Thanks for the weather report, much appreciated by the webmaster community, as always.

Always appreciated, Tim. Thanks much, keep reaching out.

Ditto previous comments Tim - thanx!

Interesting results so far, thought I think it would be best to let this settle out and check back in the morning.

Thanks for the heads up.

Thanks for the advance warning, I'm almost afraid to look. :)

thats great new
im trying to get my site back into yahoo
and it seem like this submission is not working
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/ysearch/cgi_rereview

i dont even get the autoresponder saying yahoo has recieved my email..
maybe kana is broken

As always, thanks for keeping us informed.

This index update so far is like the return of the living dead. I am seeing abandoned and long forgotten blogs suddenly come back to life in the SERPs and gain good rankings on competitive keywords.

"I am seeing abandoned and long forgotten blogs suddenly come back to life"

Yep - and all the blog spammers jumped up with them. On the first page of a very competitive term 8 of the first 10 results are all blog spammers.....

You know, if you actually TOLD us the "competitive term" we'd have a shot at fixing the problem.

Fair enough Jeremy. Your system will not let me post the term so I will do it phonetically.

online ca-see-nos

Thanks for the Update....

Is it merely a coincidence that G**gle is doing updates at the same time?

A couple of weeks ago it was reported that YAHOO had STOPPED using Edited Titles and Descriptions in SERPs of those sites with a Y! Directory listing

searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=8401

Was this an experiment to uncover the controversies regarding that lack of "Allure" that some sites had because of the Editing policies? Did those results affect these new ALGOs?

How much is CLICK POPULARITY & LINK POPULARITY playing in Y!'s algos?

Today, doing a search for... HOME ... the results are FAR MORE relevant than previously and ... FAILURE ... is noticeably more relevant (less Keywords - Back Links dependant)

Is Yahoo beginning to use some form of LSI or concept searching - this may be the only solution to compete with "BL-keyword" emphasis?

:-) Yahoo has grown tremendously more relevant in the past year - unfortunately some sites are still DROPPED for no ALGO reasons.

BTW:
It is time now to put MINDSET on the regular Yahoo SERPs - it will add enourmous relevance to the search engine.

Don't be laxed about innovating AlltheWeb and AltaVista - don't make them inferior copycats of Yahoo - they are worth developing serparately!

re:Posted by: Nick at November 2, 2005 12:48 PM
"The #1 Ranked site hasn't been updated in over a year ...

There are sooooo many OLD out-dated sites ranking high. Go look at MSN-this does not happen there, if you boys don't watch it YOU will be # 3, soon!
and why did you dump 90% of my sites for no good reason. Hope you fix this mess, you were a much better site before this "update".

I think that Yahoo have a new sandbox effect. Many good pages have disappeared.
Very bad update.

I agree, its a very bad update. Many of the sites I used to use have disappeared plus my sites have also gone for no good reason that I can see!

Hope you sort this out.

I have complained about ALL of our sites being dropped, 20+ and all I get is a canned response from you people. But yet, if I use Sitematch well then I am able to get top billing but only if I pay for it. I am sure alot of your users would love to know that some of the top sites in your search engine are actually paid results. I swear to god, you people are trying to make a profit off everything, how long until you guys go completely PPC?

To comment on this update, it sucked, you dropped sites that are actually good content and shopping sites and replaced them with spam and your own self serving Yahoo Stores sites. It sickens me to think of what the future holds for a company that used to be respected as an "Industry Leader". Hope you guys enjoy playing third fiddle to Google and MSN.

Please be kind to me, please be kind ...

Thanks for the storm forecast. :)

It think a lot of this last update had to do with your new travel site. (you know, the one that uses photos from sites where you ignored the robots. txt > Yahoo-MMCrawler/3.x Disallow: /, like mine, and then you have the nerve to brag about having the biggest image bank, to me that is stealing of copyrighted mat.)
To other travel site webmasters, if you've been lost sites or lost a lot of pages or ranking, write in here and tell us, if it was spam don't include yourself. Seems there may be grounds for a Class action law suite based on a violation of CA's unfair business practices laws. Strength in numbers! If Y takes this post down it is an admission on guilt.

Thanks for the info Tim, but OUCH! I dropped from #15 to #119. Ancient pages with no activity for years leapfrogged over me.

Spam report.
"Paypal Philippines" search result #1 - http://www.getrichcanada.com/wire_money_online/paypal_philippines.html

This site is banned in Google.

Is the update over, or is it still going to continue?

When will we see the final results?

Just as Yahoo had been getting better and better at providing relevant results this update hits. That's too bad - with G's horrible results lately I think that more people were willing to give Yahoo a try. And now this.

Specifically, in the real estate sector and office supply sector what I see are a lot of sites using iframe data from other sites and servers to add hundreds or thousands of pages ofcontent to their own sites. The problem is that this the same content on a thousand other sites. Whatever happened to original, unique content?

