Yahoo penalizing affiliate sites

I got this article e-mailed to me from a friend, and just cut and pasted it in. Is there legitamacy to this ???? Is this why my traffic went south??? anybody have any conclusions????

Thanks spartan396

Yahoo penalizing affiliate sites

From the WebMasterWorld forums comes word that Yahoo's cracking down on affiliate sites. The thread, six pages long at the time of this writing, includes snippets of letters from Yahoo to the forum members, many of whom have been banned.


From what I gathered, Yahoo's weeding out sites with content that appears on duplicate sites. Affiliate sites are hit especially hard by the campaign.

Eyeinthesky said, "I got a reply from Y! that they don't oppose affiliate sites but they don't want their index to be full of the same stuff..."

Gavstar reported that, "they are saying that my site has been banned because I have traded links with other webmasters. And because I have affiliate links on my site."

Some consider the penalization to be more like persecution. "I think this is an awful decision and isn't being applied fairly either," said TravelMan.

"If you are a traffic passer, or have heavy affiliate content then your entire domain will be blocked from their index," continued TravelMan. He also claimed that, "there isn't a route back via pfi either, so don't waste your time or money. I've tried and failed."


Tim Mayer, Yahoo's Director Of Product Management, who posts there as "Tim," said early in the thread that if you've been banned and are not sure why you should "try emailing webmasterworldfeedback@yahoo.com."

Neither he nor any other Yahoo representatives appear anywhere else in the thread.

I wouldn't say they are penalizing affiliate sites, but rather sites with duplicate content. Which seems like a good idea to me.

- Shawn

Here is the article from WebProNews.

http://www.webpronews.com/insiderre...liateSites.html

PK have you reached any conclusions on this Inktomi penalty that migrated to Yahoo? Seems to hit the PFI sites the worst. Or have you paid much attention to it? I haven't figured it out since September.

All I have noticed so far is that Ink did a crappy job indexing dynamic sites and the new spider is doing a better job but is SSSLLLOOOWWW. InkBot had a problem with my SIDs but I'm fixing that and the new bot seems to be doing alittle better.

I haven't noticed any penalties being carried over but wouldn't be surprised if the new Yahoo algo had a problem.......remember Florida??

seems like a good idea to me.

I agree It is a good idea, -- if that is the motive, If the motive is to try to get rid of affiliate publishing sites near the top of the serps, then I have a problem with it. -- hope they don't go down that road.

spartan396

Oh, it's not just duplicate content... it includes affiliate sites based on COMPLETELY original content with affiliate links in a side menu only.

...but how does Yahoo know the sidebar links would be affiliate ?

does anyone find it curious that yahoo thinks it is so horrible for their to be multiple affiliate web pages in the regular search results ... but they DO ALLOW affiliate sites to all advertise in the PAY PER CLICK spots .... ???

So, a dozen affiliate sites in the free serps is SPAM .... but a dozen affiliates all bidding up the prices for the pay per click spots is OK .... not spam as log as you pay??


convenient theory for yahoo-overture ...

is anyone here suprised about that??

ps ... not to point all the heat on yahoo-overture .... google does the same thing ... they let multiple affiliates put pay per click ads in the same term ... they even use the affiliate host url in the top to make things even more confusing to the users .... or maybe more inviting ... either way .... BID PRICES GO UP THE MORE PEOPLE are bidding ... so the policy is easy to understand ....

Hi shawn ...

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I wouldn't say they are penalizing affiliate sites, but rather sites with duplicate content. Which seems like a good idea to me.
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i agree with your statement to a limited extent .... for example ,,,, i think that google's directory listings ought to be excluded from the serps .... since they are "duplicate content" ... in fact they are copyrighted duplicate content ....

why should dmoz directory be represented twice in the serps .... and not only that ... but the sites listed in them are getting two pr benefits ....

i must admit ... that sounds a lot like spam to me .... maybe yahoo considers that spam also .... i have not seen any dmoz or google directory listings in the Yahoo serps .... has anyone else??

>InkBot had a problem with my SIDs but I'm fixing that and the new bot seems to be doing alittle better.

I saw somebody report a bug regarding this.

Sicerely, I don't care for the Yahoo! work.

I offer good and free content on my sites. The users will go on the search engine which offer better results. Yahoo! is in a dead way if persist on these PPE* strategies.

And, anyway, Yahoo! sends me only the 3% of my visitors. Nothing will change if this percentage moves to 2% or to 4%.


*PPE: Pay Per Everything

try to register your site in it's directory

It's not exactly rocket science, standard affiliate links are easy to spot both manually or by a bot.

Personally, because it is SELECTED affiliates that are being penalized, I believe the penalties being incurred are manual.