Can you BAN a competitor?

[SEOGuru]

I'm just throwing a bone out here and see what people think. OK, I know that no search engine is supposed penalize you for anything that you can't control (like links), but I gotta tell ya... that is exactly what it looks like Yahoo is doing.

Now technically you CAN control links, but how can Yahoo determine which links from other sites you control and which ones you don't. I've said this before but my site has been completley banned on yahoo. Was #1 on 250 keywords some returning 20+ million results. Had 1.4 MILLION links that have now dropped to about 850,000. I got most of these links in the last 90 days. Not all was from the co-op, maybe 30%. I do have over 200,000 weight distributed between a couple different sites (all of which are gone in Yahoo).

Doesn't that make you think... what if I pointed it to my competitor? What would happen? There is no other factor that I've done to get banned so one has to assume that it isn't simply having a ton of links but how fast you seem to get them. Plus co-op links aren't permanent so they keep dropping off every time Yahoo goes back to check those pages.

Just wondering what others think of the idea. I guess my concern is that though I might be able to get my competitors banned on Yahoo, do I risk HELPING them in Google and MSN. haha

[GuyFromChicago]

I've said it to others before, point all your weight at my site however you want;)

I don't think Yahoo, MSN or Google will "ban" you for links pointing to your site. There's just soooooooo many reasons why that doesn't make sense.

[yfs1]

Feel free to point it to any of my sites in my sig as an experiment ;)

[exam]

This has been discussed before. I'm pretty convinced that IBLs can *never* hurt you. As has been said before you can experiment by pointing your weight at my site :)

[mjewel]

I believe yahoo is giving a penalty based on incoming links in "certain" circumstances. I also believe the coop can boost rankings in many circumstances. I think there is a filter that is triggered by an unknown combination of factors- not soley based on number of links.

Try searching for digitalpoint on Yahoo. They used to be #1.

Also, the experiment with the charity site that pointed weight towards it was also dropped out of yahoo after initially ranking pretty high.


This is just my opinion, as well as others, and many also disagree.

[spdude]

This would just be a simple casualty of the algo... like Yahoo wont hesitate banning a site that gets many links in a short period of time, even though it makes NO sense... still IMO it will happen in the current situation. BUT because your competitor would probably benefit more from very high serps in Google.. and the drop in Yahoo would be negligible in comparison to the benefit they will get, no one in their right mind would actually try such a stunt.

[Mia]

I've said it to others before, point all your weight at my site however you want;)

I don't think Yahoo, MSN or Google will "ban" you for links pointing to your site. There's just soooooooo many reasons why that doesn't make sense.

I agree. It would not makes sense to ban a site based on the number of back links they have.

[maha]

I had the same thought the other day. Look at what happened to the "Charity" site when Shawn pointed 10,000 weight to it. It's now totally wiped out from Yahoo and MSN. It's a PR5 site, so you know it had some good backlinks and probably good SERP prior to the co-op experiment (since co-op does not improve your PR).

[SEOGuru]

That is the point I was making. Logically, I think there is no way incoming links can hurt you but if it walks like a duck.....

These are experiements with control variables. What else has Digital Point done to disappear? A ton of great unique content. You have to look at the links.

The charity site is the same way. They probably didn't even know what happened but they dropped off the face of the earth as well and weren't doing any other "tricks".

Now... I understand that you may drop in a search for a keyword. For instance, maybe Yahoo simply DEVALUED all of those thousands of links and hence, you would drop in ranking in certain keywords. But that isn't what we are talking about here.
We are talking about not ranking in a search for your DOMAIN.

To me it seems like sites are getting completely dropped from the results (even if they aren't dropped from the INDEX). And there is a strong argument to the notion that massive inbound links in a short timeframe is the cause. I don't know for sure, but the information we've collected is pretty compelling.

[rjhere]

I have a lot of weight.... I am willing to point my weight to any one of your sites to experiment this... pm your url and I yahoo position. I am willing to run this experiment.

[Mia]

To me it seems like sites are getting completely dropped from the results (even if they aren't dropped from the INDEX). And there is a strong argument to the notion that massive inbound links in a short timeframe is the cause. I don't know for sure, but the information we've collected is pretty compelling.
If that truely is the case then Yahoo (SBC) aka Same Bad Company is not going to be around very long.

Does anyone really see a lot of traffic from Yahoo though?

I'd put them at number 3 and falling. MSN has already overtaken them IMHO. But what do you expect with a telco running the show :)

Here are the top 6 referrers for one of our larger sites:

1.http://www.google.com/ (http://www.google.com/)75,640
2.http://search.msn.com/ (http://search.msn.com/)21,531
3.http://search.yahoo.com/ (http://search.yahoo.com/)20,320
4.http://forums.mccoypottery.com/ (http://forums.mccoypottery.com/)15,222
5.http://lists.mccoypottery.com/ (http://lists.mccoypottery.com/)10,905
6.http://aolsearch.aol.com/ (http://aolsearch.aol.com/)9,048

[SEOGuru]

For my sites (prior to yahoo F**k up) it was:
Google: 385,612
Yahoo: 296,213
MSN: 104,750

Then again, I was ranked top 3 in 250+ keywords in Yahoo. The amazing part of those numbers is that I was only ranked on the first page of 3 keywords on Google and it still destroyed Yahoo and MSN.

[Mia]

I've been ranked pretty high in Google for my KW's, and still am. I have not really seen a change either way. Yes, I use the Coop, among other things. Either way, I did not see a huge influx from Yahoo in the past, and I have to say that I have not seen a change either up or down as of late.

[Las Vegas Homes]

I tend to agree somewhat with coopguy. I have a new site that was ranked in Yahoo at # 15 for its primary key phrase. I had only done some internal linking and added a few links from other sites.

These rankings I had in yahoo were stable and then I added A LOT of links to this site. The next day the site had drop from Yahoo. So I am under the impression that this could be the case.

Just to test this with Yahoo I tried this with another new site I have. It also ranked in yahoo for its primary key phrase # 26, the site is less than 10 days old, and was stable. The following day I pointed over 800 links at it, the site drop from Yahoo.

This may only be the case with new sites and it is some type of sandbox or link filter applied. Both of these sites the bots have been visiting every day and this includes google. I am going to try and remove some of those links and see what happens, if they pop back into yahoo then I will know.

[gdtechind]

i think yahoo is not happy with co-op links
and even it would have dropped those as you acquired them so quickly.
such a huge number in just 90 days could be a reason for that

[gdtechind]

If that truely is the case then Yahoo (SBC) aka Same Bad Company is not going to be around very long.

Does anyone really see a lot of traffic from Yahoo though?

I'd put them at number 3 and falling. MSN has already overtaken them IMHO. But what do you expect with a telco running the show :)

Here are the top 6 referrers for one of our larger sites:

1.http://www.google.com/ (http://www.google.com/)75,640
2.http://search.msn.com/ (http://search.msn.com/)21,531
3.http://search.yahoo.com/ (http://search.yahoo.com/)20,320
4.http://forums.mccoypottery.com/ (http://forums.mccoypottery.com/)15,222
5.http://lists.mccoypottery.com/ (http://lists.mccoypottery.com/)10,905
6.http://aolsearch.aol.com/ (http://aolsearch.aol.com/)9,048


MSN is getting better that yahoo. yahoo is slowest to index the pages and even updating the rankings on search engines.
i am finding that msn is the has done the best work in last couple of weeks.

just my opinion though

[Las Vegas Homes]

This is one thought that has not been mentioned as far as I know. We all need to remember that Yahoo is coming out with something to compete with google adsense. SO it would be in their best financial interest to make their results less relevant. Just food for thought.

[Design Agent]

I dont believe they have enough market share to risk doing something like that.

[Las Vegas Homes]

That maybe true, but it is food for thought. It will all play out soon enough.

[ferret77]

If you think about it

how many people will really take the time and resources to point lots of links at a competitior,

the amount of times that would happen is probably so small that it would cause no noticeable change in index, especially if its done on some sort of sliding scale so big established sites would be be immune.

I think its very possible to penalize sites for who links to them, do you guys still see any blog spammers doing well in yahoo?

[SEOGuru]

I actually think MSN is the best INDEXING search engine. The problem is that (right now) MUCH less people use MSN. They are still fairly new and longhorn and AdCenter will help them in time.

Google seems to have the best results and are at least making an effort to weather the storm of Yahoo and MSN by coming out with new services but it seems Google (and maybe Yahoo now) is in a predicament. They need to walk a fine line between there desire for FRESH relevant content and fighting spammers who they feel are manipulating their algorithm. It seems both companies seem to have some false positives. Legitimate sites that get caught in the algo web while spammy sites somehow fly under the radar screen. This seems to be more prevelant with Yahoo.

It APPEARS that Yahoo is taking a WAY more agressive approach. Someone over there determined that if you get a TON of links very quickly you MUST be a spammer. (by the way, in their eyes you can have relevant content and STILL be a spammer.) When Yahoo finds these sites, they seem to place an extremely HARSH penality on them and in many cases ban them completely. I think it may be more of a probation period but we don't know how long that will last.

Google on the other hand doesn't seem to penalize getting a lot of links very quickly. I think they realize that there are many cases where sites could legitimately acquire a lot of links. Plus the Google team has always been more philosophical. They have been on a crusade for a decade to attempt to judge and rank sites democratically. Thus, I don't think they will punish you for something you can't control like who links to you. BUT what they do instead is place a dampening effect on all of those links. So you may get a ton of links but they may start out as 10% (for example) of the value that a long standing link might be worth. Google tends to only penalize you for things you can control like who you link to, hidden text, over optimization, duplicate content, etc.

