Yahoo and Penalties

[melchapman]

OK... First of all... Hello and good day!

I posted this in a different forum and haven't gotten a response. I am hoping that someone may have an answer here.

Here is what I posted:

Before my client, was actually a client, he unknowingly got involved in what Yahoo finally figured out to be a link farm. The hosting company was encouraging all of their clients to link with one another.

Once Yahoo determined this, 1000's of sites were blacklisted and lost their rankings completely. The big crash was some time around July of last year and the sites (I have several clients with this hosting company) have still not recovered AT ALL. Even the ones that are not my clients and have been worked on by other professionals. The site is still in the index and in the directory. Since this penalty his rankings in Google, MSN, and Yahoo have also dropped.

My suggestion to him was to start a new site with a new hosting company under a new domain name. This way the bad taste that Yahoo has about the existing site will not longer be there because it is a completely new site.

It will consist of the same information, but it will be organized and optimized to the extent it should be. That is why I was hired in the first place.

Now here are my questions.

When do I have the existing domain transfered, and if it is transfered with a 301 redirect, will Yahoo see the new site to be the old one and carry over the penalties? Did that make sense? What if I contacted the site owners of the good backlinks and ask them to change the URL and anchor text?

Also... I have notice that Yahoo and MSN are usually the first to begin ranking new sites. With this in mind... if the existing domain that has a good PR is redirected to the new site... will the existing PR be transfered as well?

Also... which domain name should be submitted to the search engines once the new site is up and running. I say the new domain should be submitted and the old one should 301 to the new one so that the site looks fresh (which it will be) and without bad seo techniques?

Please tell me if these questions are asked correctly and if there is anything wrong with my plan... please say so. I don't want to do this wrong!

Thanks in advance and hope to hear from anyone soon!

PS... if it helps any, the domain name is www.frankelrealtygroup.com

[Gennady]

All you have to do is switch hosts, get rid of all the links and ask for re-inclusion.

But in the case of Yahoo, you may need to pay them for Search Submit Basic and pay $49 per URL.

[melchapman]

Originally Posted by Gennady

All you have to do is switch hosts, get rid of all the links and ask for re-inclusion.

But in the case of Yahoo, you may need to pay them for Search Submit Basic and pay $49 per URL.

What do you mean? "Get rid of all the links." You mean delete them from his site? Wouldn't that make it to where there would be inbound links out there?

[Gennady]

You do not have direct control of who links to you. You do not want to exchange links with blacklisted sites on bad IPs.

[melchapman]

Very true!

It would be good to go through the ones that link to him on the old URL and contact them to change the anchor test and have the URL point to the new site... right?

[Gennady]

I'm sorry, your posts are a little disjointed so I'm having trouble fully understanding.

Anchor text is the text within the hypertext link. It does not denote where the link goes.

What new site are you talking about?

You are giving way too much value to these reciprocal links. I would wager very few if any come from sites relevant to yours.

I believe it is time for you to take (not just 1 but) a few steps back and do a little research into SEO, links, link building, and webmaster guidelines.

[melchapman]

Originally Posted by Gennady

I'm sorry, your posts are a little disjointed so I'm having trouble fully understanding.

I do apologize for the confusion in my explanations. Sometimes my mind goes faster than what I get down and it gets all tangled up.

Anchor text is the text within the hypertext link. It does not denote where the link goes.

Yes... I clearly understand this. I did not explain that one of the biggest problems is the theme of his links. I need to change the anchor text as well as the URL. I know that the text does not denote where the link goes... but it does matter what the anchor text is and what page it goes to.

What new site are you talking about?

At this point... I believe that will all the coding issues, linking issues, organization issues, (the list goes on) that it would be in the best intrest of my client to start fresh with a new hosting company and to get away from the stench that Yahoo smells about every site that is involved with this company.

You are giving way too much value to these reciprocal links. I would wager very few if any come from sites relevant to yours.

