Overture PPC campaigns. Can't image this hurting our natural position in Yahoo index though.

We kept adding more Glossary pages that are brief descriptions of small business terms. Again, look pretty innocent - but perhaps they did not like our titles and descriptions (they all contained "Business Valuation Glossary" prefix).

[hvostovh]

Marcia,

It looks like they grabbed some of our PPC ads and indexed them. How/why would this have any effect on our being indexed in Yahoo Search?

[hvostovh]

Marcia,

To address your first question - the site was free-submitted in April 2005 and indexed shortly thereafter (within 3-4 days). Stayed in Yahoo index until this week!

Do they want our money for paid submission?

[Marcia]

No, you don't have to pay.

It looks like they grabbed some of our PPC ads and indexed them. How/why would this have any effect on our being indexed in Yahoo Search?Was it your PPC ads that got indexed or what scrapers grabbed and put on pages?

[hvostovh]

I just got a response from the Yahoo! Search team. They state that there are no indications of the site being blocked from the index. As usual, they insist on editorial power to rank the pages.

That's all I know!

[Marcia]

As usual, they insist on editorial power to rank the pages.Well, that's how search engines work. :)

If there's something that editorially caused pages to be dropped, then something needs cleaning up - whatever it is that they caught. Were you running just Overture, or other smaller PPCs as well?