Why doesn't Yahoo index my site?

Yayagogo · #1 (**permalink**) 08-04-2004, 04:23 PM

I have waited many, MANY months...and then waited some more for my directory www.Decidio.com to be indexed by Yahoo. I can see the Yahoo Slurp come by now and again, but it never stays long (compared to Google) when it does come by.

When I do a search for my site on Yahoo, the results consist of pages that do not exist, and just take the searcher to the site's homepage...weird.

Google has no problem with indexing the site, but Yahoo does. I have tried everything to get indexed by Yahoo (including paying to be listed in their directory), but NOTHING WORKS.

HELP!!! What are we doing wrong? Any helpful comments would be appreciated.

robinev · #2 (**permalink**) 08-04-2004, 08:37 PM

I'm afraid I can't help with Yahoo's bizarre SE behavior, but I sure can't see any reason why it shouldn't be indexed by them.

You said that they've included old pages from your site in your index, so maybe your seeing another example of their 301 bug that is discussed in an upstream topic.

I mainly wanted to congratulate you on a great site. That's the kind of directory that we see to little of. Too many directory sites claim to be general-purpose indexes when they can't possibly do that. Yours is laser-focused and therefore has a far better chance of actually capturing a usable percentage of relevant links.

Yayagogo · #3 (**permalink**) 08-05-2004, 07:18 PM

I really appreciate the positive comments, robinev. We have spent a lot of time and effort into developing the directory to dominate our niche.

I just wish someone could tell me why Yahoo seldom spiders the thousands of pages within the site, and when it does, it has bogus URL's (example: www.decidio.com/index.cfm?act=home&id=25802) that just go to our homepage.

If one of you Yahoo Gurus out there could help us figure this out, I would greatly appreciate the help!

DrTandem1 · #4 (**permalink**) 08-06-2004, 05:59 PM

That site is indexed by Yahoo. Where it ranks for various search terms, I can't answer.

Medianeer · #5 (**permalink**) 08-06-2004, 10:38 PM

We have the same problem with our site www.allusads.com. It's been months and yahoo, after slurp visiting almost on a daily basis to index, keeps showing old pages that don't exist. We changed our site structure many months ago (around march), the old pages keep coming up and the new ones are still missing in action. Visitors end up bouncing to the homepage. Any ideas?

DrTandem1 · #6 (**permalink**) 08-06-2004, 11:01 PM

One of my sites is in their directory from years back. It still shows the old company name that was changed three or four years ago in the results.

If Yahoo really wants to over-take Google, they should do something about that.

Also, many times the results returned have the same sites listed multiple times per page. It's really a waste and show that they have some technical issues.

jmayala · #7 (**permalink**) 08-07-2004, 01:29 AM

Funny - I cant get listed on Google for a long time.

Try this site for yahoo submission:

http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/

It worked for my site.

Good luck

antimonkey · #8 (**permalink**) 08-07-2004, 10:04 PM

Hello all,
I have the same problem with my site, www.hellomobile.com. Google and other engines that are optimized by it are sending me traffic, but Yahoo (Slurp), despite the fact that it produces search results from my site, has failed to index me. In fact, Yahoo does'nt even produce search results for hellomobile.com when queried.
Can anyone shed some light on the subject... besides whats in the topic posts and the 301 issue.
Regards,
Raj

sfowler · #9 (**permalink**) 08-07-2004, 10:21 PM

I'm not really sure you need a reason for incometence, if it is that. They may be hoping we will all get desperate and throw USD299 at them in the hope of a listing.

DrTandem1 · #10 (**permalink**) 08-07-2004, 10:27 PM

I was thinking that they wanted the money, too. That was when one of my sites was in their directory, but not in their search results. They are two different animals. Being in one does not necessarily mean you will be in the other.

Then, for no apparent reason, that site showed up in their search results recently. I haven't a clue what made the difference.

sfowler · #11 (**permalink**) 08-09-2004, 09:02 AM

You're probably quite right, but I am sure they hope people will pay for inclusion out of sheer desperation.

lorikelley66 · #12 (**permalink**) 08-09-2004, 02:17 PM

i agree everything looks pretty good. the only thing that could be causing a problem is you are missing

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

at the top of your code, and there seems to be a lot of empty space before your HTML even starts. You also need to add the basic META tags to your pages (description and keywords). hope these help!

Sergio Simarro · #13 (**permalink**) 08-10-2004, 03:27 PM

Hello.

I can say something that perhaps can help you.
The enterprise for which I work, has some sites. The main site www.centauro.net is working since 1999. It ranks well in Google but it did not appear in Yahoo.

In January, we launched www.luxor-benidorm.com, optimized for seacrh engines and we more content than the Centauro site.

And some months later, www.luxor-benidorm.com begins to rank in first page in Yahoo (#10 http://es.search.yahoo.com/search/es...eb-t&x=wrt&y=y), and with no money paid! One thins I have noticed: it indexes less pages than Google, but it updates pages indexed.

I have tried to add content in www.centauro.net (but it does not work yet) and we are building a new search engine optimized site, so I will be able to update this post at Christmas.

Good luck and for me it is very difficult too, but we will try to help us!

Kind regards.

I have read it before, but it seems that Yahoo wants content and a high keyword density.

twhittle · #14 (**permalink**) 08-13-2004, 02:50 PM

I've been hearing this philosophy...whether you agree with them or not is up to you, obviously:

Yahoo is apparently not indexing as many pages of sites for several reasons:

1) Monetary - to encourage some (I take it to be many) sites to PAY for more pages to be indexed. After all, they ARE in business to make money.

2) Technology - Yahoo simply isn't caught up to speed on Google's technology of indexing so many pages in such a short amount of time.

I've also read that with MSN, there are even FEWER pages indexed than Yahoo.

Hope that helps.

T

antimonkey · #15 (**permalink**) 08-14-2004, 07:27 PM

Hi all,
Slurp came by today and has been for the past few days. But it is trying to crawl pages from my old site(which it probably has indexed from 5 years back as my site was re-done 2 mos ago. Here is a sample of the attempt:

Host: 66.196.91.90 Url: /wireless/store/review.asp?productid=75 Http Code : 404
Date: Aug 14 09:51:09 Http Version: HTTP/1.0" Size in Bytes: 30087
Referer: - Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp;

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)

Host: 66.196.91.104 Url: /robots.txt Http Code : 404
Date: Aug 14 09:51:08 Http Version: HTTP/1.0" Size in Bytes: 30087
Referer: - Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp;

The new site(2 mos. old with no .asp pages) by the way is not indexed by Yahoo. Are the 404 messages Slurp get's causing my site not to be indexed? Is there anything I can do about it???
Any help, tips and suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks