Yahoo! rejected?

[jgarner]

I have been consulting for a website, www.animecrave.com, for about a year now. Until recently it was doing extremely well in Yahoo! for some very competitive terms. I hadn't spoken to the customer for a few months and he called me today. He said that he got an email that his site had been rejected from Yahoo! but they would not tell him why. Obviously. So he calls me, and I look at his site.

There is a GREAT deal of javascript for a random banner at the top. And a lot of internal CSS. I advised to make both of those external. But there is also a 0px x 0px iframe on the site that has something to do with the chat and view of people who are online for the streaming video (or something like that. I really don't get that stuff. I'm an SEO, not much for anything else.) Can anyone see anything else that would cause a problem? Were my suggestions good enough?

[DrTandem1]

I'm dubious as to the authenticity of the email. I found the site on Yahoo.

[ehcraig]

All you have to do is go to the Yahoo website and enter this in the search box, "site:www.animecrave.com"

It shows the site along with a cache of the last time it sent the YahooBot to the site.

[MikeinFlorida]

This seems very strange! If you go to marketleap.com and check you will see the site has been indexed by G, msn and yahoo. The other 2 se's have indexed more than 40 pages and yahoo just one so far. Take a look and you'll see. Like mentioned above I really have to question this. The site looks very professionally developed from first appearances.

Sometimes se's do hurt you a bit for too much flash, but I find this very different -- a bit reaching perhaps. Take a good look at this and have your client do the same. I'd also have the client contact yahoo with you to see about the authenticity of this so-called letter. Best of luck!

And hey let us know what happens here please!

[ictadvis]

Originally Posted by DrTandem1

I'm dubious as to the authenticity of the email. I found the site on Yahoo.

I agree with Doctor T – I found the site in YAHOO also. Maybe jgarner’s client didn’t convey his message properly and was trying to say he had been rejected from entering the YAHOO DIRECTORY because that is where the site ain’t at.
I am also intrigued that the site was ranking for particular search terms, that weren’t mentioned in jgarner’s email. I find the Title and Descriptive tag for the home page a little thin and wonder what the intuitive surfer might enter into Yahoo or Google to see this site appear on a page 1 ranking position?????

From ICTADVIS a KEEP IT SIMPLE SEO guy in Scotland providing impartial SEO advice at www.ictadvisor.com

[craigmn3]

Well I didn't check to see if the website was listed or not. My only comment is that the content is WAY down on the page, past alot of code which means virtually nothing in regards to how an engine will rate your page. Lots of nice links though. Content is king and you have it, but it is LOW on your page. See if you can move it up.

[Irishjim]

Craig could not be more correct. A clean code is a happy code.

Other than all the space junk in there, I can only offer the following advice. I ran a check on your code using the following keywords and phrase:

1. anime episodes and movies
2. anime
3. episodes
4. and
5. movies

You look pretty good as far as Yahoo is concerned with two minor problems. They are:

Some search engines will penalize a web site if the search terms of the Meta Keywords tag don't appear in the body text
of the web page. The search term "watch anime episodes" of your Meta Keywords tag doesn't seem to be
mentioned in the body text of your web page.

You should either remove this search term from your Meta Keywords
tag, or add the search term to the body text of your web page.

Also, your web page uses the Meta Robots tag to allow search engines to index your web page. Actually, you can
remove this tag as search engines will also index your web page if this tag is missing.

These two problems and the messy room shouldn't get you the attention of Yahoo's goon squad.

Think about it... they would be taking off most of the sites on the WWW

[Peter (IMC)]

Seems to be the same problem that most other sites have that are falling out of Yahoo... Cheap backlinks.

[ShootinBlanks]

Would help to move all that javascript and css stuff to an external file or two and call them in the code.

[oceanmajk]

An SEO that "doesn't really get all that stuff" about a website? Yikes.

[RegDCP]

I looked at the site and think it has a "keyword stuffing" problem.
How many times is it necessary to read the word Anime?
It is used 40 times on the mainpage.

There is a similar thread at http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic...=319106#319106

I do SEO for clients with pretty good results, and would not repeat a keyphrase more than a few times in a page.

I would move the CSS out of the header for neatness. IMO the code does not interfere with ranking as other than the title and meta tags the engines ignore it.

"cheap" backlins *might* be a problem but from what I've seen on the forums, all the sites having problems share one common "feature". Keyword Stuffing.

I don't think you get penalized by putting keywords in your tags that are not included in your body text, but I do feel that it "dilutes" your keyword "strength".
Keywords in tags are "weighed" according to amount and position in the tag, with the first terms being given more "weight" or importance.
Pages optomized for one phrase will often do much better than a page done for several.

Good luck with the site.
Reg

[itsdonny]

Originally Posted by oceanmajk

An SEO that "doesn't really get all that stuff" about a website? Yikes.

No need for insults just to make yourself feel better.

[Orion]

Those letters are generally sent out when you try to get the site listed in the Yahoo directory and they turn you down.

This site is NOT listed in the Yahoo! Directory - http://search.yahoo.com/search/dir?p...rt&fr2=tab-web

1 reasons the site may NOT have been accepted into the Yahoo Directory (not inclusive, just somethings that I know can get a site rejected)...