No sir... I do not care about the reciprocals... I am thinking about the inbound links that are still being recognized by the search engines, whether they are reciprocals or not. I do very little reciprocal linking and if I do it is with local sites and those who are relevant to his market.

I believe it is time for you to take (not just 1 but) a few steps back and do a little research into SEO, links, link building, and webmaster guidelines.

Sir... with all due respect... I believe that it is because I did not fully explain myself that you would think that my tactics and thoughts may be a little off. So I hope with these explanations... you will clearly see that I have done my research and I have taken not just a few, but several steps back to think about what is in the best interest of my client.

[Gennady]

As far as being themed or on-topic links, it takes more than the keyword in the anchor text to denote relevance.

Otherwise, you pretty much got it. As I said in my first reply, change the host, remove any links you having going out to those other sites hosted on that server and submit a re-inclusion request.

This is the only option. Any hosting company that recommends that does not deserve anyone's business as they are only looking for self- and cross-promotion.

[melchapman]

I know the establishing a theme takes much more than just the linking. I was just saying that this is one of his main problems which is the links.

Changing the host means changing companies.

You don't even know half of it when it comes to the company we are dealing with right now. Their tactics are unethical when it comes to selling their marketing packages and what it is they do.

That is another reason why I am trying to get most of my clients with this company to change over. Because like I said... the stinch is not just with my client's site... but everyone that has a site with these people that participated in what they suggested as well as the company themselves and Yahoo.

Thanks for your input and I hope I made myself a little clearer.

One more thing...

What about the domain names? If I 301 redirect the old domain... will the penalties go along with it or will Yahoo see that the site has been reworked?

[Seminole386]

I had a similar problem went from .com to .net and posted it on www.altavista.com and Google. Within 2-3 days I was back at the top of the page rankings for my keywords.

[Fort Worth Realtor]

if you want more info on the advance access problem search on here www.realestatewebmaster.com. i use this site also for info on seo

[Dinghus]

The redirect MAY hurt you. Hard to say. Just be sure to do a robot file to tell the bot NOT to index the old pages and to NOT follow the links. Keep them from figuring out where you have moved to. :)

[melchapman]

Originally Posted by Fort Worth Realtor

if you want more info on the advance access problem search on here www.realestatewebmaster.com. i use this site also for info on seo

Whoa... what have you heard? Did you used to have an AA site?

[dburdon]

Hmmm. Is Yahoo really that sophisticated that it can track down all the participants to a reciprocal link trade? And classify it so bad that the participants are banned? I don't think so. You don't (normally) get banned from Yahoo unless you're a really bad boy. The odd $49 won't solve the problem. Neither will a redirect. Essentially a redirect takes the bad smell with it. What's the real reason your client(s)'s site was (were) banned? When you can answer that, you can begin to solve the problem.

I suggest you start again.

[edhan]

Originally Posted by dburdon

Hmmm. Is Yahoo really that sophisticated that it can track down all the participants to a reciprocal link trade? And classify it so bad that the participants are banned? I don't think so. You don't (normally) get banned from Yahoo unless you're a really bad boy. The odd $49 won't solve the problem. Neither will a redirect. Essentially a redirect takes the bad smell with it. What's the real reason your client(s)'s site was (were) banned? When you can answer that, you can begin to solve the problem.

I do agree with dburdon. I doubt the Yahoo is that sophisticated to do the tracking. To help your client, you will definitely need to dig deeper and find the main cause for the ban. Then you will be able to help your client to clear the mess.

[4douger]

Yes, well maybe Yahoo! might not be that sophisticated although you can be sure they will be someday if they are not already, all you link farmers out there are doomed and you know it. However, did it occur to you guys that someone just reported to them the fact that the site in question was using LINK FARMS to get good ranks? Duh?!

Anyone want some real SEO consulting can contact me at doug@seonow.us. I'm always glad to help.