It really is amazing how complex this SEO industry has gotten in the last 2 years. The wisest long term strategy is to build your sites slowly and more naturally thereby optimizing more for Google. They are the lowest common denominator so in time you would do well in all 3 search engines. However, that approach usually takes so long that people can't make enough money, quick enough for a decent ROI.

One thing we know for sure. In the next year, there will be many more changes. I am rooting for Google though I think they are getting away from their strategic focus. Google Maps is a good idea but may take years to come to fruition. Google Wallet .... well, who knows what they are thinking taking on PayPal/Ebay, the #1 payment processor in the world. Their profits could have an initial boost if they cater to the porn industry as PayPal doesn't accept them. But is Google willing to put up with the PR backlash?

Really, I'm wondering how the co-op can evolve in time as the search landscape changes. I'm not saying we need to overhaul the system right now, but I'm just wondering if Shawn has some ideas floating around in his mind when the time comes. Certainly as Yahoo and MSN increase marketshare, would there ever be a point where weight was calculated on a sliding scale average of the big 3 engines? Is there any way to create a sister co-op for permanent links?

In fact a long time ago I though it would be cool if someone built a super link exchange. There are two major problems with traditional Link Exchanges.

1) They take so much time. You need to make sure the other site is linking to you and keeps your link up. You need to take out broken links. (I know you can right scripts to go out and check this stuff) And you actually need to contact thousands of webmasters. Even if you pull your listing from a database you still have to enter them into the database to begin with.

That is why I link the co-op. It is easy. You put up the code and it just works.

2) Traditional link exchanges usually involves extensive cross linking. Basically every site links to every other site. The co-op handles this because the links come up randomly. But they aren't static.

What you joined a link exchange that managed your link directory for you? You placed the code on your site or gave FTP access and the Exchange automatically sends up all of your links with the correct text, all categorized, etc. I know some people would be leary about the FTP thing but you can set up FTP accounts with limited access.

Also what if you could say, I'm providing links from these two sites but I want links back to this other site. That is kinda what the co-op does now with the ability to transfer weight to another site but it would seem to be a small leap to add a module to the co-op that included a completely managed link directory. I'm thinking something like Link Market merged with the Co-op.

OK, enough of my ranting. Probably too many topics covered in a single post. haha.

[Andi]

...massive inbound links in a short timeframe is the cause.There has to be some additional factor because any worthy but unknown site that suddenly gets slashdotted or big exposure on some national media will gather a lot of inbound links quickly, I'm sure this happens all the time.

There must be some profile of inorganic link gain that the search engines use to determine who to ban for illegitimate link gains.

Andi

[SEOGuru]

There must be some profile of inorganic link gain that the search engines use to determine who to ban for illegitimate link gains.


Not hard to find thousands of co-op or "inorganic" links that are gone if the spider goes back to the page 2 seconds later.

[Andi]

...if the spider goes back to the page 2 seconds later.That may be it. Maybe fast, large link gains are scrutinized closely and must pass certain tests or are deemed spam.

Andi

[SEOGuru]

who knows what the real trigger is for the spam filter. It could be a lot of links very quickly but like I (and others) have pointed out, there are lots of legitimate ways to get a lot of links very quickly through marketing, press releases, media, etc.

BUT, it is possible that having that many links VANISH just as quickly as you get them sets off red flags. People have been saying this about the coop for a long time. I think their fears may have come to fruition.

But the co-op is still a great idea and Shawn has built an awesome foundation. I just think that it needs to adapt to the changes in the industry.

[Mia]

Just to test this with Yahoo I tried this with another new site I have. It also ranked in yahoo for its primary key phrase # 26, the site is less than 10 days old, and was stable. The following day I pointed over 800 links at it, the site drop from Yahoo.

If it is only new sites, fine. What about the older ones that others claim have fallen out? If that is true, perhaps someone should point all their weight at Yahoo.Com or something :)

[Mia]

i think yahoo is not happy with co-op links
and even it would have dropped those as you acquired them so quickly.
such a huge number in just 90 days could be a reason for that

What is unusual about the frequency or expediency with which one acquires back-links? An extremely popular site, and or a site that has been slash-dotted could easily experience the same results, ie., a rampant influx of back-links. So now they should be dropped from an SE because of that?

[Andi]

...slash-dotted could easily experience the same results, ie., a rampant influx of back-links. So now they should be dropped from an SE because of that?But that doesn't seem to be the case, there is more to it--some filter that keeps genuine, organic link-gain from triggering the spam tag.

[Mia]

But that doesn't seem to be the case, there is more to it--some filter that keeps genuine, organic link-gain from triggering the spam tag.

I really do not see how. But back to the point. If this is really happening, then what really is to stop someone from blasting their competition off the charts? Is there a filter for that?

[SEOGuru]

I shifted 80,000 weight to a competitor's site yesterday. We'll see if this works. They were already ranked top 5 in Yahoo, Google, and MSN. I picked them because in the event that I actually HELP them in Google and MSN they were already ranked well anyway and for a term I'm not interested in.

I don't think Yahoo singled out the co-op or Digital Point per se. I think it was a combination of things and if you had a lot of weight in the co-op and get a lot of links very quickly, it triggered the filter.

Another example. I have over 300 sites in the co-op. All of them giving up their weight to 3 sites. Those 3 sites all got banned. None of the other 297 sites did because though they had the co-op links, they weren't GETTING links.

I don't know how many more examples we need to throw out there. We'll see if I can actually get a competitor banned. lol

[jlawrence]

I hope that your experiment fails, otherwise it opens up the possibilty of getting a site banned without having to put in too much effort to do so. It would be pretty easy to buy a PR5 site, build it up to 50K pages and just use the weight on the opposition - that's a frightening thought for anyone who relies on income from websites.
Yahoo and MSN do for some people provide large amounts of traffic, wiping them out that easily should be difficult to do.

[maha]

300 sites in Co-op.. wow I have only 10 sites, and the 1 site I pointed all my weight to got banned in Yahoo.

It sure seems like having too much weight (links) pointing to a site have a negative effect in Yahoo (and maybe now MSN)?


I have over 300 sites in the co-op. All of them giving up their weight to 3 sites. Those 3 sites all got banned. None of the other 297 sites did because though they had the co-op links, they weren't GETTING links.

[maha]

I agree with you. It just doesn't seem right..

This means if someone can point his 80,000 weight at say "Google.com" or "Microsoft.com", will Yahoo banned Google.com or Microsoft.com from its SERP? Logically, it makes no sense. If Yahoo allows it happen, they're messed up!

I hope that your experiment fails, otherwise it opens up the possibilty of getting a site banned without having to put in too much effort to do so. It would be pretty easy to buy a PR5 site, build it up to 50K pages and just use the weight on the opposition - that's a frightening thought for anyone who relies on income from websites.
Yahoo and MSN do for some people provide large amounts of traffic, wiping them out that easily should be difficult to do.

[SEOGuru]

I agree with you. It just doesn't seem right..

This means if someone can point his 80,000 weight at say "Google.com" or "Microsoft.com", will Yahoo banned Google.com or Microsoft.com from its SERP? Logically, it makes no sense. If Yahoo allows it happen, they're messed up!

I have a feeling this experiment will work though I don't think it will take just a few days to work. I had been accumulating links for 60 days (however my weight is much higher now than it was when I started). My site got up to 1.5 million links, not all from them coop but nonetheless, i'm sure a good amount came from the coop.

This can't work for huge sites like microsoft.com and google.com because it is likely a percentage of your overall link total. Meaning if microsoft has 49 MILLION links, to have a thousand, even 1 million co-op links added, it would not set off any red flags. Most of the huge sites on the internet don't need to worry, however I'd venture to say that most of the people in the co-op have competitors that are well within the range of vulnerability.

I'll keep you informed. I pray it fails because you are right... what a scary day it would be if Yahoo allows this. I guess I just want to find out once and for all.

[maha]

Let us know what you find out.. this should be interesting!

[jlawrence]

Whilst MS etc might have a huge amount of backlinks, how many coop accounts would it require to get them dropped. If your experiment worked, there are certainly people out there that would go to the trouble of joining together in order to remove some of the big sites. The publicity that yahoo would get from something like that happening would be amazing - whether any of it would be good PR is another matter.

[digidogstudios]

this is true, getting rapdi bl's cant get u banned, but it CAN put you in the sandbox which sometimes might similate a ban

[SEOGuru]

with all due respect, my 3 sites are not simply "sandboxed" they are outright banned. I have confirmed this through an email to the search team (though they didn't give me the reason why). I went from 5,000 links to 1.5 million on 3 different sites in 60 days. All three sites were banned. They don't rank under a search for the domain and are NO LONGER being crawled by the spiders when they were previously being hit every single day.

If I simply dropped in the rankings (like going from #1 to #600) then I would agree with you, but that is not what happened. My sites are delisted. And now that I have narrowed it down to the rapid growth of links via the co-op, my test is to see if a competitor can be banned in the same manner.

Google at least takes a more logical approach to links. They wont ban you for something you can't control (like someone else linking to you) but they WILL devalue the links to the point where they are virtually worthless. If Yahoo did that, I'd be fine because I was ranked in the top 10 even prior to using the co-op.

[Design Agent]

Google at least takes a more logical approach to links. They wont ban you for something you can't control (like someone else linking to you) but they WILL devalue the links to the point where they are virtually worthless.

Isnt that almost as bad - if you rely on link building to rise + maintain your rankings then for your link building to become devalued means that you will lose your competitive edge ?

[SEOGuru]

I hope I am misunderstanding you. Are you saying that having links devalued is just as bad as being outright banned? That comparison isn't even CLOSE to valid.

Like I said, I was in the top 10 BEFORE I used the co-op. So if Yahoo would have simply made my co-op links worthless, I'd still be in the top 10. But they didn't. They banned me. So to answer your question.... NO it isn't just as bad.