Someone tried to list this site via (free directory submission) commercial sites generally require payment.

anime is often associated with porn, the person who reviewed the site may have glanced seen anime and not looked farther.

If the site meets ALL of Yahoo!'s requirements for the directory submission, you CAN and SHOULD appeal the rejection.

http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html?fr=moz2 See at the bottom Directory Submit...

Also verify the email headers if you can to ensure this wasn't just someone jerkin' your chain. =o)

Hope that was helpful!

[LnrdRthr]

You do not have a robots txt. Yahoo will not crawl sites that don't have a robots txt. So -- Add a robots.txt and the site will be crawled inside a week or two.

Create in notepad, a file called:

robots.txt

Then in that file add:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /

User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Allow: /

I can't believe no one has told you.

[itsdonny]

Originally Posted by LnrdRthr

You do not have a robots txt. Yahoo will not crawl sites that don't have a robots txt. So -- Add a robots.txt and the site will be crawled inside a week or two.

Create in notepad, a file called:

robots.txt

Then in that file add:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /

User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Allow: /

I can't believe no one has told you.

I don't have a robot.txt file and yahoo crawls my photography site no problemo and all the time too.

[jgarner]

Originally Posted by ehcraig

All you have to do is go to the Yahoo website and enter this in the search box, "site:www.animecrave.com"

It shows the site along with a cache of the last time it sent the YahooBot to the site.

Yeah it's indexed. But about 5 weeks ago it was on page one for sooooo many terms. I advised to clean the javascript and css. So hopefully that will help move the content up both in location and in code/content ratio. I just didn't know if there was a problem with the really little iframe. Obvously used for a lot of black hat SEO, but not in this case. But I didn't know if a search engine could tell what it was for, or do they just see that it is 0px by 0px and assume if it looks like spam and smells like spam...

[alexj]

Originally Posted by itsdonny

I don't have a robot.txt file and yahoo crawls my photography site no problemo and all the time too.

I agree, you don't need a robots.txt file, but search spiders look for it and get a 404 error when it can't find it. It shouldn't be the cause of the site being dropped though. To allow all robots to spider your site, all you need is this:

User-agent: *
Disallow:

I have had this problem with a few of our older clients website and what I did was clean up the code, get rid of anything that seemed a little spammy, deleted any hidden text (ex. commented out keywords), and submitted the site for reinclusion with Yahoo.

[animecrave]

I came across this threat through google. Here is what Yahoo told us:

----
Thanks for writing the Yahoo! Search and Directory Support.

I understand that you have a question about why your site does not
appear in Yahoo! Search.

It has been determined that your site may not comply with Yahoo!'s
Content Quality Guidelines located at:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearc...etions-05.html.

Below are some answers to common questions regarding this issue:

Q: What are some of the common reasons that a site may violate Yahoo!'s
Content Quality Guidelines?

A: Yahoo!'s Content Quality Guidelines (link above) outline what we are
and are not looking for in pages that we index. Listed below are some of
the more common examples of how a site may violate these guidelines:

- Cloaking (showing crawlers deceptive content about a site)
- Massive domain interlinking- Use of affiliate programs without the
addition of substantial unique content
- Use of reciprocal link programs (aka "link farms")
- Hidden text
- Excessive keyword repetition

Q: If my site violates Yahoo!'s Content Quality Guidelines, can I still
use the Search Submit inclusion program?

A: All pages submitted to Search Submit are editorially reviewed. If a
site has is not in compliance with the content policy guidelines, it is
likely to be rejected by the Search Submit program.


Q: If my site violates Yahoo!'s Content Policy Guidelines, can I use the
Yahoo! Directory Submit program?

A: The Yahoo! Directory and Yahoo! Search Index are different systems.
Inclusion or exclusion from one does not affect the other.

Q: How can I have my site re-reviewed?

A: Please review our content quality guidelines to make sure that your
site meets all of them. When you feel the site is ready, please complete
the form located at:

http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/ysearch/cgi_rereview

to request a re-review of your site. You may wish to include an
explanation of unique features on your site, or details of changes to
your site's content that may assist our editors in their evaluation.

Please allow several weeks for the review process, YST indexing, and a
complete refresh of the database before checking http://search.yahoo.com
to see if your site is listed in the Yahoo! Search Index. We do not
offer specifics detailing how an individual site is not in compliance
with our guidelines, but we will review your site individually. You will
not be receiving further notification regarding your request for a
second review, and we are not able to offer the option of another
review.

Thank you for taking the time to make the Yahoo! Search Index even
better.

-----

They refused to tell me the exact reason as to why and said they keep everything that has to do with their algorithm a secret. As for changing the java code to an external source, that cannot be done. We already did that with the CSS but because the Java is mixed in with some php I cannot make it external.

Edit: Also when paid inclusion is done, our rankings are very good on Yahoo. Without the paid inclusion we are no where in sight.

[digger]

According to a few "authority" figures that I have read, any keywords you put in your "keywords tags" should also be included in your body text. However, I think this is a minor point.

I thought Yahoo still responded to mild, on-page keyword stuffing - unlike Google who is of course very unforgiving about this.

I am curious about the robots file. My sites don't have one, yet I get spidered just fine by the engines. Would including a robots file actually help in rankings?