Yahoo Directories Can Hurt Your Site!

[Big Juice]

About 1 year ago I contacted the fine people at Yahoo to find out why I could never get a client’s site indexed beyond the main index page. After checking to make sure that the site wasn’t in violation of any of their rules I sent an email to Yahoo to discuss my findings.

The only thing that I could discern was that the earliest information regarding this domain was still being listed in several of their directories. Normally this wouldn’t be a bad thing but seeing as the site changed ownership and focus back in 1996, the old directory listings are completely wrong.

Provided with this information it was fairly easy for someone at Yahoo to ascertain that this was the issue and I was told that they would address this issue soon. They even went so far as to extend to me an invitation to send in follow up questions to which I only received a standard form email, totally unacceptable! Well it has been a long time now and Yahoo doesn’t seem to want to address this issue.

After a few months of waiting I asked if it would be helpful if I were to resubmit my client’s site to the directories and paid for re-inclusion. Typically – I got the standard form response once again. With this kind of customer service is it any wonder that Yahoo.com is losing market and search share?

My only hope now is that someone over a Yahoo might read this and become concerned enough about their product to try to improve it. While I can’t reveal the site here, as that would not be appropriate to this forum, I can assure those of you who might read this; the site is obviously an old site and probably one that predates Yahoo itself.

If the Yahoo directories are so flawed that it takes more than 11 years to update the information contained within, what good are they? If these old directories are having a negative effect on my client’s site and have been doing so for more than a decade, I can only suggest that if Yahoo refuses to fix this issue then I would strongly suggest caution to those webmasters who were thinking of including their sites within the Yahoo directories.

It would be cool if someone from Yahoo were to contact me through a private email in this forum and follow up on this issue.

[maria22]

very interesting ...

[Reflection]

Really, this is true!

[Marcia]

Usually having only the index page in their index doesn't relate to the Directory listing. One page is what shows up when a site is banned, generally; they still leave the homepage in the index.

[Big Juice]

Normally I would agree with you on that thought Marcia but the problem is; the good folks over at Yahoo told me that the problem was with the old directory listings within the many geo-specific directories. I have gone in and actually seen these listings that predate 1996.

The old version of the site, and the one that it is listed as within these old directories, is for a medical research company. Further, the site enjoys many very old .edu links that still point to the site. However, these old links from the .edu and Yahoo directories all still refer to the previous version of the site and not the now 11 year old incarnation that the site became.

I have communicated with Yahoo about this and they have responded by confirming that this was the problem and that they would deal with it. Unfortunately for this site and for any other older domain that suffers with this problem, they have yet to address the issue.

Prior to my agreement to work on this site and try to solve some of its SEM woes, the site had nothing in place that could even be considered close to SEO, let alone something that would get it banned.

The site in question now enjoys high rankings in Google, Live and other search engines for very competitive terms. But due to a lack of concern with the performance of their products, the site remains screwed over by Yahoo.

Given the due diligence performed by Google in regards to black hat techniques, I would suspect that if the site were employing said tactics, said site would be banned by them and not by Yahoo. I personally do not use questionable strategies when applying SEO to client's sites and this can be attested to by the sheer volume of high rankings I achieve for my clients and the fact that a goodly portion of them maintain these rankings for years with zero maintenance applied.

Like I said Marcia, I would normally have agreed with your assessment but in this particular case, I can’t.

[Reflection]

Nice Info Big Juice. Thank U.