[I, Brian]

coopGuy - are you actually delisted or banned?

Sorry to ask for clarification, but you've used both terms, yet they are very different issues.

If a site is banned from Yahoo!, then apparently a search for the domain name will only ever bring up a single result - Yahoo! does not entirely remove banned domains, merely ensures they have no specific impact on the SERPS unless specifically searched for.

A delisting, on the other hand, is a pretty serious issue that is different to clear penalisation - for example, such as through a DMCA report filing - as reported in this thread:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=19703

[SEOGuru]

I apologize for not making the distinction.

My site DOES show up under the SITE: command.
It is NOT being indexed anymore and is actually losing indexed pages at a rate of 100+ per day.
It DOES NOT show up under a search for the actual domain name.

Maybe there is a difference between being delisted or banned. What I do know is that I am not sandboxed. I didn't simply drop in ranking.

[noppid]

Is this site available for us to see these stats on? I don't see a link in the first post?

If not, I call BS.

[SEOGuru]

Private message me if you want to know my sites and its stats. Please understand my apprehension of revealing my site to a public forum when I am going after competitors like this.

I know first hand that you can dig up all kinds of stuff on competitors' strategies when overzealous webmasters start spouting out their secrets on these kinds of message boards. In fact, that is how I found out a lot about my competitors since virtually all of the major SEO forums across the Internet are indexed by Google.

[maha]

I am in the exact same situation in Yahoo. I used to be ranked #1 or #2 (very competitve KW) in Yahoo only a few weeks ago. Now I cannot even find my own domain name.

As an example, I cannot find "Digitalpoint" in Yahoo either. Is shawn's site banned or delisted?

I apologize for not making the distinction.

My site DOES show up under the SITE: command.
It is NOT being indexed anymore and is actually losing indexed pages at a rate of 100+ per day.
It DOES NOT show up under a search for the actual domain name.

Maybe there is a difference between being delisted or banned. What I do know is that I am not sandboxed. I didn't simply drop in ranking.

[maha]

CoopGuy, What email did you use to contact Yahoo's Search Team?

[jlawrence]

I don't know quite what you mean by you can't find digitalpoint.
If you run a search on yahoo for digitalpoint dot com, then it returns plenty of results including if you run a site: search.
This points me towards the idea of some kind of penalty rather than DP being banned/delisted - or is it just a difference in Yahoo datacenters.
I think some where within this update, yahoo have seriously f'd up. To be able to ban/delist a site simply by pointing massive numbers of IBL's at it is insanity.
If this is the case, then I'm certain there is probably enough coop weight within this network to get practically any site dropped. How many IBL's could be pointed at a site if we all club together - 100 Mil + ? - if I was a betting man, I'd probably place a wager that we could even hurt some of the really big guys.

[SEOGuru]

I moved even more weight to my competitor. Now 130,000+

I figure that I need to hit them hard and fast. They already had 46k links. So I need them to double or triple that in the next couple of weeks. That should set off Yahoo's filter if there indeed is one.

[SEOGuru]

I contacted Yahoo though this email: ystfeedback@yahoo.com

And from this webpage: http://add.yahoo.com/fast/help/us/ysearch/cgi_urlstatus

[noppid]

I moved even more weight to my competitor. Now 130,000+

I figure that I need to hit them hard and fast. They already had 46k links. So I need them to double or triple that in the next couple of weeks. That should set off Yahoo's filter if there indeed is one.

I hope it works and they sue your ass for commerce freud.

Things like this are damn rediculous!

My thoughs are you are trying to drag the coop down, not your competitor.

I'm had you pegged as a coop competitor from post one of this thread.

[SEOGuru]

Are you kidding me? I didn't make the rules. Yahoo is the one who banned thousands of sites for these links. Would it be any different if my competitor actually JOINED the co-op and got banned on his own? I'm trying to see if this theory is indeed true because I don't think ANYONE can argue that the answer is EXTREMELY valuable to everyone in the co-op and even every webmaster on the planet. I need to know if massive inbound links can get someone banned.

You know, people like you only see one point of view. Would you be just as upset if it backfires and I actually HELP my competitor? Isn't it ME who is taking that risk? If anyone thinks this theory is B.S. then there should be no worry because I will likely actually help my competition. I'm not saying it is true or not, I can only go by what I've seen with my own sites and what others have been saying. I'm trying to find out for sure and I bet there are lots of people who would be interested in the results.

[noppid]

1)-Are you kidding me?

2)-I didn't make the rules. Yahoo is the one who banned thousands of sites for these links.

3)-Would it be any different if my competitor actually JOINED the co-op and got banned on his own?

4)-I'm trying to see if this theory is indeed true because I don't think ANYONE can argue that the answer is EXTREMELY valuable to everyone in the co-op and even every webmaster on the planet. I need to know if massive inbound links can get someone banned.

5)-You know, people like you only see one point of view. Would you be just as upset if it backfires and I actually HELP my competitor? Isn't it ME who is taking that risk? If anyone thinks this theory is B.S. then there should be no worry because

6)-I will likely actually help my competition. I'm not saying it is true or not, I can only go by what I've seen with my own sites and what others have been saying. I'm trying to find out for sure and I bet there are lots of people who would be interested in the results.

1) Definatly not.
2) You making this stuff up or can I see the Yahoo! white paper on this or the information that was disseminated to determine such?
3) Argumentive, it's conjecture to debate
4) Hire an attorney to ask. Hell write a real letter instead of trying email. They have a legal dept.
5) I'm sorry if I find playing with a competitor like this criminal, but that's my opinion. I hope it's everyone elses that reads this as well.
6) That's a lie and you know it, you're doing this with the intent of getting the site banned as your's supposedly was to prove that is a way to attack a competitor. You clearly state that intent too. Don't try to soften with the prospect that it may be to their benefit. I can see right though that one.

Nice try though. :/

[Mia]

I am pretty certain that the criterion necessary for removal from Yahoo/SERPs is based not only on the number of and or quality of links, but the age of the site that has the links pointed to them.

I have a number of sites that have been around since 95 and some as late as 98 that have a lot of weight pointed at them and they have not moved or disappeared from Yahoo. Only those sites that are X years/months whatever old have been affected.

I'd think trying to knock Microsoft out would be next to impossible given the length of time the site has been around.

[maha]

If you search "digitalpoint" in Yahoo, you will not be able to find "digitalpoint.com"


I don't know quite what you mean by you can't find digitalpoint.
If you run a search on yahoo for digitalpoint dot com, then it returns plenty of results including if you run a site: search.
This points me towards the idea of some kind of penalty rather than DP being banned/delisted - or is it just a difference in Yahoo datacenters.
I think some where within this update, yahoo have seriously f'd up. To be able to ban/delist a site simply by pointing massive numbers of IBL's at it is insanity.
If this is the case, then I'm certain there is probably enough coop weight within this network to get practically any site dropped. How many IBL's could be pointed at a site if we all club together - 100 Mil + ? - if I was a betting man, I'd probably place a wager that we could even hurt some of the really big guys.

[SEOGuru]

NOPPID, I make no claim that I'm not trying to get them banned. But if you want to get down to brass balls... EVERY SITE in the coop is manipulating their results and is in violation of their Guidelines so don't portray yourself as some saint.

I don't rank sites. That is Yahoo's job. If they think that by banning sites for inbound links others aren't going to use that knowledge, I'm looking to prove them wrong (if I can). I'd like to have Yahoo simply change their ranking formula but there is no way they are going to do that unless I can prove that this can be done. Even writing their legal department is useless without some facts. If you think it is a lie in that I might actually help my competition (if not in Yahoo, then in Google/MSN) then you must agree with me that I can actually get someone banned using this method. If you didn't agree that this is possible, then you wouldn't be worried would you? And if that is the case, then why would you not want to know for sure, even if for your own benefit since you are also part of the coop? Don't you and the rest of the thousands of members want to know if a lot of weight in the coop can actually GET you banned (or if not the coop directly, just getting a lot of links very quickly)?

How funny it is when you say that I shouldn't "play with a competitor like this". Isn't Yahoo just playing with the revenue of thousands of companies every time they make a change? Isn't it their ranking tweak that really made this possible in the first place?

I have no ethical or moral barrier. I know my competitors personally and they have been pulling underhanded stuff on me for years. They are a bunch of a**holes that have tried to steal trade secrets from employees of mine and have filed frivilous lawsuits against me. They are a casualty of war my friend. The Internet is a free-for-all and everyone should know that by now. There is no excuse for ignorance when it comes to SEO. No one ever said ranking in search engines was "fair". Heck, we all know that isn't true.

This is a capitalistic society and if you have a competitive edge you don't tell your competition just so it is "fair". If they aren't good enough to stay in business then they don't deserve to be in business. They should go do something else that they are better at.

[SEOGuru]

By the way, I just checked the link total of my competitor.

I've increased their link total by 26,000 links in 24 hours. And that was before I added the extra 100,000 weight to them.

[noppid]

NOPPID, I make no claim that I'm not trying to get them banned. But if you want to get down to brass balls...

EVERY SITE in the coop is manipulating their results and is in violation of their Guidelines so don't portray yourself as some saint.



Right there I'll stop you cold in your tracks. You are trying to get the same result from this effort that you think your site got, banned. More BS to call on you.

This is not about the coop, but you keep going back there. More BS to call on you.

You have no clue what "I" do, now do you? But your eloquent writing style makes your BS sound like facts. But it's more BS.

Back to the coop since that's your favorite subject. It's an advertisng medium, nothing more, nothing less. So more BS when you say it is "manipulating" rankings.

You really don't known anything about anything you type. What a waste of time reading such BS.

[SEOGuru]

I obviously can't have a rational conversation with someone who is irrational. Good luck to you.

[noppid]

I obviously can't have a rational conversation with someone who is irrational. Good luck to you.

