Overture Site Match Archives

A thread at WebmasterWorld asks What happens if we stop paying for Site Match? In response to that we have two replies (I have no experience with this, so I can not comment on its accuracy).

We got screwed both ways. We had a bunch of sites that were anywhere from #1 for 2yrs and mostly top 8 sites in many areas. Joined site match in hopes of maintaining positions, ALL sites disappeared almost instantly. We cancelled site match and NONE of the sites have returned to index must less prior positions. Go figure.

and

Ditto. I would love nothing more that to be able to preach the glory of how great Yahoo is, but no-can-do at the moment.

One of the reasons behind SiteMatch is to ensure your deep pages are indexed by Yahoo. But if your pages are search engine friendly and the navigation is not prohibitive to the natural spiders, then SiteMatch is not needed for that purpose.

A thread at HighRankings named Out Of Sitematch & Bump In Y! Ranksings discusses one person's story with SiteMatch. This individual did not renew his SiteMatch subscription and soon after saw his rankings improve. From my understanding of the post, it seems like the site's homepage was not included in the SiteMatch results. So he wasn't ranking for his most important keywords (important is subjective here). I am not so clear as to why, neither is he, his vendors or YahooMike. It seems like he did not submit his homepage URL, and thus the page was not included.

I was under the impression that the natural crawl would pick up other pages (if search engine friendly) even if they were not submitted to SiteMatch. Speculation? I rather not, but you see where I am going with this.

I did not know many people who truly liked the pricing structure of Yahoo/Overture's SiteMatch program. A pay for inclusion and pay per click fee just did not like it would take off. The program was first announced back in March at the NYC SES conference where people at the Paid Inclusion & Trusted Feeds erupted in the room. Then to ease people's worries, Tim from Yahoo began answering questions in the WebmasterWorld Forum. Unfortunately, Tim is just one man, constant complains about Yahoo!'s poor customer service was spreading at the forums.

So now we see that Yahoo is one of the search engines that are rethinking their price structure. Ask Jeeves just announced something similar a few days ago. I posted this over at the Search Engine Watch Forums to discuss.

Back in March at the NYC SES conference, Yahoo! announced their new SiteMatch program. The program was a hot topic and angered many site owners. Now a few months later we have pretty much all accepted SiteMatch for what it is. However, this paid for inclusion and pay for click plan is not all what it lives up to be. A thread over at WebmasterWorld named SiteMatch Approval Won't Remove Penalty... Don't Waste Your Money discusses people's dissatisfaction with Yahoo!'s customer service.

It seems as if sites received a penalty a while back when Inktomi was running the program. Then Yahoo! said that if you sign up again, this time with Yahoo!'s program then the penalty will be reviewed and removed. This was not the case, Yahoo! did not yet review these penalized sites and they are still ranking extremely poorly in the Yahoo! search engine.

Read the thread for more details, but it seems as if Yahoo! is not handling this program too well.

At JimWorld, there is a discussion being lead by Barry Lloyd, a.k.a. MakeMeTop, on the topic of Site Match, pay-for-inclusion. The thread is named Experience with Yahoo Site Match?

Barry Lloyd, an experienced SEM, discussed his experience with Site Match. He said on average you need to wait 4 business days for editorial review. He points out that the reviewers do not always review the pages submitted, they often look at other pages that were not submitted including a contact information page. So the reviewer is looking for the "integrity of the site as a whole."

After the pages are accepted, you will normally see them included within 12 hours. MSN/HotBot results vary from Yahoo! Search's results, in fact Barry has noticed a 5 - 7 day period of time where positions in Yahoo! are much lower then in MSN/HotBot. After the 5 - 7 day period the results improve "dramatically."

Barry and an other JimGuide make a point to watch out for "spam-like" pages. If the reviewer finds anything that resembles such pages, you will likely not get listed.

Good luck with your PFI campaigns and Overture's Site Match.

Yesterday I posted a entry named Questions for Yahoo? Ask At WebmasterWorld. If you want the answers to the questions you or others have asked please see the WebmasterWorld thread named Answers from Yahoo!, by Mike from Yahoo! Search.

The folks over at WebmasterWorld were able to get some of the Yahoo reps to stop by an answer your questions about the new Yahoo! Search and Overture - SiteMatch.

WebGuerrilla, a WMW Admin, posted the following:
Here’s how it will work:

Questions will be posted in this thread. We will let this thread run for the next few days. Once we have a solid list of quality questions, this thread will be locked. If/when someone from Yahoo Search decides to respond to a question from this thread, we will split off that particular Q&A into its own thread. Any follow-up questions or discussions will take place in the new thread. Doing this will help us keep everything on-topic.

With that in mind, here are some ground rules:

1. Keep the questions focused on Yahoo Search’s products and services. (No asking Tim what his favorite color is)

2. Keep the questions short and sweet. (You will have the opportunity to get long-winded in any follow-up discussions).

3. No specific site information. (We are not the Yahoo help desk or spam police)

4. Keep the tone positive and professional. (All rants will be nuked)

5. Read the other questions before you post yours. (I hate spending time deleting duplicates).

Visit the thread at WebmasterWorld's Questions for Yahoo!.

New pay-for-listing by Yahoo sparks debate over search discusses some of the concerns amongst the industry. Chris Sherman is quoted in the article.

Sorry about the lack of forum coverage, nothing really that interesting (that I have found) over the past few days. If you see anything, please let me know.

As posted at SEO Chat by dazzlindonna, "Login to Yahoo and go to http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request".

Tim Mayer started a thread at WebmasterWorld discussing the new Yahoo! inclusion program. The thread can be found here.

The week of March 1, Yahoo will be allowing you to submit for free. The submit page can be found here.

Well it seems webmasters are going to have some more possible costs to consider in the next few months if they are planning to stay in Yahoo. On April 15, 2004 all sites that are included through the Inktomi index will be dropped unless renewed into Yahoo special inclusion program, that most of Inktomi's resellers will be selling soon. So don't go spending the babys milk money yet, wait until April to submit to Ink or Yahoo. And its probably best to start considering the Yahoo Directory at that time as well, if you can chuck down the 299. Lots of new changes afoot, be sure to check out the discussion at SEOchat.com, read it here: Yahoo Pay for Inclusion