Footer Navigation Penalized?

Someone mentioned in a conversation while I was up at the search engine strategies conference in NYC, that footer navigation is looked upon unfavorably by Inktomi, and can be cause for penalty. One of the positiontech reps. I think mentioned it, and didn't divulge much into why it was penalized, but just that it was on some cases. Has anyone had any experience with this type of penalty?

Well for clarification, I looked a little deeper into what might cause a penalization for such a common use of internal linking. The first thing that came to mind in this type of penalization was that Inktomi considered the fact that you could be hiding something in your footer navigation. Hide...hide..what? While I love the use footer links at the bottom of the page for search engines, it may not always be the most efficient navigation for users (if its your only type of navigation), one reason Ink may not favor it. As for what one might hide at the bottom of page, it could be left up for debate. But I am willing to guess it has to do with link farms, and excessive linking of pages both internal and external. I honestly have been to many websites that have been a prime example of "self-inflicted link abuse" and throw in (even as hidden text) so many links it takes 30 min. to scroll to the bottom of the page. Ekk! They might have developed a way to detect this. It could have arisen from increased instance reports from human editorial reviews too...?

After some other research the only other reasons I found from the lack their of information about this was:
1. Some forms of content management systems could potentially get penalized for incorrect use defined sections of a website identifiable to users, if a Inktomi search is in use on the website. I found this info in a Inktomi Search Software manual. It may just be rubbish, but I thought I would report it.
2. Use of heading tags (h1, h2, h3) in the footer of page, linked or unlinked in a spamming type fashion. Huh? Basically do not use heading tags on the bottom of the page in a link navigation.

So what do yall think, load of b.s. or its possible?

IMHO it's hardly worth worrying about Inktomi anymore, especially after MSN switches, ( and I sure hope they do a LOT better job than the dog s*it results there showing now )

This is where I believe Yahoo/Inktomi has gone totally overboard with penalizing sites and explains the large percentage of penalizations. They’re so scared you’re inter-linking sites they’re banning many sites using links other than the navigation side bar and site maps. If the link is accessible by clicking text on the page it is not hidden, to Google or me, but apparently Yahoo/Inktomi manual reviewers perceive differently. Sure things are disguised but it is not hidden text per sec. Many people use the method to keep competitors from sitting there all day copying your code. Apparently Google has no problems with it. They should be looking at duplicate content and redirects, not how people are designing sites. As Yahoo/PT reps have said you should be designing your site for content not for rankings. I'd love to do that but being ranked 500th doesn't pay bills.

Yes, I believe most of this is reported by competitors and manual reviews catch most of it. Inktomi/PT doesn’t want to reveal it because it is a very questionable penalty based upon individual perceptions and opinion and shows the mammoth flaws in Inktomi technology. Basically you can have a site with 5,000 pages of spam but if you’re inter-linking a few pages you can be banned for life in Inktomi.

The issue is a little more complicated than it seems and wrongfully penalizes many sites.

I'd love to hear some more input on this and what penalties people think Inktomi/Yahoo are utilizing other than the usual.

P.S. Phoenix - PT reps in September were suggestive this was the reason for the outbreak of penalties in Inktomi then. The penalty then seemed like, if we don't like you we can find something on your site to ban you. I imagine you can find something questionable on 95% of all sites.

outland, interesting, this would parallel with other hideous penalizations that were said to occur around then. Such as affiliate issues, inter-linking, and meta-tag abuse. And if any one can remember at one time, Inktomi was manually penalizing site for title tags that were too long. It was bordering on the insane at the time. And yes many people did get incorrectly penalized.

I do remember one meaningful conversation with Positiontech rep last year on recoving from penalizations in Inktomi. Now, let it be known that Inktomi is not always very nice to PT regarding penalizations, and for the most part have absolutely no control over who gets penalized. From what he told me, they can't even email Ink about getting someone removed from the penalization list. The one guy I talked to was about to throw his hands up and quit, cause he was so tired of the Ink b.s. relating to these penalizations. But he also said that Inktomi regularly goes back and checks on sites that were previously penalized for whatever reason. They have a large intranet database of penalized sites in the millions. But as for the amount of time on getting re-reviewed, is completely up to them. Overall I don't think they are doing a horrible job at policing their index, they have to do what they have to do, to keep relevancy the best possible, and eliminate spam in any way possible. They are vigorous about keeping the index clean, and almost way too much at times.