I'm irrational? I've showed you how every statement you make is BS!

Now that you know you can't spin things and get them past me you resort to name calling?

Told you he was full of BS! ;)

[SEOGuru]

You poor thing. No one can rationalize irrational statements likes ones you've made.

You are trying to get the same result from this effort that you think your site got, banned. More BS to call on you.

What exactly are you confused about? I have never said I wasn't trying to get them banned. I've said it over and over again. I've explained WHY I'm doing it, and HOW I'm doing it. I could explain this concept to a tree stump and it would comprehend more than you have. This is exactly what I'm talking about, you are making an irrational and irrelevant point.

This is not about the coop, but you keep going back there. More BS to call on you.

What the hell are you saying? If you would bother to read ANYTHING I've written, I've said it multiple times.... this is ALL about the coop. It is COMPLETELY about trying to figure out if massive amounts of links can get someone banned. Just like my sites, and just like thousands of other sites. I am trying to answer the question that everyone wants answered. How many times do I have to repeat myself? lol You are so off base that I have to assume you are doing it on purpose because no one could be this stupid on accident.

Back to the coop since that's your favorite subject. It's an advertisng medium, nothing more, nothing less. So more BS when you say it is "manipulating" rankings.

Are you INSANE? Do you ACTUALLY think the coop is primarily an advertising medium? There is little traffic that comes from these links and I would know since I've generated more than 4 million total to my 3 sites. This coop is about one thing... link popularity. To think it is "advertising" is a complete dillussion and you are living in some kind of fantasy land.

I'll say it again. I can't have a rational conversation with someone that is irrational. If you truely believe what you say, then I pitty you because you are seriously disturbed and have a warpped sense of reality.

[noppid]

I've already finished this show. I'm not repeating myself.

Thank you very much, you've been a fine audiance!


Cheers.

[Art]

Arguments aside, the outcome of this is practically going to determine whether or not Yahoo has some showstopping issues with its filters. Quite a few coop members command an immense amount of weight which can potentially be used to drop sites entirely from search engines.

It just dawned on me that there's a double edge effect with using weight to drop competitors from Yahoo entirely: by putting a theoretical 100k weight on another site to remove their listing from Yahoo, won't you be subsequently increasing their Google and MSN SERPs (potentially enough to counter the loss of Yahoo as a traffic source altogether)?

Either way, I'm keen to hear the outcome, as I'm sure many others are.

[SEOGuru]

That was my fear Art. Which is why I picked a competitor that was already doing well in Google and MSN. (so I couldn't really help them that much)

I also made sure that the link text was not their primary keyword. So basically I want the massive amounts of links to trip the filter while limiting the positive effect it may have in Google and MSN using their anchor text. Actually if it was a "travel" site and you sent a million links with the text link "power tools" it could actually HURT them in Google and MSN too. Not sure about that though.

[Art]

Good point.

In relation to hurting their Google rankings (I'm not quite sure about MSN), it really depends on what school of thought you subscribe to, do we truly know that backlinks can have ANY sort of negative effect upon a site? (if you ignore the first "talentless hack" Google bomb as an example ;p). I'm excluding Yahoo in this question, since their logic seems to be immensely flawed. We'll find out I guess.

How long did it approximately take before you noticed your site drop? Has Yahoo made any attempt to fix the situation or do they just not care?

[SEOGuru]

My site rose to top 3 in 250+ keywords and was just GONE one day about 10 days ago when the Charlie update hit. It didn't drop slowly then disappear, it just vanished.

I paid the $299 to get into the Directory and was approved. My thought was that since it was a hand-review of my site it might help me in getting back into the SERPs. NO GO. They don't care.

So I emailed Yahoo using the yahoo team email address and the form on their site. No response.

I know I'm not the only one who was affected. A lot of you were, but I guess I decided that I'm going to take a proactive approach. Basically see if I can use this situation in a positive way. Maybe we can find out for sure if this is the reason, and heck maybe I can deliver a deathblow to my competitor in the process (at least in Yahoo).

[Art]

They added you to the directory AFTER you were banned? Were you actually added?

[SEOGuru]

Yeah, that is why I did it. I figured if they could hand review me and add me to the Directory AFTER I was banned (about 4 days ago) then I should be reincluded into the SERPs. But I guess not. Maybe it is a different division or something.

[ServerUnion]

coopGuy, I find it terrible that you are playing with your competitors SERP's! Why not use one of your sites?

You have a theory that the coop kills SERP's, then you publicaly point your weight at your competitor, that is unethical. I hope this thread will loose you any faith in the eyes of DP users.

Act like a professional and have some ethics. Of course you will get picked up on the filters if you pick up a few millions links in 2 months.

[Web Gazelle]

It looks like it might just be possible to ban a competitor from both Yahoo and MSN using co-op weight.

[jim]

I think it's clear that Yahoo hates coop. They used to love it, and one of my sites was ranked #1 in Yahoo for some sweet keywords for a few months with basically nothing but coop weight going for it. Now you can't find it in yahoo for even the most obscure keywords. The coop weight was nothing new, Yahoo just changed the way the react to it. I bet you can get someone banned from Yahoo with enough coop weight (but the more links they have already, the more coop weight it would take.

[SEOGuru]

coopGuy, I find it terrible that you are playing with your competitors SERP's! Why not use one of your sites?

I HAVE used my own sites. 3 of them are banned. But that will not get Yahoo's attention. They need to know that their little update can be used maliciously. That is what gets headlines and gets their attention. Google seems to have realized this long ago.

You certainly have a right to your opinion ServerUnion. I have no ethical dilemma whatsoever with fighting back against a competitor that has screwed me over for years. This isn't a random site I picked. I know these people personally and they have done some seriously underhanded stuff to my companies over the years.

You say "of course you will get picked up on the filers if you pick up a few million links". That is my point though. Google and MSN don't ban you for even 5 million added links. Google will just devalue them so there is little benefit (especially if they disappear like the coop links do). Yahoo is screwed up and I'm going to prove it to them (or try anyway). Even if I have to send out press releases to media organizations with the results of this test.

The funny thing is when people think it is criminal. I can't remember someone going to jail for search engine optimization. I'm not talking about copyright infringement, or getting them banned via the DMCA. I'm just pointing links to them.

It is hilarious really when I think about it. Do you know how many people actually PURCHASE thousands of links? They spend THOUSANDS of dollars to do so and hire SEO companies to create pages for them, they join link exchanges and spend hundreds of hours trying to get links etc. Here I am GIVING a company millions of links. Regardless of my intent, the whole thing is just hypocritical compared to the reality of the SEO Industry. Heck, maybe I should call them up and ask them if they are willing to pay me for them. haha

I could have just as easily told you, "I really like this company and I want to help them out by giving them free 'advertising' and links". Had Yahoo not done this update, that would have been seen as OK, even if I was still "PLAYING WITH THEIR RANKING". In fact weren't we playing with the ranking of that charity site that Shawn pointed all of those links to? Sure, the intention was good, but ultimately it hurt the site.

Furthermore, this theory has NOT been proven yet. It is only a hunch based on what I've heard other people say and what my sites have experienced. What if there really is no filter? What if I just gave them a million links for free and it helped them? Oh, THEN it would be ok because I'm helping them right? haha

I don't pretend to be an angel. For those that have private messaged me and know my websites, they also know that my sites are very legit sites, with separate corporations behind each one. I don't have a bunch of affiliate spammy sites. And as a business owner, I am going to do what I need to do to survive in this new search marketplace. If my competitors can't defend themselves, that honestly is not my problem. I'm not taking their site DOWN. We aren't talking about a Denial of Service attack. We are talking about rankings in the NATURAL listings, something that was free to begin with. Maybe they should do a PPC campaign instead.

[longcall911]

coopGuy:

Are your 300 domains registered to the same owner?

Are they cross-linked to the extent that an SE would logically assume they are controlled by the same entity?

Is each site on a different class C sub-net?

Do they have any page attributes (layout templates, css definitions, file names, etc.) distinctly in common?

/*tom*/

[ServerUnion]

coopGuy, I just prefer to take the high road on these matters. Lowering ethics and values to meet an attack always seems to come back to bite you. In the end, words cannot defend action.

[SEOGuru]

Good luck to you as well ServerUnion

I need not defend my position any more than I have. I have not tried to gloss over or shy away from what I am doing. Everyone knows exactly what I'm doing and why. It really is none of my concern if people have a problem with it.

[ServerUnion]

No need to defend, you are right, your position is clear.

[SEOGuru]

coopGuy:

Are your 300 domains registered to the same owner?

Are they cross-linked to the extent that an SE would logically assume they are controlled by the same entity?

Is each site on a different class C sub-net?

Do they have any page attributes (layout templates, css definitions, file names, etc.) distinctly in common?

/*tom*/

Actually Tom, they are on different IPs on different C-Blocks, registered on different dates by a proxy company, controlled by 3 different corporations. They have unique content with randomly created CSS file and style names, randomly created directory structures, randomly created non-reciprocal linking schemes, with different layouts and color versions, with automatic Google Sitemaps, OPML files, and RSS feeds created each day for unique pages also created each day that are automatically pinged via 4 different methods.

[longcall911]

You certainly covered all the bases. :-)

This should then be a very accurate test. There's a similar one going on at http://forums.seochat.com/showthread.php?t=38501&page=4&pp=15 starting with post #53.

It will be very interesting to compare results. The other test targets G, but we'll get a chance to see how all 3 SEs respond.

/*tom*/

[Web Gazelle]

I know of a site that is a blatent spammer that dominates MSN. I would love to see them and all their clone site go away. I am very interested in this "experiment" and if anyone wants to knock out a spammer with co-op weight just send me a PM.

[SEOGuru]

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that the co-op could knock someone out of MSN. I think right now it will only effect Yahoo.

[SEOGuru]

My link total in Yahoo went up by another 100,000 today. This is nuts. I have NONE of my weight pointing to my site anymore. I'm actually trying to lose links and I can't.

[chachi]

heh, I hope I am not your competitor :)

[Kierslee]

My link total in Yahoo went up by another 100,000 today. This is nuts. I have NONE of my weight pointing to my site anymore. I'm actually trying to lose links and I can't.

I wonder if there is a lag w/ Yahoo that they aren't dropping your links yet. How long since you've had your own weight pointed to your own site? I hope someone isn't trying to get you banned by pointing thier links to you.

Kierslee

[SEOGuru]

Not to worry, I'm already banned. lol I had a lot of weight pointing to my site for 2-3 months and my site got up to 1.5 million links. I've been banned now for about 15 days (ever since the Charlie update) but I've had the co-op pointing away from my site for about 5 days now and my link total went up to 1.6 million. geesh. That's how powerful the co-op is. Just the essence of the co-op will get you links. hahaha.

[Web Gazelle]

I am convinced that the recent MSN update has included a way of tracking artificial link building. I am sure your co-op weight can get a site banned from both Yahoo and MSN>

[ferret77]

I'm not sure how you can be so convinced when there still are lots of coop sites ranking in yahoo and msn

[Blogmaster]

I am convinced that the recent MSN update has included a way of tracking artificial link building. I am sure your co-op weight can get a site banned from both Yahoo and MSN>
If I may ask: do you base this on anything specific that you would like to share?

[tfbpa]

Great experiment!

Finally someone with the power and balls to publicly test the theory we are all interested in, kudoos my friend!

As for the increase in BL for your own site, I think I remember it takes about 72hrs before it all proprogates to everybody's site in the co-op. At the minumum. I got out of the co-op a few months ago and still I get the occasional link somehow. Also it takes 24-48hrs before Yahoo is showing the cached page/links. Therefore it is only natural that the amount of links to your own site increases at least the first 5 days after you pulled them.

With the same logic it takes at least 5 days before the full strength links are going to your competitor in this experience. Give it another week or maybe 2 and we know the results of this beautifull experiment everybody is interested in, even the ones who complain it is unethical, otherwise they wouldn't be reading and posting....

[rjhere]

I am also interested in this experiment.. Not for use against people but for information on why sites like ours did poorly. Looking forward to hear your findings.

As far as artificial link building in msn, I can say that they have no such filter... They love quantity and anchor text. My co-op sites are doing great at msn.

[Web Gazelle]

What I was seeing was drops for many keywords that I had a site ranking for. The only thing I had done before the drops was join the co-op. What else could cause this drop. I had one term go from #1 to #105. Go ahead, give me bad rep. I am just trying to solve a drop in MSN and don't have many things to look at as reasons for it.

[Web Gazelle]

OK, I still think that some how Yahoo is penalizing sites with lots of co-op weight. However I am no longer supporting the original idea of mine that MSN also penalizes sites with lots of co-op weight. I have recently seen some nice improvements in my rankings in MSN, just but doing a little on page and internal link SEO. So I have a different spammer I would like to try to knock out of Yahoo for those who took me up on the original experiment offer. :cool:

[SEOGuru]

Ok here is the update on my little experiment.

The site I was targeting was ranked #8 on Yahoo on 6/30/2005
The term returns 22 million results.

6/30/2005
Link: 39600
Linkdomain: 42600
no ranking change

7/1/2005
Link: 41600
Linkdomain: 44700
no ranking change

7/2/2005
Link: 122,000
Linkdomain: 62500
no ranking change

7/3/2005
Link: 122,000
Linkdomain: 67200
no ranking change

7/4/2005
Link: 140,000
Linkdomain: 76100
no ranking change

7/5/2005
Link: 140,000
Linkdomain: 77400
no ranking change

7/6/2005
(I was on vacation, sorry)

7/7/2005
Link: 135,000
Linkdomain: 68100
no ranking change

7/8/2005
Link: 272,000
Linkdomain: 92100
no ranking change

As you can see there was a small dip yesterday then a huge jump today. Yet their ranking hasn't budged. In fact none of the top 10 have moved at all since the update.

Now here is the interesting part. The anchor text I was using was a different term altogether than the main one that I was checking their rankings on. This is because the experiment was to get them banned in Yahoo by massive links, not to see if I could move them up in the rankings. I certainly didn't want to help them too much in Google or MSN.

The term I used as anchor text was somewhat related to their site but they did NOT rank in the first 600 results on Google, MSN, or Yahoo in that term. They don't have the term in their URL, Title, Meta Keywords, or anywhere in their body text.

Now, after a week they are #1 in Google, MSN, and Yahoo for the anchor text I was using. They even outrank sites that have the term in their domain and title. And it isn't a small term either, it returns 4 million in Yahoo.

Ever heard of Google Bombing? Well, I think I just Search Engine bombed all 3 engines using the co-op. I sent a site from NOT RANKED to #1 on all 3 engines, in a fairly competitve term, in 1 week.

Now SPDUDE brought up a very interesting point today with an experiment he was doing.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=231053&postcount=34

I don't know if my competitor will eventually get banned when Yahoo updates again, but it appears that Yahoo may have just done some "summer cleaning" and banned a bunch of sites one time.

To be honest, it reminds me of Google's Florida update two years ago that was also done during the summer. It is a way for them to clean house before the major holiday season. Maybe they will ban again but then again it could be 6 months to a year from now. For those sites left standing, it seems that the co-op can work just like it worked prior to Yahoo's Charlie update.

I'll keep testing and we'll see. It has only been a week but I've taken their links from 39k to 272k and they haven't even gone down (or up) a single spot.

[longcall911]

Thanks for the update.

I know many people say that Y! SERPs change frequently, but that has not been my experience at all. For the two sites I follow closely, it seems the only time they change position is with an algo tweak.

For these sites, I can be pretty sure that they'll maintain position for 2 or 3 months at a clip. So, it may be that you'll have to wait that long to really see if it works.

/*tom*/

[milancole]

hi all,

interesting discussion here, and i just wanted to add my experience with a site that i did some very aggressive seo recently. in the course of 3 months i added a couple hundred links from directory sites and others, and many site-wide links from sites with a total of about 70,000 pages, and enjoyed a #2 ranking on Yahoo for a term with 35,000,000 results before Yahoo banned me. I also confirmed the ban with the Yahoo search team and they claimed that they would reindex me in the future, however, it never happened.

i also noticed that Yahoo never lowered my link count despite the links having disappeared many weeks ago, and MSN never seemed bothered by any of it, although they did do a massive devaluation of site-wide links about a month ago. Google just kept me in the 'sandbox'.

so i think you probably can get a competitor banned on Yahoo if you tried hard enough, however, i would also say that i would be rather concerned about the ethical and legal ramifications of doing so.

good luck to all and be wary of too rapid link-building :)

[Web Gazelle]

Thanks for the update. I think it is to early to see the real results of the experiment.

[TopSpin]

I agree with LongCall - the sites I follow in Yahoo tend to stay put and really only move when there's an algorithm tweak of some sort. As for getting someone banned - would it really be worth the time and effort to do so? It would only be one of many sites that 'might' disappear and while there certainly would be harm done to the competitor, it would necessarily help your own situation... it just doesn't sound like a smart idea (not to mention the nasty karma that would go along with it).

[GuyFromChicago]

i would also say that i would be rather concerned about the ethical and legal ramifications of doing so.


There's nothing illegal about linking to a site.

[mjewel]

Thanks for the update.

I know many people say that Y! SERPs change frequently, but that has not been my experience at all. For the two sites I follow closely, it seems the only time they change position is with an algo tweak.

For these sites, I can be pretty sure that they'll maintain position for 2 or 3 months at a clip. So, it may be that you'll have to wait that long to really see if it works.

/*tom*/

That was my experience. Yahoo Rankings increased very well - for about 7 weeks, until they did some update and then they dropped the site entirely-- not slowly, but all in one day. Many other posts showed similar results within a few days of each other. If the experiement works, I believe there will be a complete removal at the same time with no slight decrease in rankings.

Yahoo hasn't sent a single vistor to the site since this day, even though they spider the site daily and show a few hundred pages in KW tracker. It isn't a large site, but gets about 500 uniques a day.

[SEOGuru]

I agree with LongCall - the sites I follow in Yahoo tend to stay put and really only move when there's an algorithm tweak of some sort. As for getting someone banned - would it really be worth the time and effort to do so? It would only be one of many sites that 'might' disappear and while there certainly would be harm done to the competitor, it would necessarily help your own situation... it just doesn't sound like a smart idea (not to mention the nasty karma that would go along with it).

I agree TopSpin. My plan isn't really to start going down a list of competitors and trying to get them all banned. I'm mostly trying to prove that you CAN get a competitor banned.

I just dont see how they can ban you for someone else linking to you. OK, granted, we control these links in the coop. Meaning we have all proactively gone out and acquired these links and therefore we are in violation of their Guidelines but Yahoo doesn't know that. How can they distinguish between a company that TRIED to get these links and another company who got these links unknowingly (link in my experiment)?

I know I may not have a major effect put I'm going to try to prove the flaw in their algorithm; that this can actually be used maliciously. They can't assume that just because someone got a lot of links very quickly, they are a spammer. You can't control who links to you.

Maybe these links SHOULD be worthless. Maybe they can devalue the links like Google does, but outright banning companies seems like a drastic approach that will also produce a lot of false positives.

I don't think I can go to Yahoo with a theory that this can be done. I need to actually do it and then tell them I've done it, thereby proving to them that their logic is flawed. If I have to get the national media involved, so be it.

I guess we are finding that it could take months before I know for sure. I'm just waiting for their next update.

[honey]

I agree to spdude, similar things are working pretty good for me.

[TopSpin]

CoopGuy - This is really a big benefit to the search engines... by running the 'test' and then showing them the results, you are giving them EXTREMELY valuable data on their systems. Maybe they should hire you??

Logic dictates that a ban because of a site 'variable' that isn't totally in the hands of the site owner would simply be wrong. I agree... a ban is just too much.

[schlottke]

Whether or not it is coop related (which I doubt it is) Yahoo! certainly did drop a lot of quality sites. Many of which were in the coop.. Is it all coincidence, probably.

[SEOGuru]

Whether or not it is coop related (which I doubt it is) Yahoo! certainly did drop a lot of quality sites. Many of which were in the coop.. Is it all coincidence, probably.

I don't think it is the coop exactly. Meaning.. not everyone in the coop got banned. So I don't believe Yahoo targeted the DP coop. But, having a LOT of weight in the coop puts a site in a position where they can acquire thousands (or in my case over 1.5 million) links in a very short time frame. THAT is what I believe got these sites banned; massive links very quickly.

In all honestly, it DOES look suspicious and un-natural, but as many people pointed out there are lots of ways you can legitimately get a lot of links very quickly. (though coop links also disappear virtually immediately after they are indexed so that is probably even MORE suspicious)

I'm not here to tell Yahoo how to rank sites on their search engine. I just think banning a site is too harsh of a punishment. They are opening pandora's box because you can take out your competitors. Completely innocent sites can get nailed.

Look at the SEO industry over the last 4 years. It has exploded. As soon as people started to realize that PageRank and links mattered in rankings, a whole sub-culture emerged to sell links from high PR sites to manipulate the rankings. Yahoo can't assume that everyone will play fairly. We all know that isn't true. Google learned their lesson which is why they devalue links but will virtually never BAN a site for someone else linking to it.

If Yahoo does not correct this issue, companies will emerge as sort of "Internet Assassins" that you could hire as hitmen on other sites. I'm not sure Yahoo really thought about what they were doing or maybe they thought that few people would have the time, resources, knowledge, or desire to actually carry out such an act.

Again, all I have is a theory but the data seems to be very compelling. I hope to prove it soon but they need to hurry up and do another update. lol

[Web Gazelle]

That is the reason I am spreading my weight over several sites and gradually increasing it on the main site that I want to show well and bring in good revenue.

[rjhere]

coopguy, how is this experiment coming along?

[SEOGuru]

Sorry for the delay. I have been really busy and haven't logged in to the forums recently.

Here is the experiment update.

First I managed to take my competitor's links from 44k to 400k. So about 9 times what they had. But I had a problem. Yahoo themselves are also in the industry I am in. In fact it is one of their biggest money makers.

They have frozen the top 10 rankings (including my competitor's). I have proof of this and this is actually a whole different ethical and legal issue that my lawyers will be bringing up to Yahoo.

Rather than explaining the exact keyword on a public message board, i'll give you an hypothetical example in another industry.

Let's say you were trying to get ranked in "TRAVEL". That would be one of the most competitive keywords on the Internet, right? Now, lets say you somehow got to #1, but Yahoo also had a Travel company (or division). Basically you would have been outranking Yahoo on their own search engine.

Now assume that after the Charlie update at the end of June, you were magically "banned" and Yahoo was now #1. Though this might upset you, you probably wouldn't question Yahoo being ranked first since they are a large company and probably have a lot of links.

But then a month goes by with many more updates or (ranking shifts). The ENTIRE top 10 has not changed.

Let me elaborate. I'm not talking about the top 10 being the same except for little shifts between them. I'm saying, since the Charlie update it has been the same Top 10, IN THE SAME ORDER.

Ok, so then you take a step back that think to yourself:
"Well, it is odd because every other keyword shifts around a little but, but I guess it is possible for the same 10 to be left in the same order."

So then you check a variation of the term. You search for "FREE TRAVEL". It is the EXACT same 10 in the EXACT same order. That is IMPOSSIBLE.

Even if you searched on Google, MSN, or Yahoo for "gift card" and "gift cards" you would get different results. Even if some of the same sites showed up, they would be in a different order. And that was only 1 LETTER off. In this case I have added a whole word and the EXACT same results appeared in the EXACT same order. Then you realize that Yahoo offers "FREE TRAVEL" so you try something else. You search for "WINTER TRAVEL" and the entire top 10 change.

So why those two searches? Why lock them down? It is impossible (mathematically) for the algorithm to have the exact same results for two completely different searches, especially when you can easily prove that just the plural of a search generates different results. And we aren't talking about some small keyword no one searches for. This is one of the top 50 most searched words on the entire Internet.

So I checked across thousands of keywords to see if I can duplicate this phenomenon. NOPE. Yahoo not only banned my site (who was outranking them) but has actually frozen the results with themselves at #1 because it is an industry where they make a LOT of money in.

Granted, the industry is not "TRAVEL". I used it as an example. Private message me if you want the exact searches I'm referring to. This brings up a whole different issue with them that my lawyers are pursuing with other media organizations.

OK, so the problem with my experiment of trying to get a competitor banned is that they were in the frozen results at #8. They haven't budged one spot (up or down) since the Charlie update over a month ago even though I've increased their links 9 times.

So, the experiment with the competitor was tainted.


NEW EXPERIMENT

I needed a clean control variable and since people seem to be flipping out about me going after competitors I decided to use one of my brand new sites. I have thousands now so I wasn't really worried about losing one.

I pointed a lot of my co-op weight to this new site. It had the keyword in the Domain Name. And I used the keyword as the anchor text and didn't really even optimized the page for the keyword. (I didn't want any other factors to influence the results) The site had already been indexed with a couple hundred pages but it didn't have any links.

This was about 3 weeks ago.

I took it from 0 links, to 224,000 links. I started tracking the results and the site started to rise in the rankings.

RESULTS:
After 2 days it was ranked 245th
After 7 days it was ranked 60th
After 10 days it was ranked 43rd
After 15 days it was ranked 17th
On day 16: BANNED

(it has not come back since - has been nearly a week)

However, that new site is top 5 on MSN and top 30 on Google in a very competitive term.

CONCLUSION:
So there you have it. A new site, no other links or other factors. From nothing to top 20 then banned in Yahoo in 16 days. All I used was the co-op with about 80,000 weight.

Take it for what it's worth. You can believe it or not but other people have experienced the same results. As for me, I'm convinced that at least for right now, you can ban a site (in yahoo) just by forcing an abnormally high amount of links to the site in a short period of time. This would include a competitor. Keep in mind that if a competitor already had a lot of links, you would need even more to make the increase look abnormal.

I think Yahoo needs to rethink this whole thing. Though they are trying to weed out sites that they believe damage the relevancy of their results, these factors might not be controled by the site that gets banned. They are ASSUMING that the site actively went out and got all of these links (and maybe some of them do). They failed to realize (or simply ignored) the fact that you can actually destroy your competition using the same method.

However, you also have to be willing to accept that you may actually help your competition in MSN and/or Google. If they are already doing well in MSN/Google then it may be worth it because you couldn't help them that much. That is up to you to decide.

One thing is for sure, this is a slippery slope that Yahoo has created.

[GuyFromChicago]

They have frozen the top 10 rankings (including my competitor's). I have proof of this and this is actually a whole different ethical and legal issue that my lawyers will be bringing up to Yahoo.


Interesting update. One thing about the above comment though...since when is any search engine obligated to include/freeze/unfreeze/exclude....whatever, any site from their organic listings?

It's no one's "right" to be listed. They can do whatever they want, including freezing results or exclusing sites.

Ethical? Maybe not.

Basis of a valid lawsuit? Highly, highly unlikely.

[SEOGuru]

You have a good point. And maybe it will go nowhere. But I will make sure they know that I know. And I'll get other media organizations involved. There is more than one way to apply pressure than in the courtroom.

[chachi]

Thanks for the update. Although, this new experiment is hardly what the original one was. The idea was to see if you could boot a site from the index and you were not successful...whatever you think the reasons are. Maybe you can boot one of your other compeititors out of the rankings as with thousands of websites you must have more than one competitor. :)

[SEOGuru]

I actually was successful in booting a site from the index, just not my competitor. The site I got booted was indexed and was ranked, now it is banned.

Yes i could go after a different competitor, but if I run that experiment, I'll have to do it on my own because some people got pissed off that I was going after my competition and I didn't want to start another firestorm on here. lol

[chachi]

ok, so I am not following you. Maybe you just have too many experiments that I can't keep up with. :) I think it might be interesting to PM someone a website that is currently top ranking in Y! Search. That person can then verify that it looks legit. Then you use your magical powers to boot them. That would be a little more of a credible experiment to me. :)

[SEOGuru]

Ok, but does anyone want to put up a site to get banned when they are top ranked on yahoo?

[chachi]

Did your competitor ask you to try and knock him/her out of Y! before you started this experiment?

[SEOGuru]

I think I misunderstood you. I thought you wanted someone else to put up a site that was highly ranked to get banned. What you really want is just someone else to verify it because you think I'm lying and I just made all of this up, right?

Not sure what that would accomplish. I'm interested in the results just like everyone else. I want to make sense of this whole thing because I can't believe that Yahoo would ban a site for links. Google just devalues links and makes them worthless if they detect something like massive links (that is out of the norm) but they don't ban you for something you can't control.

[chachi]

heh, I wasn't calling you a liar. I just think that it is tough to believe what you read on forums. Most is opinion. Surely, you cannot know anything as fact, it would just lend more credibility if there were some other people that could observe things from the get go. That is all I am trying to say.

[maha]

Hey CoopGuy,

Thanks for the update on your experiment. The results are very interesting. Like you said, co-op does help the rankings in Google & MSN. So... the benefits outweigh the "ban" from Yahoo (I think?).

