Cue deep, analytical and studied response ... nice update.

It's been a long time since I've felt able to say that. Keyword in domain and URL, almost regardless of content and quality, no longer rules the roost.

It's Christmas, the time of giving - so, what did you do, what caused these changes?

It's horrible...

On our search term, the first 10 rsults are 100% Yahoo directory listings. The same 10 websites show for all the related search terms...

It makes NO sence!

I thought that after I emailed you guys so many times I would be back up on this next update. My main page is still up, but my hunrdeds of pages are still not listed in the serps. I emailed over and over again. I had tons and tons of #1 listings and then, poof, I vanished. I have a good site with no spam, etc. I don't rely on evil tactics either. But this company is my sole business. And just for Christmas, you have taken my income and reduced it to less than 1/4 what it was. I don't understand why you are doing this to me. Now, with this next update, my biggest competitor was just put above me. Unbeleivable. I wonder if anyone there even cares that this is (was) my business? And that I have relied on Yahoo so much in the past.....

Well, I take that back, I have a few new pages listed in the serps, ones that weren't there before. Maybe the changes I made helped and I am slowly working my way back up? I have no idea, I am so confused. I wish I had a super seo master to come to my rescue. Oh woe is me!

Nice update. Result pages seem more relevant, and yes, my sites are fairing pretty damn well. Of course they are - they are filled with lots of relevant and unique content ;)

Will be interesting to see whether this update produces the kind of high quality click that Google has been delivering for some time.

Much less spammy that the last few updates - I feel it still fails to identify true authorities and quality. But getting better.

Query = Calvin Klein Perfume

#1 - www.perfumesand.com/calvin-klein-perfume.asp
A little over SEO'd with all the obvious links made for engines not users, but at least it is an actual site.

#2 - www.impressiveperfumes.com/meta/calvinkleinperfume
Scrapper Site with a meta redirect! c'mon guys, that is so 2001, I thought we fixed this one!

#3 - www.eperfumemart.com/fragrance/calvin_klein.html
SEO'd too the teats CJ/Linkshare affiliate Spam

#4 - www.unlimitedperfumes.com/index.php/cPath/25_90
WooHoo! A real retailer! a second teir one mind you but a legit result.

#5 - jewelry.online-site.net/products/Fragrances/Calvin Klein/page1
I think that domain names says enough on it's own but.. Looks like they are taking a merchants datafeed and wrapping it in adsense. Hundreds of subdomains all on different topics, all have 50%+ of the page eaten by adsense, eMiniMalls etc, is that not enough flags?

#6 - www.fragrancex.com/products/_bid_Calvin--Klein-am-lid_C__brands.html
VERY NICE! This is a great retailer - top shelf - One of my biggest competitors. He deserves to be there (though you should have a good look at his backlinks... *cough* *cough*)

#7 - http://www.cosmeticsorbit.com/calvin_klein.htm
Affiliate Spam - Nothing of Value here, just ads and affiliate links. =/

Just gets worse from here so I give up. Definately getting better! Your results are only 75% SPAM now instead of 90%.

Keep it up!

Here is another that is to fun to skip:

Query = Best Perfume Deals
A term I rank #1 for on Google and get reasonable traffic and GREAT conversions for. (sure sign of a good SERP...)
http://www.google.com/search?q=Best+Perfume+Deals

But at Yahoo!
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Best+Perfume+Deals

#1 - www.9-shopping.biz/perfume_best.htm
Adsense / Scapper Site (do any legit businesses use the .biz domain extension? Or was it officially an ICANN cash grab?)

#2 - fragrance-wholesale-perfume.ozget.com
CLASSIC user agent/IP cloak just look at the cache compared to the actual page! And even the actual page is crap... But c'mon User Agent cloaking still works?

#3 - http://www.hbhq.com/storybook/messages/9699.html
404 Error.... With a NO-CACHE. Don't even have to see to know this wash trash.

#4 - most-popular-womens-perfume.ozget.com
This is #2 again!!!!! Fool me once shame on you - fool me twice - well - well - a fool won't get fooled again. (in the mighty words of George Dub-yah)

#5 ??? - You guessed it! our old friend ozget.com is back!
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=site:ozget.com

UGGGGLY!
But I still love Yahoo!, but only because Overture has always been great to me, del.icio.us was a great buy, and flickr is fun.

Thanks Jason Bailey
http://www.Perfume.com/

Season's Greetings!

