Strange ranking problem in Yahoo...

[rcmedia2004]

Hi,

I have been optimizing one of the sub-pages in our site for one of our top keywords using both on-page optimization and good quality highly relevant organic backlinks using the keyword in the anchor text.
At first this strategy seemed to pay off... We were #5 in Yahoo for keyword for that particluar page for all of July and remained top 10 until about half way through August.
Around August 15th 1 of our keyword sub-product (other non-optimized) pages (keyword - keyword sub product page) started coming up #5 in Yahoo, thus bumping our intended/optimized page down to #6.

If that's not strange enough, about 4 days ago ANOTHER sub-product page started coming up #6 right behind the other sub page and bumped our intended target page right out of the immediate search results.

How the heck could this happen?

[incrediblehelp]

Can you be more specific with examples, this would help.

[Keimos]

Our site is found under 1500+ keywords.

Remember that is does not matter where people find you, it is the fact that they stay and have a look around.

Be a good host and make sure that they get the chance.

As a burglur would say, "The front door is not the only way into a building"

Learn from your experience and put it to good use

[urknighterrent]

Something similar happened to me. An unfinished page suddenly appeared at #9 on yahoo.

The hidden link to the page was in Java, btw. All I can figure is that someone either backlinked to or submitted the unfinished page (not very likely, eh?), or yahoo is getting the hang of java!

Anyway, Look at it as a blessing in disguise. Dress the page up a little for the keywords it's under. Make it a little more entry friendly, and enjoy your traffic.

Make a few changes to your index page, and the #4 slot should be a few short weeks away! Crawlers like dynamic content anyway!

[Deep13]

well i had also faced same problem before..
i was on #5 for couple of months and suddenly i saw my site on #38

Deep

[mountainbuilder]

don't mean to beat the same drum here...because i know you're looking for help...but my site used to be in the top 3 results on the first page of yahoo search and all of a sudden two months later - BAM - i get knocked back to the second page, being like the 30th result...sucked so bad because yahoo was a major contributer to my visits, and as a result i've seen my visits decrease by more than half. even more stupid is that the old page that forwards people to my new site still is ranked much much higher (like my new site should) - and yet for about 4 months now it's had virtually no content on it except a little phrase that says my page has moved and that the visitor will be forwarded in 5 seconds to the new page, etc. etc.

all this leads me to believe that yahoo is way, way behind on spidering and has some major problems with their technique. i have very little respect for yahoo search these days, and don't know what they need to do in order to get their act together. i've heard others mention that there's a big problem with management there....perhaps my site is evidence of this. it just seems like this should have corrected itself a long time ago...yet it's been 4 months of nonsense. it's one thing if my page doesn't rank as high anymore...but quite another thing to have a completely nonrelevant page with absolutely no content rank first page. asinine.

brooks

[ronniethedodger]

Brooks - I feel the same way. It is all FUBAR and they do not appear to know one end from the other ... if you catch my drift. ;0)

The problem boils down to how they are including pages into the index. Per Yahoo's information on inclusion (http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp/slurp-07.html) into the index:


When Yahoo! Slurp crawls pages from your site, the pages are not instantly put into the Yahoo! search index. Once crawled, the documents will be considered for inclusion at the next database update. Pages that are indexed will be able to be seen at the conclusion of the update process.

The key word in that statement is "considered". If you want to know how I feel about it, read the Yahoo Black Hole (http://www.webstractions.com/news/2004/09/yahoo-black-hole-from-slurp-to-yahoo.html).

[moredial]

Hi Rob C

I am not too sure which pages you want to have top in Yahoo. Even so, I had a quick look at some of your pages. I noticed the following:

All pages are well optimized for "favors". Some pages beter so than others. Other words and phrases are not as well optimized. This may explain why some pages are doing beter than you entend them to do.

You have some minor html errors on your pages. A visit to www.w3.org will help you find them quickly.

I have found that Yahoo is very rewarding of 'old fashioned' optimization methods. Page content weighs very heavily. In particular, Yahoo rewards for good usage of TITLE and Hn tags and use of bold. A well focused page will be rewarded with a good position.

Likewise, pages low in content but with heavily focused content do well. If all you have is a keyword rich anchor text, guess what you will be ranked on.

Take care with all search engines if you have unfinished content published on the web. All search engines will find your page sooner or later, even if there are no links to it - how else would they find new sites that have not been submitted to them?

A few months ago I published a part written site so that I could discuss it with a friend. Then I went on holiday. When I came back I found it had been rewarded with some good serps. Oops. This is a site which I know had no links to it. And I never submit a site until I am happy with the optimization.

I hope this answers some of our questions.