Did the site that was added to the Y! Directory for $299 come back in the Yahoo rankings or still banned?

[SEOGuru]

It is still banned. But it is #1 in MSN. I love the fact that the Yahoo Search team tells you that you can submit your site for a "RE-REVIEW" but only once. After that, you are just screwed forever. And they wont tell you WHAT it was that they didn't like about your site to begin with. How the heck are you suppose to fix something if you don't know what to fix?

Oh it gets better. When you submit your site for re-review, they wont tell you if you were reincluded into the search index or not. I guess you are just suppose to wait and if in a few months you still aren't in, then you just have to assume you were not approved.

Yahoo can bite me. My partners and I have contacts with several reporters at ABC News, 60 minutes, L.A. Times, N.Y. Times, and the Chicago Tribune. Once we have all of our ducks in a row I'm going to love to see the PR backtredding that Yahoo is going to be doing as they explain to their shareholders how they fixed the rankings for their own benefit.

As some other people pointed out, Yahoo can do anything they want with their search engine. But, we will also be lobbying the FTC to require them to place a disclaimer on their site that the results are NOT a result of the algorithm and are in fact fixed for their own benefit. It is a violation of public trust.

Whether or not they actually have to do this is not the point. I want to create a media feeding frenzy that causes just as much if not more damage to these assholes.

[maha]

I agree with you. The only way for them to change their policy is public awareness and media attention. fixing organic search results is not cool. It's very deceving to the public making them think they're getting non-bias search results.

[GuyFromChicago]

It's very deceving to the public making them think they're getting non-bias search results.

Playing devils advocate - where's the announcement that Yahoo made stating that organic results aren't biased? I don't know that it's Yahoo's fault that people assume those results aren't biased. To take that one step further I highly doubt that anyone besides webmasters trying to get their sites ranked really cares.

[SEOGuru]

I disagree. If they are fixing results, then they have decieved the trusting public because for the past 10 years (even before they had their own search engine) they have told the public and their users that their results are based on an algorithmic formula. The public is not "assuming". They have been told and it has been documented that Yahoo IS a search engine that used mathematical equations to generate what they deem to be relevant results.

You are correct that it is their search engine and they can rank sites how they want. BUT that doesn't mean a company isn't also held accountable. I'm not making this up either. The FTC has already asked search engines to disclose this type of information:

http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2164891

"As a general matter, clear and conspicuous disclosures would put consumers in a position to better determine the importance of these practices [use of paid content] in their choice of search engines to use," the FTC wrote, in a letter addressed both to search engines specifically named in the Commercial Alert complaint and the industry general.

Commercial Alert filed its complaint last July, claiming that a lack of disclosure about paid content integrated into search results constituted "deceptive advertising," something the FTC regulates against.

It can be argued that FIXED results without a disclosure is even more of Deceptive Advertising than paid content because the public thinks the results ARE unbiased. THAT is the trust that has been established between the search engines and those that use the service.

The FTC will virtually always lean to protect the consumer over big business.

[GuyFromChicago]

The public is not "assuming". They have been told and it has been documented that Yahoo IS a search engine that used mathematical equations to generate what they deem to be relevant results.

Still being the devils advocate - point me to something in which Yahoo states that the organic results are exclusively arrived at using equations.

[SEOGuru]

it is PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE. You are confused in that you think there has to be a single statement, etc. Not the case. SEC filings, Corporate documents, white papers published for the past 10 years, patent filings, and even seminars and industry consordiums have been documented where they (and every other search engine) state clearly that they derive their results strickly through mathematical equations. I'm not going to waste my time with the trivial task of finding a single definitive source to prove it to you. It isn't even "devils advocate" at this point. Someone who believes the information doesn't exist is just ignoring reality.

It doesn't need to be proven and TECHNICALLY it doesn't even have to exist by law. Public knowledge would trump any non-disclosure in virtually every case. All the prosecution or investigative committee would have to do is take a statistically significant sampling of users and ask them if they believe the results to be unbiased. There is no protection even IF yahoo has never publicly said it (which they have).

Listen, this isn't about them needing to say it on their site. That is completely irrelevant as there is a standard of confidence that you are giving every user just by BEING a search engine. They don't need to say that it is exclusively arrived at using equations for them to be in violation of deceptive advertising.

It is like breaking into someone's house and claiming "there wasn't a sign saying I couldn't."
Response: "yes but it is against the law"
You say: "well no one told me that"

There isn't an excuse for it. It is public knowledge that you don't break into people's homes even if there is no documented proof that you were specifically told not to.

The bigger question here is trying to actually prove the results are fixed. I mean that IS the real violation in the eyes of the FTC. I know it is happening but it needs to be documented and proven and that is where the challenge is.

[GuyFromChicago]

it is PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE. You are confused in that you think there has to be a single statement, etc. Not the case. SEC filings, Corporate documents, white papers published for the past 10 years, patent filings, and even seminars and industry consordiums have been documented where they (and every other search engine) state clearly that they derive their results strickly through mathematical equations.

No, it's PUBLIC ASSUMPTION.

I'm not going to waste my time with the trivial task of finding a single definitive source to prove it to you. It isn't even "devils advocate" at this point. Someone who believes the information doesn't exist is just ignoring reality.

You should probably find it before you proceed with your lawsuit. Could be an important piece of info.


It is like breaking into someone's house and claiming "there wasn't a sign saying I couldn't."
Response: "yes but it is against the law"
You say: "well no one told me that"

That comaprison in no way relates to the issue being discussed. Robbing someone or breaking a law is not even remotely close to search engine manipulating their results in accordnace with their goals. Using your logic yahoo doesn't have the right to manually remove any site from their index, right?

There isn't an excuse for it. It is public knowledge that you don't break into people's homes even if there is no documented proof that you were specifically told not to.

The big difference is robbery is against law. Yahoo modifying their serps is not.

The bigger question here is trying to actually prove the results are fixed. I mean that IS the real violation in the eyes of the FTC. I know it is happening but it needs to be documented and proven and that is where the challenge is.

The fact of the matter is that there's nothing illegal about Yahoo "fixing" their results. It's their company.

I've seen dozens and dozens of "I'm going to sue" posts in this forum over the past 15 months. Haven't seen one of them actually turn into anything.

And hey, this isn't an attack againast your or your findings. All I'm saying is even if you are 100% correct and Yahoo is fixing results to their own benefit there's nothing illegal about it.

[jlawrence]

From yahoo's own web site:
Yahoo! Search ranks results according to their relevance to a particular query by analyzing the web page text, title and description accuracy as well as its source, associated links, and other unique document characteristics.

That to me says that they use a system of somekind to rank results - unless Yahoo! Search is a person which I very much doubt. It also infers that results for a query are not static.

If someone went to the media with proof that they effectively locked results in their favour, then I think that would probably come under anti-competition laws (standard disclaimer : IANAL) at the very least it certainly wouldn't be good publicity for Yahoo.

[GuyFromChicago]

I've seen that. I was looking for something that says they never manually adjust their serps.

What Yahoo does with their serps is their business. I was simply stating my opinion that I don't think there's any basis for a lawsuit that has a shot of accomplishing anything.

Yahoo could say...

1) Prove it.

2) We adjusted our algorithm.

3) Sites X Y Z were flagged as spam. That's whay they were removed/blocked/etc.

The bottom line is no one but Yahoo knows for sure how they rank sites. Any lawsuit claiming they were doing this that or the other would just be speculation and most likely would not make it too far.

[SEOGuru]

Are you reading my posts? I am talking about something totally different.

I don't think you have made a distinction between modifying SERPs/algorithm and MANUALLY placing themselves at #1 in an industry they make millions in. That IS in fact against the law.

You also don't make the distinction between "manually adjusting their serps" in terms of banning sites and keeping the results clean and actually delivering the entire top 10 results in the order that best fits their own goals, then locking them down.

Finally, you don't realize that just because it is "their" search engine, doesn't mean they can't also be held liable. You somehow believe they can just answer to no one. It is NOT a privately held company. The public actually owns the company and Yahoo has a responsibility to its shareholders and users to provide ethical services.

You were saying that it is "PUBLIC ASSUMPTION".

First, NO, its not. It has been documented all over that their results are based on an algorithm. It is unbelievable to me that you would pin your argument on, "I don't care, show me where it says that."

It is like when little kids put their fingers in their ears saying: "LA LA LA LA... I'm not listening!" instead of accepting common logic and known fact.

Second, it is public knowledge that being a search engine also means that users expect results to be untainted. Users have placed confidence in yahoo and other search engines to deliver results of unbiased relevancy. If that confidence is violated unbeknownst to the users, then YES IT IS AGAINST THE LAW!

I've seen that. I was looking for something that says they never manually adjust their serps.

What Yahoo does with their serps is their business. I was simply stating my opinion that I don't think there's any basis for a lawsuit that has a shot of accomplishing anything.

Yahoo could say...

1) Prove it.

2) We adjusted our algorithm.

3) Sites X Y Z were flagged as spam. That's whay they were removed/blocked/etc.

The bottom line is no one but Yahoo knows for sure how they rank sites. Any lawsuit claiming they were doing this that or the other would just be speculation and most likely would not make it too far.

You are right if the lawsuit was about getting banned. They can say what they want and it is very hard to prove WHY they banned you.

But that isn't want I'm talking about.

I can PROVE that they have fixed the results for at least two terms that they are in and are actually even bidding on Overture (their own company) on those two same terms. (which brings up ethical questions also by driving up the bid price for others when there is really no NET cost to themselves)

I'm talking about a totally different issue than getting banned. You are confusing these two different topics.

This is about the fact that they are in a business that generates 40-60 million per year for them and they locked down the results placing themselves at #1.