[melchapman]

Originally Posted by dburdon

Hmmm. Is Yahoo really that sophisticated that it can track down all the participants to a reciprocal link trade? And classify it so bad that the participants are banned? I don't think so. You don't (normally) get banned from Yahoo unless you're a really bad boy. The odd $49 won't solve the problem. Neither will a redirect. Essentially a redirect takes the bad smell with it. What's the real reason your client(s)'s site was (were) banned? When you can answer that, you can begin to solve the problem.

I suggest you start again.

I never said the site was banned... it had been penalized. And yes... Yahoo figured it out!

Read this post on http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread8680.html. The main thing I want you to look at is this:

"As it pertains to Yahoo! you might want to consider who you are linking to and vice-versa if you are building state pages. Advanced Access (including Greg Boser aka WebGuerrilla who they have hired as a consultant) is telling their clients to remove the links on state pages. This is because of a penalty that has dropped most of these sites drastically. One site that was ranked on #1 on Yahoo! last week is now in the 180's. Over 30,000 sites have been affected.

Here is an exerpt of a rather lengthy email they sent last week to their Premium Marketing Package Owners:

********************************************

As your Website Marketing Specialist, I am advising you that your Realtor to Realtor links on your "States Pages" be deleted right now to help your search engine rankings. These link are not helping you and need to be deleted.

This is obviously big news and I know it may seem very frightening to do. The main point here is that peer to peer linking is not valuable to your search engine rankings and is harming you. Please let me know at once if I can remove these links for you. I would be more than happy to take care of the work for you.

What Has Led To This Advisement?

In March of this year we became concerned (as many of our Marketing Package clients did) about current Yahoo rankings for those in our Advanced Access family. We performed many tests on our network to slowly experiment if we could change anything for the better on our clients rankings. Those experiments were varied and included removing links from sites, changin g our server configuration, and moving sites around on different IP blocks. With the exception of a week in April and three weeks in May when all rankings suddenly came back, only to drop again, we remained concerned. While it is true that many other real estate websites that are not affiliated with Advanced Access were no longer in the Top 10 of Yahoo's search results, we have so many fantastic websites that it was baffling that the rankings were gone so suddenly."

But I really want you to pay attention here: This was written by Real Estate Webmasters - Jay Griffin

"In short, the reason for this penalty was confirmed by a Yahoo! employee and it was implemented by IP address. Over 32,000 AA template sites are on one IP and only a few survived. For example:
1) debbieferrari.com had been ranked #1 for years on Yahoo! for the term "orange county real estate." Today it is #189 even though it's attempting to comply.
2) phxrealestate.com, which is on the same IP, has not been been penalized and this is probably because their state pages are presented and named differently.
3) Ken Smith (suburbanhousehunters.com) is on the same IP and he uses the same naming convention as debbieferrari.com. There is nothing wrong with his state pages, but he's taken a hit.

Right now it's a penalty. Tomorrow the sites in the AA network that do not comply could be construed as a "bad neighborhood." You are getting a heads up. Take it, or leave it."

So there is your evidence that all the sites that were participating had a penalty put on them.

You ansered my question about the redirect... THANK YOU! It is as I thought it would be... but had to be sure.

[melchapman]

One more thing dburdon... I was the one that put the bug in this companies ear that there was a problem. They didn't even notice it until I said something. Needless to say... I am no longer part of their Virtual Assistant network.

[swirt]

Actually, Yahoo has gotten pretty sophisticated, and in some ways overly sensitive. It should not be underestimated. I have two mom and pop sites with the same owner that both got penalized by Yahoo (Yahoo verified that the sites had been penalized) because one of them (the older of the two sites) was involved in link exchanging several years back and then the old site sat there essentially abandonned but not taken down so the old link exchange was still visible. It had a few (non-excessive and topically related) links to the newer site, so Yahoo whacked both of them. The one newer site does well in Google and MSN but in Yahoo, neither site is indexed past the home page. I know the one newer site is clean, because I rebuilt it from scratch, but the second site continues to be held against it. So now I am rebuilding the older site from scratch to get the penalty lifted.

It's a mess, and the sad part is, it was just a couple of innkeepers who had some bad advice from a friend who thought link swapping was a good idea. It wasn't like they were up to anything deceitful...just ignorant and shortsighted.

[4douger]

http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread8680.html seems to be a dead link.

~d

[4douger]

Now it works.

~d

[4douger]

melchapman had a period on the end of his hyperlink which is why it did not work when clicked.

~doug

[melchapman]

OK... here is the final exerpt that I will add to this to prove my point about Yahoo figuring things out.

here it goes. This is posted by
Terry Light - Professional Contrarian
HomeSurfer.com Real Estate Encyclopedia
SearchEngineIdiot.com
Creator of RealEstate ABC, Author

I've been posting here since May 2004, I like what Morgan has done, and I've supported him, exchanging a few emails. I've known Jay for years and talk to him on the phone occasionally. More often, recently. I've been a friend of Advanced Access and their management for about 8 or 9 years. I don't know Greg Boser, AKA Web Guerilla, but I am directly familar with what was said in the information Jay provided you.

What Mr. Boser said is that some of the folks who came over to Yahoo from Overture, especially one guy nick-named SpamBob, really and specifically do not like agent-to-agent linking. The penalty applied to Advanced Access sites was applied manually, not through filters or algorithms (which is why this type of penalty is not reflected across the board on other sites and developers). According to Mr. Boser, it was specifically because of agent-to-agent linking with all the spammy anchor text and everything that agents have been doing for years now. Evidently, Mr. Boser is well-known enough to get his information directly from Yahoo. Part of what he also said is that Google doesn't like it any more than Yahoo, but they haven't done anything about it yet.

That is only a small part of what Mr. Boser said. It would take pages to go over it all, but Jay did have the gist of it correct. Jay doesn't agree with a lot of it (especially in regards to how Google thinks) but he reported it correctly.

[melchapman]

Originally Posted by 4douger

http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread8680.html seems to be a dead link.

~d

Try this one.

http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/...ead.php?t=8680

[4douger]

I know this is off topic but anyone know how I can get my picture on here?

~d

[melchapman]

Something else that I thought of.

Honestly... I have dealt with this AA company for quite some time and quite frankly... their marketing techniques have been bad from the beginning. Not just the linking issue, but other things as well. It is a company that I will never recommend. In fact... my mother still has an AA site but won't change because she can afford me to create her a new one.

The bottom line is this. My client would have an outstanding site and rank #1 in every search engine had it been organized and optimized and marketed correctly from the beginning. This didn't happen and I am here to clean up the mess.

He needs to move on to a hosting company somewhere else so that he can get out from under this black cloud that is hovering over him.

I don't see Yahoo removing the penalties for a long time. Supposedly... AA is "working on" getting the issue resolved, but I am sorry. If I held my breath waiting for them to get their act together... I would die!

[4douger]

How profitable was his business? He can get his own dedicated server for less that $100.00 per month and have his own ip adddresses and a very fast machine.

Why don't you suggest that and go from there?

~doug

[Refiner]

Originally Posted by 4douger

I know this is off topic but anyone know how I can get my picture on here?

~d

http://www.webproworld.com/faq.php#11




melchapman, good luck on getting your client's ranking back

[nelsonez]

I am confused as to why you would want to get rid of your domain name and start all over?

All you need to do is make sure you are NOT linking TO any link farms from your client's site. The sites linking TO YOU will not hurt unless you are linking back to them.

Starting over with a new domain will put you even further back as the aging factor of a new domain is very important .... especially with Google. With a new domain name you could set yourself back almost 6 months or more. I think that is a very bad idea and an absolute last resort.

Changing hosts is fine although I don't think that it will make much of a difference ... unless you go from a shared host to a dedicated IP hosting account. That would help you especially if the shared IP block had been blacklisted.

