~~~High Search Engine Rankings~~~
From: Richard Baccus
Hey there,
Love the roundtable and keep it coming. Our main site has been in the
Yahoo directory for 4 years and is the source of major traffic for us.
I just recently used Yahoo Business Express to submit a subsidiary
site to Yahoo. I am pleased to say that after 5 days, Yahoo notified
me that my submission was accepted and would post shortly. What
happened next horrified me.
It seems that instead of listing the new site name in it’s own
listing, they replaced our old mainstay listing with the new one.
That listing accounts for approximately 3 million dollars a year in
traffic. They have not given me a reason as to why they did this.
The only thing that I can come up with is that they look at the
company and prefer to list one site per company. Our subsidiary
site only sells refurbished and open box products. For $200 I
couldn't have ruined our main business easier. So if you already have a
company listing on Yahoo, when submitting a subsidiary site, be
careful and make sure there are no references to your main company on
the site. You can add them later. We are currently in appeal.
Thank you,
Richard Baccus
http://www.abc-vacuum.com/
1-800-285-8145
~~~Jill's Response~~~
Obviously this is not a question, but I felt Richard's warning was
important to post here for various reasons. One thing that I gleaned
out of it is that where Yahoo! is concerned, if you have a listing
that gets traffic, you're probably better off to leave well enough
alone. By submitting an additional site, Richard brought attention to
his older listing, which they then decided to axe. I think what they
did is atrocious. They do seem to have this elitist attitude there,
that they can do whatever they want. But you know what? It's their
Directory and they CAN do whatever they want! They don't owe anyone a
listing.
When I first started in web design, Yahoo! was new. I submitted my
business site which was on my ISP's server. It got listed right away.
Years later, when I got my own domain, I filled out Yahoo's change
form to let them know about the new URL. Instead of changing it to
the new one, they simply removed the old one. How nice of them!
One thing we all have to remember when dealing with Internet
Directories such as Yahoo! is that they don't owe us anything. Even
when you pay for your listing with Yahoo!, you're only paying for them
to *consider* your site for inclusion. Remember this when you're
thinking about submitting a sub-page of your site, or a mirror image
of your site, or even a totally different site that your company owns.
If it calls attention to your company, your other listings could be in
jeopardy.
Sad, but true.
Jill
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