I read on http://news.stepforth.com/blog/ that you are looking for feedback on the new Yahoo Index. I took the time to look at a few pages. The following are my thoughts.

Cheers

-------------------

Searh:
winnipeg hair salon
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=winnipeg+hair+salon&sm=Yahoo%21+Search&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8

Search result 1 comment:
This is a list of search results that list which most have nothing to do with the city of Winnipeg. This looks like the page is for search engine results, not people looking for a salon. The Web master wants you to cross link with them to get added to their page. Search engine spam.

Search result 2 comment:
This is basically looking for google adword income. there are two winnipeg salons listed, with three google boxes displaying 9 ads and three links pushing you to advertize on their site. More search engine spam.

Search result 3 comment:
This initially looks like a directory that has google ads on it. However, when you try any of the links to "featured salons" or "read more", you expect to see salon listings. What you get is an ad asking you to pay to be shown on their listing. Clicking around for several minutes didn't find one actual salon listing, just ads. More search engine spam.

Search result 4 comment:
A 'directory' with three listings, only two of which are in Winnipeg. The rest of the page is affiliate advertizing. No salon information is given (address, phone, etc); just a link to their site. Spam.

Search result 5 comment:
http://gocanada.about.com/cs/hairandskincare/
Enough said.

Search result 6 comment:
BBB Manitoba | Member Directory |
A legit directory. The first quality result appears after two ads and 5 spammers. The first quality result for the same terms in google arrives after their 'local' links, with two directories and then a real salon (http://www.jamesbarclaysalon.com/). Accurate search hit.

Search result 7 comment:
A directory with sponsored links followed by featured links that have real Winnipeg salons. Accurate search hit.

Search result 8 comment:
The first actual salon site from the results. (Not a directory).

Very Keyword Back-Link/ Link Popularity Based;

Title tag playing less of a role for competative terms.

There appears to be nothing extreme about this update - It would be interesting to observer any modifications of the SERPs during the Click Measuring period

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=AtsgvVcz1dAqnDtYSiIWC01XNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE4NmVsZ2VyBGNvbG8DdwRsA1dTMQRwb3MDMTE1BHNlYwNzcgR2dGlkA0Y2MDlfNzc-/SIG=11i7bo309/EXP=1134767778/**

Would LOVE to find out what ylt ylu and EXP means

My family website http://www.shaikhsiddiqui.com/ is on the first page in Google (3rd position) and MSN (2nd position) when searching for the keyword 'Shaikh'. But it is listed on third page in Yahoo (35th position). I would appreciate any comments.

Thanks in advance.

Nice update, its good to see original content and reasonable link building paying off.

Totally crap

I see mostly irrelevant results for my kewyords [totally irrelevant themes]

I do notice the changes, but scraper sites still dominate the listings.

I want to be a Yahoo user, but when the page name is the same for 15 out of the first 20 (domains are different heaps of keyword nonsense though), I know to go elsewhere.

An improvement, but still a loooooong way to go. Good luck.

I am #2 with one of my oldest sites on Google for my main keywords (of course #1 in MSN for several different kw's). I held the #1 position in Yahoo for a very long time. I was hoping to reclaim that position with this update but I'm nowhere to be found, although my site still exists in your index.

No spam, no black hat, no cloaking, nothing bad. A real local site with original content and relevant linking.

In fact, this update doesn't seem to have changed anything for this particular set of kw's. Unlike some of the other results posted here, at least there's a real site (not a directory) in position 2,3 & 4.

These sites don't have any more content than my site has & have similar or less relevant backlinks, so I don't get it. If I had never held position #1 for so long I wouldn't know any better & wouldn't be wondering what happened.

But I still don't feel you have the best "local" searches for actual companies and that is why I don't use Yahoo personally for my searches.

I have to agree, the latest SERPS at Yahoo are pretty beat, but not as bad as Google by a longshot.