[nelsonez]

Originally Posted by melchapman

In short, the reason for this penalty was confirmed by a Yahoo! employee and it was implemented by IP address. Over 32,000 AA template sites are on one IP and only a few survived.

Melchapman it seems to me you have answered your question right here!

Move your client to a new hosting company and get a dedicated IP address. I believe someone else suggested this as well. If your client really wants to be a legitimate company they should not be on a shared hosting platform where they share one IP address with 32,000 other websites.

That is crazy. That is the same as thinking your personal website on Geocities.com should rank #1. If your client is so cheap that they can't afford $50.00 a month for decent web hosting then they don't deserve to have a decent ranking.

[nelsonez]

One other thing I forgot to mention .... the domain name has NOTHING to do with the problem. Changing only the domain name will accomplish nothing and will almost assuredly hurt your client even more.

[parkoskar]

Yahoo banning for Reciprocal Link Exchange....

No I don't agree with you...

[dburdon]

I just thought I'd clear the air.

Yahoo is probably the least sophisticated of the three main search engines when it comes to the ranking impact of inbound links.

My point was that a "simple" reciprocal linking programme wouldn't get a site banned.

However. A promotional scheme that tries to create and marshal thousands of non-natural links is not a simple reciprocal programme.

Secondly, Yahoo is the most "on page" of the three major engines. If I wanted to rank highly for a term such as "Orange County Real Estate" I would check out how many people are really competing - that is actively optimising - for the term.

Next I'd check out their on page performance site by site, starting at number 1 and then going through 2 and 3 etc. A few, good, topic related links with relevant anchor text should do the job.

[DrTandem1]

I think this has been said, but maybe not clearly enough.

It was probably the hosting company that got banned by Yahoo, not the individual sites. The hosting company will have a range of IP addresses it uses for the sites. That IP range was most likely banned.

Therefore, changing to a new host will be the most important thing. You can keep the domain name, therefore no redirect is necessary.

Remove all outbound links from the site. Especially, to any that are part of that host. You can reestablish outbound links carefully.

As a side note, today there is little benefit from using a dedicated IP address. There are many reasons not to have one. There are plenty of #1 ranked sites using shared IP addresses.

[melchapman]

OK... I am going to go down the list and make comments to everyone's post.

But first I would like to say "THANK YOU" to all who are participating in this discussion. Every post and every comment has been extrememly helpful whether they were positive or negative, or made out of missunderstanding.

DrTandem1:

It was probably the hosting company that got banned by Yahoo, not the individual sites. The hosting company will have a range of IP addresses it uses for the sites. That IP range was most likely banned.

I am not sure if you read the prior post or the discussion that was provided by the link, but Yahoo did a "hand job" on this company. Not only did they penalize the company but they penalized all the sites that they were hosting. All of the sites were hosted off of one IP address. It was not a range.

You also made a comment:

You can keep the domain name, therefore no redirect is necessary.

I have decided that redirecting or transferring the domain name is not in the best intrest of the site. It is the simple fact that the domain name/website itself that has been penalized and I don't want any bad vibes going to the new one.

Remove all outbound links from the site. Especially, to any that are part of that host.

This was done back in August of last year if I remember correctly. That was done before I was hired. There is still no change.

There are plenty of #1 ranked sites using shared IP addresses.

In the real estate industry you will find 1000's of the #1 ranked sites are sites that are hosted by companies that share IP addresses. About 90% of them are template based. So requesting or needing a dedicated IP is not going to be neccessary.

dburdon:

Yahoo is probably the least sophisticated of the three main search engines when it comes to the ranking impact of inbound links.

Again... this was a "hand job" that was done and was confirmed by a Yahoo employee as well as Greg Boser aka WebGuerrilla. Now if that isn't enough evidence... then I have no clue what is.

parkoskar:

Yahoo banning for Reciprocal Link Exchange.... No I don't agree with you...

