Is Yahoo Ousting Small & Medium-Sized Businesses?

We have received many reports that "Yahoo" have commenced upon a campaign to remove small - medium sized commercial websites from there search engine without clearly defining the reason for removal.

In future the only way to get your website listed with Yahoo is by forcing small commercial websites into paid advertising with "Overture" an advertising company owned solely by Yahoo!

Has Yahoo gone beyond the boundaries of democracy on the internet & be held to account for these outrageous tactics?

And is it not about time, that an independent body of "Ombudsman" be set up to monitor & prevent such a monopolistic
behaviour for our future?

Dominic

[bhartzer]

"Yahoo" have commenced upon a campaign to remove small - medium sized commercial websites from there search engine

That's ridiculous. What evidence do you have that they're removing websites from their organic SERPs?

[Carlos Chacón]

Originally Posted by mporsche2005

We have received many reports that "Yahoo" have commenced upon a campaign to remove small - medium sized commercial websites from there search engine without clearly defining the reason for removal.

In future the only way to get your website listed with Yahoo is by forcing small commercial websites into paid advertising with "Overture" an advertising company owned solely by Yahoo!

What? When & where did you hear this?
I can’t believe Yahoo! is going to do this with small business. I bet too many of the web sites across Internet belong from small – medium companies.
Send us the link if you have it.

[mcanerin]

I'm not inclined to believe that claim in any way, shape or form.

1) Since the vast majority of any results for a SERP are small company/individual websites the search engine relevance would drop like a rock and they would be broke. I'd be much more inclined to believe a conspiracy theory about a plot to make the big companies pay more, since they have deeper pockets, are a minority, and gain more financially from a listing than the little guys.

2) Further, how on earth would you know what websites are owned by what company, and how big that company is? There is no central registry for this even for publicly traded companies, and no information at all on private ones. A large and important website can be owned by a single person working out of their basement, and a useless, minor website can be owned by a multinational corporation. There is no automatic connection.

3) Yahoo recently introduced the ability to add a URL list (similar to Google's sitemap, but more simplistic) which is going in the complete opposite direction of the OP's claims.

4) I'm a moderator on 2 major SEO forums, a member of (I've lost count) many others and spend a minimum of 4 hours every day doing nothing but catching up on industry news - I've never heard ANY of these so-called actual "reports". I occasionally hear tinfoil-hat wearing style "accusations" that Google or Yahoo are involved on one conspiracy to force PPC or something, but there has never been a substantiated instance of it, to my knowledge. Ever.

5) Search engines are not about democracy, they are about relevance. Link analysis is related to democracy in a round about fashion, but not a direct political one, as implied. And which government, pray tell, would be the one legislating the ombudsman? For what territory, for which people?

6) I'm not adverse to the idea of an "Ombudsman" - I happened to attend law school at the U of A, which is also the home of the International Ombudsman Insititute. I'll be working towards the SMA offering such a service on a voluntary basis, if it's clear it's needed. But one thing an ombudsman does is weed out the spurious claims and only deal with the real and serious ones - that's why they are listened to, and have the authority they have. I don't think an ombudsman would consider the above claim seriously, in view of my previous points.

Ian

Hi. Im new here.

I dont think this will happen, but as one of those 'small to medium' size business owners i fear for it happening in the future.

In fact, I cant wait for regulation of the search engines.

The internet has virtually become a utility service, in the same sense that power or water are. With the search engines being the prime form of transport for it.

If the search engines decided to actually go ahead and do this it could send national economy's into recession.

They need regulating.

[xxxxxxxxxx]

Alright, here it goes... I run and maintain many, many sites that are not in the Yahoo! directory. But one that is the mother site of them all will remain unnamed. Well, the mother site has been listed with Yahoo! Directory for 4+ years. But guess what, the site was up for renewal again as usual and whallah, I lost all information to access that particular directory listing to change the credit card information. The same exact credit card but the CC expiration date needed to be updated. The directory listing was the fourth most popular and seen in the listings globally.

By no means and I a professional SEO expert but I understand the repercussions of loosing a major listing after ten+ years of producing the web as we all know it today. OK, to the ones that respond by saying that this is ‘in no way an attack on small/mid size businesses’? BS!!! I had at least twenty folks from the famous Yahoo! Tech Support contact me and vice versa pointing me in so many different directions that I was seriously frustrated with anything that mentioned Yahoo! … I gave them all the information that was from the old postal account, zip code, CC information, Name, etc… Nada from the infamous team that is looking out for us. The site is now de-listed and the traffic flow is fluctuating but I am not completely sure if it from the delisting or other factors that are weekly/monthly for our industry. I personally want nothing to do with Yahoo! Because of this very poor customer service and the demanding search engine to pull in the major advertisers.

All I needed to do was update a friggen expiration date on the same credit card that was used for 4 years. They just want to shake up the listings and feel superior! Come on, where has customer support gone… They Suck! OK don’t answer, that should have been on another forum. But, for the ending response on this topic, I despise the ones that have a little monitor and ear piece that connects the ‘real customer’ to the one’s that pay for their existence! I have spent thousands of dollars on that reputable SE and all that was done for me is the run around with Yahoo Inc! Seriously think about it you interpreters of SEW.

Large corporate sponsors is what they are looking for….. Period!

Yahoooooooooo will be gone in a few years, leave them alone and let them die. Or, when Google buys them and controls the internet, Laugh!

Be cautious and choose wisely!

Dave

[Marcia]

According to the first post, which represents the topic, this thread is referring to the Yahoo search engine, not the directory. Issues affecting one have little or nothing to do with the other, except how being in their directory might impact rankings in the search engine. That's still irrelevant to directory submissions.

There have been no known reports and no *evidence* of small to medium sites being discriminated against. The *perception* of favoring big corporate sites, however, is a different matter.

Keep in mind the old maxim that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's probably a duck. So if enough people, independently and through their own observations, perceive that something or someone is walking, talking and looking like "a certain something", the perception might just start to take root and spread if it's a common enough perception.

[xxxxxxxxxx]

Just a little FYI for all that want to grow their listing! Sorry if it does not fit into this cat, delete it if necessary... I believe that the directory is the first attack on all of the smaller sites that are really trying to gain speed on this journey in the Se's we are are travelling...

Thanks for the response.

Dave

[Chris Boggs]

But guess what, the site was up for renewal again as usual and whallah, I lost all information to access that particular directory listing to change the credit card information. The same exact credit card but the CC expiration date needed to be updated.

Is all this furor could caused by an issue with Yahoo or because you lost your access information? Your further explanation makes no sense to me. Did they flatly say when you allegedly spoke to the directory submission team that you could no longer submit? I believe they will probably take your $299 and relist you, unless you are doing something on your site that could be perceived as spamming...once again I can't understand exactly what your issue was. Perhaps you could try again today to explain? Especially helpful would be your answer to McAnerin's detailed and very accurate post (in my opinion).

[B-Double-U]

I have a bunch of small sites that have been picked up recently. I don't see this holding water either...

Maybe there is some frustration because someone lost placement or is using a tactic that caused a ban issue and this was a way to vent that.

Yahoo is actually making a push right now to gather as much info from the little guys as possible.... They want more of that tasty pie that Google has been gobbling up and dropping companies is not going to get them there. If anything, they will expand and let more of them in and remove junk along the way.