Well...I agree with Koz. I have clients specifically in the real estate sector and I guarantee we put good clean content, functions, materials that are updated, current and useful. My clients are more about the ROI of a quality lead than a ranking with you Yahoo However, it never fails to amaze me how many quality sites Google pushed out for these national "lead aggrigators" like homes.com, realtor.com homegain.com, househunt.com, yahoo real estate and a few others! Now you are doing it!!!! Rediculous. We are promoting quality content and we are being punished. I know you have a lot of people to deal with but it sure does seem like your pushing paid advertizing.

We all know Google loves their $4 billion dollar a year prize cow, I just didn't think Yahoo would give in. But...maybe I'm wrong. It's been a few days I'll give it the weekend. I would love to hear from you guys...

Take care.

Hypntzd3,
"$4 billion dollar a year prize cow, I just didn't think Yahoo would give in"

That has to be the dumbest comment I've ever heard. Money talks BS walks. Yahoo wishes the prize cow was their own so you will see lots more of this to come.

After doing research on search results in 5 different industries, I have found that there are several sites (not all) that are in top 8 results that use Sitematch service. Even though sitematch doesn't directly get you top placements, it seems that websites using the service are getting better rankings (or preference) in organic search results. I guess money talks!

Thanks for the feedback. It would be useful if you could email these comments to the ystfeedback@yahoo.com email address with the specifics and we can look into each instance. The specific instances will help us to troubleshoot and improve our search.
Thanks,
Tim

For every single Yahoo International site, when I do my keyword searches that relate to my site, I see the exact same results. But, for Yahoo USA, I see totally different keyword results. Can you tell me Tim if the results I see on the Yahoo International results will be the results we see for Yahoo USA?

Thank You in advance for your answer Tim!

I agree with everyone. Over the past year Yahoo! has improved dramatically and I believe that started something good, but this last update has BEEN HORRIBLE and the weird part about it is that for all international sites I still rank well and my site is and up-to-date cache version, but on yahoo . com it's an older version and I keep falling in ranking for my keyterm. It would be very nice if things were reverted back to this pre-update algo. I really believe you guys should fix this booboo because like before many people will stop using Yahoo! and look to MSN and Google.

Did I miss the update? Looks like the same Old Spam. Inktomi and AV.com have all gone down hill ever since purchased Overture, you have totaly destroyed a good thing. For those people who think things are better they must be newbees, yep keep up the good work you will soon be number 4 as ask.com looks better than you do Yahoo.

Hey Tim,
Really a terrible update. A #3 ranking for a site with absolutely zero content and irrelevant description: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=ct+photographer&prssweb=Search&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&fl=0&x=wrt
I think you guys need to go back to the draawing board ont his one..it's a step in the wrong direction.

Hey Frank!

I agree with you completly. I am in the travel sector too and had my sites, that were ranked within the top 5 for the keyword disappear to the 5th page. The index pages were not changed and the interior pages were updated. I know that Hotelsdotcom, Expediadotcom, Sidestepdotcom, and Travelocitydotcom sell travel, but do I, or anyone else for that matter, need these brands relentlessly shoved down our gullets?

BTW, I clicked on one of the ca_see_noes links above and now am having popups galore on my computer. I really wish this company would get it right. Current, relivant content no longer seems to hold any weight around here...

I think yahoo is going in right direction, even I lost some ranking but i still like it. I use to be in first page for free classified , you wont even find my page http://www.beatyourprice.com but I like what yahoo did....

re:tony----I think yahoo is going in right direction, even I lost some ranking but i still like it. I use to be in first page for free classified , you wont even find my page http://www.beatyourprice.com but I like what yahoo did....

Gee tony did you even think when your wrote that, that was the strangest post yet! was your site spam and you are admitting it? Or you hoping for a break with that dribble?
The problem with yahoo is clear, Old content, and too much releavence on a single instance of the search term in the content, even if the title is way-off-base. The main problem is the old content, the oldest page I have seen is dated in 1996 next oldest is 1999. There are many such examples, most being in the 2003-2004 range and this is a date relevent search term, man it's no wonder this is on your stock ranking data page on MSN.see----------------- http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/srs/srsmain.asp?Symbol=YHOO -------
"Two or more executives, board directors or major shareholders - including one high-level executive - sold a large number of shares recently. Extremely negative"
psssst Tony wipe that off your nose.

Ok Yahoo, it seems as though this update was horrible for everyone. When are you going to sort it out? Lately I'm finding along with my clients that MSN is the search engine of the future.

GET IT SORTED!

I see lots of people spitting their dummy out here, Yahoo do not HAVE to include any site in their index to be in there at all is a privilege, ok so you have dropped lots of places wake up smell the coffee stop moaning about it the search engine world is a constantly changing arena that you need to WORK hard to be and to remain successful.