Obviously you haven't been listening. This was done manually... not through filters or algorithms.

nelsonez:

Move your client to a new hosting company and get a dedicated IP address. I believe someone else suggested this as well. If your client really wants to be a legitimate company they should not be on a shared hosting platform where they share one IP address with 32,000 other websites.

My client and his family are in the real estate business and are very successful. They market four counties, which is way too much information to put on one site. The site that I am doing contains two counties and two main market areas... Jacksonville and Ponte Vedra Florida.

It will not be neccessary to obtain a dedicated IP address. As far as sharing 32,000 websites on one IP address... yes it is the most amazing thing I have ever heard of. But unfortunately... none of us knew this until it was too late.

I am confused as to why you would want to get rid of your domain name and start all over?

All you need to do is make sure you are NOT linking TO any link farms from your client's site. The sites linking TO YOU will not hurt unless you are linking back to them.

Starting over with a new domain will put you even further back as the aging factor of a new domain is very important .... especially with Google. With a new domain name you could set yourself back almost 6 months or more. I think that is a very bad idea and an absolute last resort.

It has been decided that we are going to keep the existing site because it does rank high for a couple of the key phrases. We are starting a new site with a new domain name and once that site gets to the top... we will release the other one. Yes... it will take some time... but in this case, it is so worth it. The organization alone is a nightmare and the formating too. Their coding is old school and is not clean and they don't use CSS. We are at our last resort. I don't want my client throwing money out the window, when we won't be able to even see out of it for months to come.

We start the new site... work on LP get ranked with Yahoo and MSN... continue to work on backlinks and market the site where neccessary... then Google will come along for the ride.

End of quotes and comments.

Trust me... I have thought about everything we have discussed here. I needed to hear people say the things that I thought were right to verify my thoughts.

[nelsonez]

Originally Posted by DrTandem1

As a side note, today there is little benefit from using a dedicated IP address. There are many reasons not to have one. There are plenty of #1 ranked sites using shared IP addresses.

While I agree that a dedicated IP address is not neccessary I am a little confused on what the many reasons to not have one would be??

I can't think of one reason not to have a dedicated IP address other than the additional cost. Even that is miniscule. We offer our clients dedicated IP addresses for about $25.00 per month.

I can think of dozens of reasons not to have a shared IP address .....

Just curious what other reasons there would be to not have a dedicated IP address.

[dburdon]

Mel,

I'm not saying that Yahoo haven't penalised you. I'm saying that they wouldn't normally be sophisticated enough to spot normal reciprocal linking. I guess the fact that 000s of reciprocal links were set up via a shared server was the problem. My point is that if schemes sound too good to be true, they generally are.

From experience - and repeated by me on many occasions in this forum - good SEO doesn't need 000s of meaningless links. It generally needs - depending on the competitive nature of the market category - no more than a few hundred. Even then, the more sophisticated link analysis tools could probably demonstrate that its the 20-50 quality topic relevant links that drive the ranking.

Any scheme promising 000s of links is therefore overkill and will probably get you into trouble.

[melchapman]

Originally Posted by dburdon

Mel,

I'm not saying that Yahoo haven't penalised you. I'm saying that they wouldn't normally be sophisticated enough to spot normal reciprocal linking. I guess the fact that 000s of reciprocal links were set up via a shared server was the problem. My point is that if schemes sound too good to be true, they generally are.

From experience - and repeated by me on many occasions in this forum - good SEO doesn't need 000s of meaningless links. It generally needs - depending on the competitive nature of the market category - no more than a few hundred. Even then, the more sophisticated link analysis tools could probably demonstrate that its the 20-50 quality topic relevant links that drive the ranking.

Any scheme promising 000s of links is therefore overkill and will probably get you into trouble.