On target keywords "Musician Classifieds"

Only the #2 ranked site (http://wwww.RalphWorld.com) is relevant of being in the top 10. The other sites have no activity, totally irrelevant data (#3-http://www.femalemusician.com ???), or are certainly anything but "Musician Classifieds", however two of the best relevant sites (http://www.bandmix.com and my site http://www.jamconnect.com) are nowhere to be found, yet each site has serious activity and traffic. In fact, the only time you see the two afformentioned sites is in the PPC ads (bummer for us site owners to be paying .10 per click when the other top 10 dogs are getting clicks for free, makes me rethink the whole PPC thing and spend my money elsewhere). Until Y+G get there stuff together I think I'll start using http://www.bzzu.com

Yahoo! What are you doing?!
Type in "Husky" in Yahoo.de and watch the upcoming suggested sites by Yahoo!
Fantastic, because 50% of this sites have no relevant content. Also the KW density seems not to be relevant, or why are sites who are using this KW only once in the text are showing up? What is about the url, for example www.husky-express.com Is this not relevant any longer?
Why are the index pages are lower ranked than the other pages wih less relevant content.
We all think it seems to be chaosand are realy confused and disappointed!
With best regards Holger

Yahoo, I've given up. I have a site that's been up 10 years. Loads of original content. No tricks. No spam. The URL is a city name. #2 on Google and #1 on MSN for a search of that city. You have our first page and that's it. Have no idea what we did wrong and am no longer interested in trying to figure out what we did that is acceptable to Google and MSN, but unacceptable to Yahoo. I know you have penalized numerous other quality sites this way and believe it's starting to catch up to you.

1. Stop fixing things that aren't broke;
2. Stop buying viable companies and fixing them;
3. Let some one else fix Inktomi, now that you broke it;
4. Throw out the Garbage "old links" we have links that have been closed, but you list then, Teach your robots to read Disallow /folder/ (hire MSM to fix this for you);
5. Fix your old Directory, you did some house cleaning but not enough;
6. Please remove the INTERNET SPAM, if you want to be a leader start penalizing Web for SPAM;
7. Instead of Page Ranks, How about a SPAM Ranks, it will tell the consumer how ethical the dot com is;
8. Humble yourself Yahoo, the money you have made form Overture really when to your head but that too will change?

When it come to Internet Spam, if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem, remember its not the Spammers who pay your bills?

Overall update, more crap

PS by the way I heard MSN now has a 22% market share of search, that's gotta hurt. You are now fighting to stay in 2nd spot.

Great update for me. Thank you very much.

I'm thinking you guys are doing a good job with updating your system. I have a suggestion, first the story:

I had some keywords that were doing very well before you did the big update in October or thereabouts. My pages went way down in rank after the update but are slowly climbing back up.

The pages getting the top rank now are the same pages but from different domains. In other words several different domains are ranking with the same exact page.

Can you get rid of this jazz. Searchers don't want or need three or four of the results in the top ten to be the same exact page but on different domains.

Thanks.

I could has sworn that there was no way to contact Yahoo about search engine results a few months ago except if you used their whois email address, and now there seems to be this blog, the email address in the top post, and as it said in my autoresponse:

"To ask questions specific to your website and for site re-reviews please contact Yahoo! Search Customer Care at:
http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/ysearch/cgi_feedback"

Big improvement. Unfortunately, this last update has been bad for my website. I'm no longer #1 on Yahoo for "political offices" and I think something else is wrong, but I don't know what. My visitors have been way down the over past few days, and why they're way down compared to last year makes no sense at all.

I see even more spam now

Can we expect more updates in the near future? If I recall correctly, the Fifth Update was about a month ago. Is this going to start being a monthly thing?

Thank you and good work!

Tim Meyer has politely requested that we include specifics in our comments. In the Fourth Weather Report, Jeremy Zawodny requested the same in a “Yahoo! arrogant” tone. I’m happy to do so. I’m almost afraid not to. Scumbag Yahoo! customers need to stay in-line.

Actually, I’m happy to do anything I can to help the most visited website on the Internet do their job. I’m flattered that a company that had free cash flow of $345 million in the third quarter needs my help.

For the past couple of months Yahoo! has been accurately indexing my pages. With this update, Yahoo! is again indexing URLs that have not been in existence for over two years. At Yahoo!’s request, I installed 301 redirects on all 1,200 plus internal pages. (The other search engines didn’t need this help, but I was happy to spend my time and money to help Yahoo!)

Here’s just one example from Yahoo! Site Explorer…as a specific:
Guadalupe River Visitor - Your Travel & RE Guide
www.hill-country-visitor.com/?city=86- 22k - Cached - Explore URL

This page has a 301 redirect (moved permanently) to http://www.hill-country-visitor.com/default.asp/city/86. It’s just one of many old URLs with a 301 being indexed. I guess Yahoo! Site Exporer could be wrong, which means…never mind.