And yes my rankings across the board still seem to be holding steady if not better after this update, keep up the good work Yahoo and keep us all on our toes :o)

Rick, you seem to be one of the few who like the "new" yahoo, could it have anything to do with the fact that your site is holding steady? You must be paying for inclusion or it must be old and spammy or already low ranked? How often do you update your site, lots of great stuff that you want to live online forever--just the way it is?--well this is the right place, don't update and they love ya. I would bet you have lots of readers also, what is your favorites % per month. My site is doing just as well without yahoo's referrals, and favorites % is going up, seems like google, MSN, ask and the rest of the group of the "now relevant" engines are getting more readers, I have removed the yahoo bar from my desktop and replaced it with google, thought that would never happen! Get real Rick, the update ruined an almost good SE. You might want to clean off your nose also, and hope they don't stop short!

I hope yahoo does a complete reversal on this last update the results are krap. Lots of yellow page sites, link farms, directory sites and just in general unrelated content. Why would you use a search engine to take you to another site that you have to do some more searching. If yahoo wants to stay in business as a search engine they should really get on fixing this - it wont be soon before nobody will yahoo anymore.

no.30 and no. 32 in the search term of "las vegas free shows" is pure spam, plain and simple, IMO. There is nothing free mentioned relevant to shows or anything, only the word free, over and over, often side by side! not to mention the line at the bottom of the pages: "Common Misspellings Los Vegas Las Vagas Las Vages Las Veges Vagus Vegus LasVegas LosVegas Veagas Veagus Vegis Vagis" If that is not spam, I don't think there is a definition.
Is this what it takes to rank in yahoo now? I am considering blocking your web bots, I want to be in an engine that has at least some sense of relevancy, yahoo has become a disaster, and just gets worse.
Oh, forgot to mention that this is a big advertiser for you, so any thing goes, right? This is the tip of the iceberg of the problems with this company (the spammer, IMO), everything from same content on many sites, no these are all from the same company, just different domains, not affiliates, but they use it also, to shameless misrepresentation in the Affiliate Program, again, IMO ( enter "Common Misspellings Los Vegas Las Vagas Las Vages Las Veges Vagus Vegus LasVegas LosVegas Veagas Veagus Vegis Vagis " (drop the "" ) in google (doesn't give the main company in yahoo, only a few affiliates, to find the spam (IMO). In yahoo drop the "common misspellings" part, but you still don't see the top-dog.
You allow a big advertiser to create thousands of pages, many, many distinct sites, (they even lable some as an affiliate site, but do a whois search and, you guessed it, same contact info.) let them slide on the spam rules, and this is just wrong!

In answer to your post Lee, I currently work for an agency so the sites I seo are wide and varied, my own personal site is updated very frequently I seriously doubt you could call it "spammy" and I certainly don't have the cash to pay for inclusion and actually we rank high for some pretty competitive terms not just on Yahoo on MSN and Google too, I don't think saying you're just going to "ignore a search engine" as big as Yahoo is sound advice to anyone ... as I said wake up smell the coffee and work harder to understand what Yahoo is asking from your site to rank higher

Apparently, Yahoo enhances its search results by NSDL Scout Report: instead of official title and description of a site, your SERP shows title chosen by Scout and the first few sentences of Scout's description. These creates misleading site's descriptions in SERP since the beginning of Scout's review may not provide objective summary of a site. I feel using Scout lowers the value of your search results.
If I could suggest, drop using Scout report and use something objective such as ODP.

Thanks for update

My favorite part of reading through all of these comments is how critical people are of the update, followed by, "My site dropped!".

It's like "Man your update sucks because my listing dropped". There are few that have good info about spammy listings, but it's just funny to me.

If I'm a Yahoo search dude, I'm skimming through comments for constructive feedback and I'm reading one that says "horrible update compared to others and guess what, MSN and Google are going to be better than you....and by the way, why is my listing dropping!" I quickly mark that one down as humor and move to the next one.

I know it's no fun to drop, but ever time a new update happens, there is the "flux period" where spammy sites get through and it takes some time to settle. Think of an update like shaking one of those snow glass things...you know the one's that you shake and it makes it look like it's snowing in the water? Then once it all settles, things are back to normal.

I use Google in a daily basis and I like Yahoo.I think Google/Yahoo is really a great engine to search quickly in the web just about everythink I want.I want to thank to all people who increased this great engine.Thanks!

I have to say few words! I use google too in a daily basis, maybe becuase it's worldwide! yahoo it's mainly for Americans;) hehe so what... i got few other local search engines... but there's no yahoo in my country... what'a pity;/ think about it!

and i forgot to add sth... your engine it's really slower... i was trying to find my site http://praca.owi.pl and it's really tough piece of cake!

I like Yahoo and Google and I am using this great search engine from last 4 years. In the mean time i have seen so many improvement in this search engine to show the relevant results to its users. But this time i am disappointed when i searched for the keyword "unsecured loans" in finance industry. Its totally altogether changed. The old sites that are coming on top 10 position is now not present in top 50.

Enjoyed browsing through the site. Keep up the good work. Greetings