That is the exact reason why I did not recommend this to my clients. In the real estate website industry, it is better to have 10 inbound links than hundreds of reciprocals. It is better to have sponsored listings in related directories to gain exposure and generate traffic, in which some of them Google recognizes. It is better to have inbound links coming from the social media market than have hundreds of reciprocals.

The real estate SEM business is growing rapidly and I have to stay on my toes and make sure that I don't make any mistakes so that I can keep the little clientele that I have. I am a one woman show and everything I know I have learned on my own. So the help from forums, such as this, is extremely helpful... and again I thank you!

And your right... on a normal day... Yahoo would have not figured that out, especially approx a year ago. The most important thing now is to concentrate on what is right and start over. As much as it pains me and is going to pain my client because of the work that is going to go into this site, starting over is the best thing and definately the last resort.

The hosting company has had plenty of time to straighten out the mess that THEY created for their clients and have not done so. Luckily for them... they were recently bought out by Homes.com... so MAYBE they will eventually get back in the game.

In the mean time... I will do what I can do with the knowledge that I have.

Mel

[dburdon]

Mel,

you've obviously got a good grasp of the subject. No doubt this latest problem has taught you a lot. Best of luck.

[hitsusa]

These may be dumb questions, but did you submit a reinclusion request to Yahoo?

If so, did you get a response telling you that your site still didn't meet Yahoo's guidelines?

And if you fixed all the problems after your first reinclusion request failure, did you then submit a re-review request?

*********

Per Yahoo Search:

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.

*************

Hope this helps...

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by parkoskar

Yahoo banning for Reciprocal Link Exchange....

No I don't agree with you...

I feel it might and considering that Yahoo themselves it was the issue I would believe them.

If they are actually involved in this large "agent to agent" linking pool, then that would have to change (remove) the links before Yahoo would manually let them back in.

I have had a few clients get in trouble with Yahoo like this with mini-site/mini-networks. The demotion by Yahoo (not a ban) is always done manually and it is always lifted manually. We have went back in forth with plenty of spam cops at Yahoo and conformed this.

I also don't think it is a IP ban. Shared hosting is used so much that banning by IP ranges doesn't seem possible. Not saying that it isn't though.

1. Either start over and don't interlink with other agents

2. Remove all the interlinking from other agent websites with the current website and ask for re-inclusion. That seems to be the only 2 solutions as you probably already know.

[traintracks]

I sometimes worry about this sort of stuff. I have two websites. One is a retail site which is a Yahoo store. The other is an informational site with no retail.

When I was first starting the informational site, I accidently got invovled with what I later realized was a link farm. But fortunately, I am very selective about who I exchange links with. My site is dental-oriented and I only accept links with dental sites that I consider worthwhile (not junk sites).

Even so, I have seen some of my site's content, and the url, on a bunch of junk sites. I never said that I would exchange links with them -- they just included my information without asking me.

I hope that I don't get penalized for this, because it is beyond my control. I don't link to THEM. The sites I link to are all decent worthwhile sites with real content. Still, I worry....

[isharli]

It seems that much of the above dialog states that reciprocal linking is bad. How does one get quality one way links in an acceptable manner?

Second, is LinkManager considered a link farm?

thanks

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by isharli

It seems that much of the above dialog states that reciprocal linking is bad. How does one get quality one way links in an acceptable manner?

I dont think it is bad, just not as effective as it once was. Any link that is relevant I feel is a good link.

Like my signiture says be the best at what you do and link is what you will get.

Originally Posted by isharli

Second, is LinkManager considered a link farm?

Never have used it.

[isharli]

thanks IncredibleHelp - I am trying to make sure that my content is strong - it just takes a lot of effort!

Has anyone else used LinkManager? I stopped as soon as I understood that it might be a link farm. I would appreciate the assessment of anyone who knows what this is (www.linkmanager.com).

thanks

[kgun]

Originally Posted by melchapman

Before my client, was actually a client, he unknowingly got involved in what Yahoo finally figured out to be a link farm. The hosting company was encouraging all of their clients to link with one another.

