After a very long and frustrating battle with trying to get sites listed in
Yahoo, and an extremely "difficult" conversation with their customer support
manager, I find I am beginning to wonder if I'm not "out in outerspace" on this.
Do other webmasters who are responsible for indexing their clients sites
find it difficult to get their sites listed in Yahoo?
Are you of the impression that Yahoo is a "search engine"?
Well, they are not, they claim. Even though you can:
-find reference to "other search engines" on their site
-find an entire chapter devoted to them in "Search Engines for the World
Wide Web" published by Peachpit Press and sold by Barnes and Noble
-search using keyword "search engine" almost anywhere else on the internet
and find them listed
-find and hear reference to the "major search engines" and ALWAYS have their
name included
According to the Cust. Support Mgr., they are a "directory". They are a
directory that is striving to list "only the best of the best" of the
internet. They have criteria, but "that criteria is not publicly
available". They have editors who review our sites and based on this
criteria, which he did offer is "content driven", yea or nay our sites. But
the real kicker is that according to this same person, they are so in
control of their own destiny that "even if they choose to ignore 1,000
requests, that's their perogative".
My "beef" is that I believe they have represented themselves as a search
engine. My impression and experience is that the vast majority, if not all,
of the general internet population believes them to be a search engine.
If they are a "directory" that is determined to list only the "best of the
best", then why don't they say that on their submission area? Why is it you
can at anytime find sites that are listed there that you and I both know are
not worth the bandwidth they are displayed on? Why are there so many dead
links? Why can one site get rejected numerous times, then all of a sudden
get listed?
My conclusion, as it has been all along, and was confirmed during my
conversation with this Yahoo representative, is that they no longer find it
"resourceful" to serve the internet community as a whole...instead focusing
their attentions to the small minority with the big checkbooks...their
advertisers.
I know for us, this misrepresentation has a direct impact on our business.
The first thing clients want to know is "will we be listed in Yahoo?". If
you even attempt explain that you will do your best, blah, blah, blah,
bottom line is if they don't get in there, it reflects poorly on you as the
webmaster, and in many cases we have found, reflects poorly on traffic
volumes. These reflections do not lend themselves to referrals or repeat
business.
I think we could all benefit from hearing what others have experienced and
what others think themselves, and have found the perception of their clients
to be.
Frustrated, confused, and getting very angry,
Denise Palmer
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