Yahoo Mystery Page?

[RHunt]

We have occupied Yahoo for one of our most popular search terms at No. 7 for some time. The listing looks like this:

Casas de Ruidoso - Ruidoso New Mexico Cabins, Condos and Vacation Rentals
Ruidoso New Mexico vacation rental cabins, condos and homes in Ruidoso, many ... New Mexico Mountain Cabin Village - Three Clustered Magical Mountain Cabins ...
www.casasderuidoso.com - 121k - Cached - More from this site

We're still in position...nothings changed except the name of the page:

ruidoso
Ruidoso New Mexico vacation rental cabins, condos and homes in Ruidoso, many ... Make your Ruidoso reservations in Lincoln County's premiere accommodations. ...
www.casasderuidoso.com - 121k - Cached - More from this site

I currently have no such page. Both refer to my current site. I understand it probably is coming from a different data center, but where did this particular listing come from?

Any input appreciated.

[simonmohr]

The text that Yahoo is quoting has been taken from the <meta name="description"> tag. Google has been doing this for some time now proving the importance of using these tags.

[seojoe]

your description is too short. YahooSlurp is grabbing text from other areas of your site to compensate for the lack of text in your description. Try and use about 255 characters in your description.

[littlegiant]

RHunt,

I have the exact same problem with the listing of one of my most heavily trafficked pages in Yahoo. It seems like Yahoo is failing to read (and display) the text in the title tags properly. For my page, Yahoo is showing the title tag text I was using last summer. I changed it about 2 months ago. The new title tag text displayed properly right up until a few days ago. Now it's showing the last summer's title tag text for some dumb reason. I find it's a real drag because I rewrote my title tag text into an eye-catching headline which is now useless in Yahoo.

[pathikbd]

The strange thing is, I also have the same question. For several days, I am seeing the listing of my personal site in Yahoo Search as: [yahoo]Asif Anwar pathik[/yahoo]. Actually Pathik is my nickname. But, I was wondering for days how could a search engine robot know that?

But I don't think it has anything to do with Description Meta Tag. Because, I have nothing like that in the meta tag.

Recently, I have installed the file for verification to get the service of Yahoo sitemap service "Site Explorer". Does this have any relation with that?

[littlegiant]

pathikbd,

Did you ever in the history of that web page use your nickname as the text in the title tag? Like perhaps way back in the beginning?

[pathikbd]

Originally Posted by littlegiant

Did you ever in the history of that web page use your nickname as the text in the title tag?

Yes! I support your logic. But it was for only a week. Could it be a Yahoo Dance like the Google Dances? :-)

[littlegiant]

I think so. Kind of a wierd dance, if you ask me though... :o)

[AussieWebmaster]

Or to fix it you can submit to Yahoo directory and then they end up pulling that listing for any appearances of your domain.

[jawn_tech]

Just my own thought about Yahoo's directory... My experience with being in the Yahoo directory hasn't been favorable, as once they began using the description in the directory, no matter what I changed on the content or in tags had any effect in search results. Therefore results were yielding an obsolete description as even the company products were then quite different. Trying to revamp the description was pointless for marketability's sake, as far as Yahoo goes.

At the time, I put in a request to change the description in the directory, but after submitting there was a page that said changes are done manually, and how soon it will happen depends on time availability. In other words, something to the effect of 'don't hold your breath -- we'll get to it or we may not'.

I don't know if that's changed by now, I haven't revisited the idea of using their directory for a long time. If it has, perhaps it could be a good solution, depending on if one can update their directory description periodically.

[computergenius]

Originally Posted by pathikbd

The strange thing is, I also have the same question. For several days, I am seeing the listing of my personal site in Yahoo Search as: [yahoo]Asif Anwar pathik[/yahoo]. Actually Pathik is my nickname. But, I was wondering for days how could a search engine robot know that?

You have it in your main heading...
h1 ... Asif Anwar Pathik ... end h1

[pathikbd]

Originally Posted by computergenius

You have it in your main heading...h1 ... Asif Anwar Pathik ... end h1

But, the word Pathik is shown in smallcaps in Yahoo, which is not usual. But, I think littlegiant is right. Because, "Asif Anwar pathik" the first title of that was indexed by Yahoo.

[littlegiant]

I've never known any of the major search engines to display the text in the H1 tags as the title of the page instead of that which is contained in the title tags. Also, in my situation, the text which Yahoo displays as the 'title' of the page does not actually appear anywhere on the page. This is definitely some kind of glitch.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by littlegiant

I've never known any of the major search engines to display the text in the H1 tags as the title of the page instead of that which is contained in the title tags. Also, in my situation, the text which Yahoo displays as the 'title' of the page does not actually appear anywhere on the page. This is definitely some kind of glitch.

Do have a title tag on your page? Which site is it about?

[littlegiant]

Of course I have a <title> tag. This is a straight up glitch. Numerous other listings in Yahoo are suffering similar symptoms, i.e., listing in SERPS not matching text in <title> tag and all or most words displayed in lowercase.

[scanmonkey]

Looks that Yahoo is manually editing titles.

[Webnauts]

Try this:

Place your title at the top of your headers, exactly after your <head> tag.

Gert rid of these irrelevant and useless meta tags:

<meta name="generator" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0">
<meta name="CLASSIFICATION" content="travel">
<meta name="revisit-after" content="15 days">
<meta name="ROBOTS" content="INDEX,FOLLOW">

Add the meta tag:
<meta name="robots" content="noodp">

After you site will be the next time crawled by the SE, your problem should be solved.

If not, ask again. If yes, please let us know too.

[littlegiant]

Webnauts, I don't have any of those META tags you cite inserted on the page in question (in fact I never use those tags) nor is this particular page listed in Open Directory Project so it's impossible that it is using title text from that.

(edit)

And my <title>...</title> tags do indeed appear directly after the opening <head> tag.

Uhhh.. with all due respect, are you just speculating or do you know of people who have actually corrected this glitch by modifying their source code?

[Webnauts]

No problem. My fault. I mispelled! I met headers not head tag, which means:

<html>
<head>
<title>...</tile>

Is that clear now?

[littlegiant]

It was clear in the first place. I understood exactly what you meant to say. And no, that is not the situation with my page. As I said my <title>...</title> tags do indeed appear directly after the opening <head> tag as you suggested. This is obviously NOT the problem.

And once again please...

Are you just speculating or do you know of people who have actually corrected this glitch by modifying their source code?

[Webnauts]

Gosh! Aren't we talking about this page? http://www.casasderuidoso.com/

[littlegiant]

I was referring to a page at my site. And could you answer my question please?

Do you know of anyone who has actually corrected this glitch by modifying their source code?