Once Yahoo determined this, 1000's of sites were blacklisted and lost their rankings completely.

www.frankelrealtygroup.com

I answer this before I see any of the other answers, since that may bias my answer.
My personal opinion

• Regarding your site. You use Real Estate too much on your site. I think the many banners are a little confusing and the one with "quick resources" makes it a little unprofessional. The menu in upper left corner is good. But you asked for the
• Link farm. In my personal view, the "rank sum" of a linkfarm shall be zeroed out. Some of them can have good content.
• If a site has been blacklisted, you can send a reinclusion request (at least to Google) when the problem has been solved. Then it is logical that a site / page get the pagerank it had before it was included in the blacklisted link farm. Say that that pagerank was 4. It takse time to get a PageRank of 4 with a new site.
• My shortcoming. I know most about Google, and do not know the SE alogorithmes and guidelines well enough.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by melchapman

The hosting company has had plenty of time to straighten out the mess that THEY created for their clients and have not done so. Luckily for them... they were recently bought out by Homes.com... so MAYBE they will eventually get back in the game.
Mel

It takes a few hours to change hosting company, depending on how much code you have to upload.

• Take control of the DNS services of the site. That is done with the registrar.
• Change hoster and upload code to the new hoster.
• Change the DNS services to point to the DNS services that you get from your new hoster. That can take up to 48 hours (at least in Norway) to be effective.
• When you see that the site is active at your new hoster, delete the code and account with the old hoster.
• I have done this two times without loosing pagerank.

If you need more information, click on the second link in my signature and scroll down to the link

"Start on your Web 2.0 development".

[melchapman]

I know there has been a lot of discussion here... but I am still confused about whether or not to take the domain name. Does the domain name carry the PR or does the site itself carry it.

Doesn't it make sense that if Yahoo sees the site to be penalized, then taking the domain name and having transferring it to the new site would carry over the penalty.

Because the hosting company was taking care of his marketing prior to me, they were supposed to be resolving the issue as far as removing the links and asking for the reinclusion. I am going to contact Yahoo to see if they have any record as to if the request has been made. My guess is that it hasn't. That would be typical of the company the site is currently with.

[melchapman]

These comments are replies to kgun.

It takes a few hours to change hosting company, depending on how much code you have to upload.

In this discussion it clearly says that the site is a template based design. I can't just change hosting companies. I don't even have FTP access... so it would be impossible to do that.

But you asked for the Link farm.

I mean no disrespect when I say... no one asked for this problem. It was advised to link with others within the network by this company.

You have to understand... 98% of realtors and brokers and other real estate related companies don't know what the heck they are doing when it comes to marketing their sites. They are busying helping buy and sell homes... not optimizing and marketing sites. SEO is time consuming and they do what is fastest and easiest.

And when a "so called" reputable real estate website host and design company advises them to do something, they are going to do it. They don't know any better. It was practically shoved down their throats.

Regarding your site. You use Real Estate too much on your site.

I believe that every industry has different effective techniques when optimizing a site. The headings at the top are the main key phrases that the site is centered on... and if I am not mistaken... it is common practice to put your key phrases as close to the top with <h> tags. Am I wrong. So if I am going after two main phrases that require the term "real estate"... then I have to use it.

In my personal view, the "rank sum" of a linkfarm shall be zeroed out.

What exactly does this mean?

Some of them can have good content.

Yes some of them actually did have good content... in fact 1000's of them had top rankings. But because they were involved in this network... they had to be removed.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by melchapman

What exactly does this mean?

By that I mean that an assumed extra PageRank gained as a result of the linkfarm should be set to zero in stead of what you write:

"Once Yahoo determined this, 1000's of sites were blacklisted and lost their rankings completely."

In other words, if Yahoo mean that the link farm is spamming their index, the effect of the linkfarm (internal links) should be set to zero. Assumption, there is no information between the internal links in the link farm.