Ain't that the truth, it almost impossible to have a perfect site in respects to the search engines. And what is one engines, apple pie, could be sour grapes for another.

I am interested to hear more from anyone too, about what they could have been penalized on, regarding Inktomi. Have you been penalized for anything above? Do you know the cause of the penalization? Maybe we can get a list together so we can let everyone know what not to do.

i was told if you are penalized then you are excluded from the index .... but i have a site that is stuck in the last serp for whatever you search for ... some kind of penalty that affects rank ... not inclusion .... but i have not determined why it is penalized yet .... so i would LIKE to see a list of what they are penalizing also ....

that site does not crosslink at all .... it does have some footer navigation links (to internal pages and maybe one external link) .... but i hardly ever see a site that does not have some footer navigation along with the copyright stuff there ....

so, i doubt there is any footer penalty .... maybe they just do not count any below the fold links though ....

ps ... we have OTHER sites doing fine in INK which MUCH MORE extensive footer activity than the one which does not show up .... so that is consistent with my conclusion ...

i have a guess it may be they are penalizing mirrow content .... and thet they have confused this sites as being a miorrow site with another domain name we send there also ... but that is a plain 301 redirect ... and SHOULD not be a problem ... but i think yahoo is having difficulty with these kind of basics so that is why i suspect this ....

i KNOW yahoo ferrots out mirrow sites and is dropping BOTH of the sites, not just one ... i saw a comeititor dissappear recently for that ....

Inktomi doesn't actually seem to ban many sites. It becomes a ranking penalty where you end up at the bottom of the results. That's what many people are referring to as the ban.

Penalties though would be inconsistent because I believe most things are being reported by competitors that leads to a manual review.

About ten sites that I have seen questionably penalized, that I couldn't spot a thing wrong with, Inktomi was arguing they were crosslinking to much. I saw no mirrors. It was some very harsh stuff only pages devoid of all but menu links could pass. On other sites it was clear any hidden text will definitely get you permanently banned. It was also clear they looked for hidden links on sub pages. It was two much nickel and dime stuff that only competitors would be interested in and a manual review would reveal.

There are just to many reports of sites dissappearing in comparsion to other engines to think some nit picking isn't going on.

[QUOTE=Phoenix]outland, interesting, this would parallel with other hideous penalizations that were said to occur around then. Such as affiliate issues, inter-linking, and meta-tag abuse. And if any one can remember at one time, Inktomi was manually penalizing site for title tags that were too long. It was bordering on the insane at the time. And yes many people did get incorrectly penalized.
QUOTE]

I remember those things and agree Inktomi has done some strange things in the past.

I got a kick out of the head support person at PT telling me, among other things, to contact 16 large seach engines and ask them to remove my listings. They said those listings would be interpreted as mirror sites in Inktomi.

Pheonix,

I was talking to you at SES NY about my experiences with Inktomi and my conversation with Positiontech rep.
Positiontech rep wasn't all that knowledgeable after all, as mine did not appear to be a human review ban for bottom of the page navigation, which was what he said it was.

JoeBob,

You are being penalized by an algorithm, not banned by human review. I've been through the same, see http://forums.seochat.com/t7659/s.html
Are you doing any PFI other than through Positiontech (i.e. trusted feed or trusted feed through an advertising firm)? Do you have affiliates linking into your site?
If you PM me your URL I'd be glad to look into it further. I got back in, so there is hope.

KD

KD it seems you are one of the exceptions. I'm seeing hundreds of posts that complain about the Ink/Yahoo PFI penalties. Yahoo claims its deluged by the old Ink penalties and they'll be backlogged for about 2 months while they are manually reviewing. Site Match is using manual reviews. You must be using something different that changes page elements or url's to correct for the penalty. It seems like if it was automated PFI penalties they could correct at a quicker pace.