I’m not a programmer or high tech guy, but I know a couple here in Texas. If the Yahoo! engineers need help with 301s, I’ll be happy to get one someone in touch with them…at my expense, of course. Just let me know. Or, you might suggest that they search for the term “301 redirect” on any major search engine.

Please let me know if there’s any way I can help Yahoo! do its job.

Copy to: ystfeedback@yahoo.com

If by "arrogant" you mean "exasperated", yes. It's really hard for people to track down problems if you say there is a problem but offer no details.

It's a two-way street and I alawys feel like many of the folks commenting on index updates expect us to be mind readers.

Jeremy, Thanks for your response. I understand, and can certainly relate to, your “exasperation”. For over three years, I’ve been trying to help Yahoo! with the basics of indexing and ranking my pages. To date, I’ve failed. So, I definitely know what it’s like to try and track down problems while Yahoo! offers no details.

And, as you know, Yahoo! search engine engineers do not consider communications to be a two way street. And, they expect us regular folks to be mind readers.

Yes, I can understand your “exasperation”. Can you understand mine?

So we take time out of our busy days to help Yahoo! out...

But here we are 4/5 days after I posted about an OBVIOUS spammer owning 3 out of the top five spots. Yet there they still are!

For shame - you ask us to publicly out your embarrassing oversights but don't cover yourself up when we point to emperor Yahoo's blatant lack of clothing.

Obviously Jeremy and Tim read these comments, why not act on them? And yes I did email it in as well.

I just input all the feedback from the posts into our system and some of the Yahoo search quality people should start looking at these issues soon. Thanks very much for the valuable feedback in this thread to all who contributed.
Tim

Welcome all of you!!! It's great to see so many people becoming involved. If you didn't know about ONE your friends and family probably don't either, so spread the word!
http://bmw-1series.4t.com/
Much love always...

In January 2005 Arlingtoncards.com received 1,895 referrals from search.yahoo.com. In December 2005 Arlingtoncards.com received 245 referrals from search.yahoo.com. This drop occurred while Arlingtoncards.com is a growing and thriving website with well over 1,000 pages of local directory information, historical information and news information, etc. designed for a local audience of people who live, work and play in Arlington Heights, IL. The site grows by 2-10 pages every week; and every week, I get comments from local individuals who are impressed by the information they find useful on Arlingtoncards.com. My return visitors are steady.

Nevertheless, by some act of Yahoo!, Arlingtoncards.com is not deemed worthy of sending web searching individuals from Yahoo! search pages. Yahoo! only indexes about 100 of the pages on Arlingtoncards.com. Web users are missing out on over 1,000 of Arlingtoncards.com pages, which are not spam, or cloaked, etc. There are ads on many pages, but they are ads that are content related which add value, not spam. At one time searches for 'Arlington Heights news' or Arlington Heights restaurants' or 'Arlington Heights weather' brought users to Arlingtoncards.com. Now these search results bring a few useful other sites, but then a barrage of spam for real estate sites, limo sites or even an insect exterminator site.

Bottom line is I think Yahoo! has a lot of work to do. From my perspective Yahoo! has never been worse. Yahoo! news and Yahoo! finance are still the best, though.

I'm still waiting for the Yahoo search engine to turn around again. For nearly a year, my site was getting more traffic from Yahoo than from Google and now the ratios is 1,000 to 1. I know that was a WAHM Resource site that is content based - articles with static pages that was getting 1500 visitors a month from yahoo which is now averaging around 100 visitors from the yahoo search engine makes no sense to me. At this point, I'm not sure where to turn for traffic from Yahoo. I still keep Yahoo for my home page and rely heavily on yahoo for news and blogs but I don't use Yahoo anymore for searches because I have to wade back about 5 - 7 pages to find relevant sites for the keywords I have put in. Thank you.

I have 3 domains registered in 2003 that only have the main page indexed. ??? I have no clue why Yahoo de-listed all the other pages attatched to those domains and they won't return my emails either :(

My main page has the title 'Arlington Heights Home of the Cardinals' If I enter that text in Yahoo! I get nothing that leads to my site. I could accept that I wouldn't be the top page. BUT NOTHING?!!! I gave up after checking 5 search result pages. I show up second tonight on Google.

How rude do you want to be Yahoo! How unaccountable do you want to be Yahoo! How unreliable do you want to be Yahoo!

