Does Yahoo! Site Match Guarantee Inclusion In Yahoo! Search?

No. Site Match only guarantees a review of your submitted URLs within 4 business days. If a URL is refused, you get a second review of the URL at no additional cost. However, after that you must pay again for review.

Why Is My Site In The Yahoo! Directory, But Not In The Yahoo! Search Results?

The reason is because there are separate editorial guidelines for the Yahoo! Directory, Add URL, crawler and Site Match services.

Directory submissions are reviewed by editors only. Sites from the Add URL, Site Match service or crawler are reviewed both by editors and algorithmically.

If the Yahoo! spider catches a site using search engine optimization spam techniques, such as hidden text, it would bar the site from its index. This and other search engine spam techniques are quite as easy to detect by human editors.

As such, a site could be accepted into the Yahoo! Directory but not into the Yahoo! Search results.

This is OK because the directory listings are not ranked by relevance and therefore are not influenced by search engine spam techniques, such as the hidden text. But with the algorithmic search, the hidden text is in violation of editorial guidelines because it is an attempt to influence the relevance of the Yahoo! Search results.

So inclusion in the Yahoo! Directory does not guarantee inclusion in the Yahoo! Search results.

My Site Has Been Excluded From Yahoo! Search. How Can I Find Out Why?

If your site is excluded from Yahoo! Search, and you're unsure why, you could try emailing webmasterworldfeedback@yahoo.com. This was suggested by Tim Mayer, Yahoo's Director Of Product Management, in a WebmasterWorld forum thread - http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum35/1845.htm.

My Site Has Been Excluded From Yahoo! Search. Where Can I Appeal Against This Ban?

If you believe your site was incorrectly excluded from the Yahoo! Search results, or you feel that you have corrected the issues that led to your exclusion, you can ask Yahoo! to re-evaluate your site.

Contact Yahoo! at:

reportsearchspam@yahoo-inc.com

This is the only email address you should use. As you might imagine, Yahoo! have a backlog of requests for review, so please be patient. It may take at least two months for your site to be re-evaluated and may take longer for that site to be updated in the search results.

How To Submit Not-For-Profit Sites To The Yahoo! Public Site Match Program

Not-for-profit sites can submit their webpages to the Yahoo! Public Site Match program. To do that, send an email to Yahoo! at psm@yahoo-inc.com with your site information to see if it qualifies for the program. They will follow up with you if additional information is required.

I've Heard That Yahoo! Excludes Affiliate Sites From Its Yahoo! Search Results - Is That True?

Kind of. Yahoo! says they don't want its Yahoo! Search index to contain duplicate content. So they try to avoid indexing affiliate sites that display the same sales letters, articles, etc., as other affiliates of the product/service.

So the answer is that Yahoo! is excluding webpages with the same content. It just happens that many affiliate sites use the same content, and is caught in the crossfire.

I'm still conducting tests on how to optimize webpages for higher rankings in the new Yahoo! Search index. Hopefully I will have something for you in the next update. Please accept my sincerest apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Yahoo!'s Own Search Engine Ranking Tips

Yahoo! offers some search engine ranking tips in its, 'How do I improve the ranking of my web site in the search results?' Help section.

For your convenience, I have republished the tips here (Gee, I hope I don't get a letter from Yahoo!'s lawyers for this):

  • Think carefully of the key terms that your users will search on to find content like yours. Use those terms to guide the text and construction of your page.
  • Users are more likely to click a link if the title matches their search. Choose terms for the title that match the concept of your document.
  • Use a "description" meta-tag and write your description accurately and carefully. After the title, the description is the most important draw for users. Make sure the document title and description attract the interest of the user but also fit the content on your site.
  • Use a "keyword" meta-tag to list key words for the document. Use a distinct list of keywords that relate to the specific page on your site instead of using one broad set of keywords for every page.
  • Keep relevant text and links in HTML. Placing them in graphics or image maps means search engines can't always search for the text, and the crawler can't follow links to your site's other pages. An HTML site map, with a link from your welcome page, can help make sure all your pages are crawled.
  • Use ALT text for graphics. It's good page design to accommodate text browsers or visually impaired visitors, and it helps improve the text content of your page for search purposes.
  • Correspond with webmasters and other content providers and build rich linkages between related pages.
  • Note: "Link farms" create links between unrelated pages for no reason except to increase page link counts. Using link farms violates Yahoo!'s Site Guidelines and will not improve your page ranking.
  • Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines
    http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?locale=en_US&page=content&y=PROD_SRCH&id=SLN2245&actp=lorax