Aside from the page title, that text appears nowhere on your site. I'm guessing, though, since you didn't include the URL for your site. I could be looking at the wrong one.

The tone of *your* message sound accusatory and rude to me. I'm not sure how differences in our ranking systems makes us "unaccountable" and "unreliable." Can you elaborate on that?

Jeremy ... thanks for responding. I think my frustration is coming from the fact that Yahoo used to be very good at including pages which perhaps gave some relevence to page titles in the search results. The rudeness comes from the fact that I am extremely frustrated trying to contact Yahoo and getting nowhere. The page I was referring to was the index page of Arlingtoncards.com. The other pages that come up in your result for the search 'Arlington Heights Home of the Cardinals' have multiple occurrences of the word 'home' or 'Arlington' but they don't have the phrase 'Arlington Heights Home of the Cardinals' A search of the phrase enclosed in quotes DOES bring up Arlingtoncards.com. The whole Arlingtoncards.com site has about 1000 pages, which Yahoo! Search Site Explorer only shows about 261. It once detected over 560 ... I think in early Fall of 2005. One of my important pages Arlingtoncards.com/aroundtown/foodrest3.htm dropped off of your index last Fall and has not been back (even though I have tried to submit it). That page alone used to get about 20 unique visits per day from Yahoo referrals. Today, I am lucky if all of my pages get 20 referrals from Yahoo! The search results that come up for keywords that I check seem very irrelevant. For example if I include Arlington Heights Illinois restaurants, I might get restaurants from Arlington, VA or real estate company pages from Illinois or even limousine company pages before any of mine show up in the results.

As far as my use of 'accountable' or 'unreliable' I would respectfully hope that relevant results would be the goal of your adjusting the ranking or whatever tweaking you do with the search engine. One additional thing regarding the restaurant page. Once upon a time, when I did a search for inlinks to that page I noticed that some other indexing spam type of sites had dozens of pages with very similar content that all included a link to my restaurant page. I have always had in the back of my mind that perhaps the action of those other companies (with absolutely no association to me) caused my page to be banned. Again thanks for your response

Jeremy ... thanks for responding. I think my frustration is coming from the fact that Yahoo used to be very good at including pages which perhaps gave some relevence to page titles in the search results. The rudeness comes from the fact that I am extremely frustrated trying to contact Yahoo and getting nowhere. The page I was referring to was the index page of Arlingtoncards.com. The other pages that come up in your result for the search 'Arlington Heights Home of the Cardinals' have multiple occurrences of the word 'home' or 'Arlington' but they don't have the phrase 'Arlington Heights Home of the Cardinals' A search of the phrase enclosed in quotes DOES bring up Arlingtoncards.com. The whole Arlingtoncards.com site has about 1000 pages, which Yahoo! Search Site Explorer only shows about 261. It once detected over 560 ... I think in early Fall of 2005. One of my important pages Arlingtoncards.com/aroundtown/foodrest3.htm dropped off of your index last Fall and has not been back (even though I have tried to submit it). That page alone used to get about 20 unique visits per day from Yahoo referrals. Today, I am lucky if all of my pages get 20 referrals from Yahoo! The search results that come up for keywords that I check seem very irrelevant. For example if I include Arlington Heights Illinois restaurants, I might get restaurants from Arlington, VA or real estate company pages from Illinois or even limousine company pages before any of mine show up in the results.

As far as my use of 'accountable' or 'unreliable' I would respectfully hope that relevant results would be the goal of your adjusting the ranking or whatever tweaking you do with the search engine. One additional thing regarding the restaurant page. Once upon a time, when I did a search for inlinks to that page I noticed that some other indexing spam type of sites had dozens of pages with very similar content that all included a link to my restaurant page. I have always had in the back of my mind that perhaps the action of those other companies (with absolutely no association to me) caused my page to be banned. Again thanks for your response

My website Wholesale Directory
comes up on the first pages of MSN and Yahoo for hundreds of terms like ,wholesale directory and wholesalers in usa, but I don't get ANY traffic at all from Google..not even 1 a week,

How can this be ? How can I come first for one keyword in MSN but not even in first 1000 for same words in Google.Its baffling me..I sent emails to Google and get no answer..

>>I feel it still fails to identify true authorities and quality. But getting better.
>>Query = Calvin Klein Perfume

www.perfumesand.com/calvin-klein-perfume.asp still in #1 position, but the rest of the spam is gone now. Big improvement in perfume online store business!