I CAN actually prove this. The bigger question is documentation which I'm working on with my lawyers.

And in repeating myself from before, I really don't care if the lawsuit goes anywhere. That is just a means to an end. The real stinger is the press. The PR backlash from shareholders and major media organizations that discover this would be 500 times more damaging. If the FTC came in and said, "we are launching an investigation of deceptive advertising in regards to your search results", there would be a media feeding frenzy.

Again, I'm NOT talking about sites getting banned or where they are ranked. (sorry but I feel I need to keep reminding you).

The FTC has ALREADY come down on search engines in regards to the clear separation of "sponsored" results and "natural" results. This issue for Yahoo is actually more damaging in the eyes of the FTC who would be concerned about the consumer being decieved. "Natural" listings are expected to be just that.... "natural" and unbiased.

I'll go further. I'm not even complaining that Yahoo is #1 in one of their biggest industries. In fact maybe they should be #1 if they naturally would fall there using the algorithm. But what they did is lock down results of two different searches. Same top 10, in the exact same order. It is mathematically impossible which means those results were placed there on PURPOSE. If that is the case, then they have violated the public trust and the FTC will want to protect the consumer from this deception. Had they not been greedy they would have gotten away with it. If they only locked down one term there would be nothing to compare it against. It would be left unquestioned.

You know, it would have been bad enough if they manually ranked the top 10, locked it down in the same order on two different terms, and they weren't even in the top 10. That by itself is a violation of public trust. But the fact that they put themselves at #1 in one of their biggest industries is almost like a slap in the face. It is so blatant that they may as well be saying "come after us, we dare you."

When the FTC went after the tabacco companies. They MADE them spend millions to promote anti-smoking. They were forced to place disclaimers on ads and products. If yahoo wants to pull this shit, then YES, it is their right. But they will be forced to tell users that they are manipulating the results for their own benefit.

The honest truth is that it will never get that far. They will get a slap on the hand and a "don't do that again". But the media is far less forgiving and that is where I think the real damage is. It is my media contact that I'm counting on to make the most noise and broadcast it to the world. Especially in the heat of the Search Engine Wars, this would be a huge raincloud over Yahoo's head.

[GuyFromChicago]

I'm sure you'll expose Yahoo and cause a media stir like one that's never been seen before and bring yahoo to it's knees. Please post more info as it develops.

My opinion is that you'll have a hard, if not impossible, time proving anything.

In terms of the media, if you're not careful they'll just flip it around on you and position it as "some guy is suing us because he doesn't like where we rank his site."

[SEOGuru]

When I approach the media, I'm not even going to mention my site. I'm just going to report the documented fixed results. This will have nothing to do with sites being banned as that is a whole different issue.

The fact is that anyone can actually look at these results and see for themselves. So whether or not it came from a "pissed off" webmaster would be irrelevant. It wouldn't change the evidence or the magnitude of their actions at all.

[Dreamshop]

I'm not about to get involved in the great debate going on, but just wanted to point out that if your site is game related you only have to wait a bit and Yahoo just might buy it from you. I've been watching them snatch up gaming sites left and right for the last year, and they're in the top five for most game related keywords (plus the Yahoo shortcut listing).

If you think they're really focusing on your industry then look at where they're getting their content...you might be able to cash in on it.

[GuyFromChicago]

Came across this (http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum35/3497.htm) today...seems that in that circle it's "public knowledge" that Yahoo has been hand editing results for awhile.

Any updates on the potential media coverage?

[puzzlebox]

heh. If I was the lawyer of Y I'd probably say that it is in the algo to freeze the top 10 for a while when a part of their site is in it (who knows what a while is *wink*, maybe until the next algo change), then the case is lost.

[SEOGuru]

It has been awhile since my last post. I've been quite busy. But there is something VERY INTERESTING that has happened.

First, as far as the test goes. I had another brand new site that I got ranked in yahoo in a small term. I made sure it was a basic site that didn't violate any guidelines.

I pointed tens of thousands or weighting points to it and it was eliminated from the SERPs. I don't want to say "banned" because it seems there are grey areas here. Meaning, if you search for "www.theuniquedomain.com", the homepage DOES show up. But if you search for "theuniquedomain" it doesn't. It loses all indexed pages but doesn't lose backlinks. It doesn't rank on any page on any other result other than the complete URL.

I'm not sure what to call this phenomenon. If it was a full fledged ban, i'd assume that the site would disappear completely, even if you did a link check. For lack of a better term, I'm just going to call it being "DELISTED" rather than "banned".

Whatever it is, it is a severe penalty or "partial ban" for a site that once ranked in hundreds on terms and now only ranks for a search of its complete URL.

As interesting as that is, because I was able to get this site psuedo-banned by just pointing a lot of Co-op weight to it and having the links go from nothing to about 20k in about a week...

THAT WASN'T THE INTERESTING PART!

The interesting thing that happened, was that one of my MAJOR websites that had been delisted after the Charlie update is BACK IN!!! This is a site that had as much as 1.8 MILLION links and hundreds of thousands of indexed pages.

And I don't just mean that it is being indexed again, or that it is ranking for a search on the exact domain name (without the www. and .com). I'm talking about the rankings almost coming back to pre-Charlie.

The weirdest thing is that I didn't do anything to the site. I just removed ALL Co-op links pointing to it.

Oh it gets better. You see, none of my other delisted websits got back in. Even though I removed the Co-op links from those as well.

There are only two differences (that I am aware of) between the site that got back in and all of the sites that haven't.
1) I renewed the domain for 9 years.

2) I sent a letter to Yahoo from the email address of the site that got back in. I said that I couldn't understood why I got banned and that I reviewed all of the user guidlines and complied with each one. I DID conceed to them that I had received a lot of links in a short period of time but it was because of massive offline advertising efforts. (of course that was only partially true, haha)

I also told them that my site was hand-reviewed and approved for the Yahoo Directory AFTER I was banned, so how would it be possible to not comply with their guidelines? Finally, I said that it was interesting that they had locked down identical results in 2 terms that they make a LOT of money in while placing themselves at #1. I wasn't "accusing" them persay, but just kind of letting them know that I knew what they were doing.

Then, on September 3rd, I was back in and ranked on the first page. Granted they still have themselves ranked #1 on both terms and all of the other results seemed to be locked down in the same exact order, but my site went from being not ranked on ANY page to being #10 on both terms.

I'm not jumping to conclusions here. I don't know anything for sure as to why or how I got back in. But just based on the information I do have, it seems quite ominous to me.

To this day, none of the other sites I have that got delisted are back in the results.

[aeiouy]

So you think it is the co-op even though you admit other sites you did the same exact thing to did not return. To me that doesn't prove it was the co-op at all. It proves it was something else entirely.

[spdude]

CoopGuy,

Do you run your own rotating anchors script on your own sites.. to boost ur serps for keyword variations.. in other words, are you doing massive internal linking with rotating anchors amongst your sites?

I have an observasion or two of my own to share... but first want to pinpoint exactly what got your site back in the top ten. I really don't think it had anything to do with the re-inclusion request.

[SEOGuru]

For the longest time, I was one of the biggest advocates for there being no way a search engine would do such a thing. Like GuyFromChicago once said, there are a thousand reasons why it doesn't make sense. I think it boils down to this:
How can they penalize you for something you can't control?

So I fully expected (or at least hoped) this test would fail. But I've tested it 4 separate times now and it has worked EVERY time. I'm not blaming the Coop. Obviously not everyone in the coop has been delisted and there is NO PROOF whatsoever that Yahoo is specifically targeting the coop or digital point. However, I believe the result is triggered as a byproduct of having a lot of weight in the coop. Even with great offline and online marketing, press releases, etc. it isn't "normal" for a site to go from 20 links to 20,000 in one week. Or in the case of one of my delisted sites from 5000 links to 1.8 million links in about 45 days.

I've tested this on old sites, new sites, spammy sites, and clean sites; sites with the coop links on them and sites without. The result has always been the same. It had nothing to do with having coop links on the sites. It was strictly due to having links POINT to the sites. The more weight, the more links.

A friend of mine isn't even part of the coop but he purchased hundreds of thousands of links for a client of his that had ranked top 5 in Yahoo for 3 years. His client's site was delisted as well a few weeks later.

I'm with you. There is no way this should be possible but if it walks like a duck and looks like duck... well it is probably Yahoo. ;-)

[SEOGuru]

So you think it is the co-op even though you admit other sites you did the same exact thing to did not return. To me that doesn't prove it was the co-op at all. It proves it was something else entirely.

No I don't think removing the co-op links got me back in. Because none of my other sites got back in. I'm somewhat passed the points of figuring out how I was delisted in the first place. I'm pretty sure about that one. I'm more interested on how the heck I got back in.

The site that got back in was the only site that I submitted multiple re-inclusion requests. At first I got the standard reply that everyone gets. Then I emailed then again explaining in greater detail.

I don't know for sure what it was, but that was the only thing I did in addition to registering my domain for 9 years. I just wanted to post this to see if anyone else got back in too.

Spdude: I am not running any other rotating scripts client side or server side. I do have Google Adsense on the pages though.

[kepa]

I'm convinced that getting a large number of links pointing to your site will hurt you in Yahoo. It did for me and I'm not saying it is the co-op, but instead the fact that a large number of links pointing you wherever you get them is a big reason. My site had been in the top 3 of Yahoo for years and then poof, disappeared. The only thing we did was get links. So taking those factors to it's logical conclusion would mean that you could get a competitor banned if you tried hard enough.

[Mia]

I really do not think that the number of links is the larger factor, but where they are coming from, ie., the delivery method. Explain why a site with great content, well indexed, (but new) ends up banned? I've got around 500 backlinks since December of 2004. I hardly call that a mass build up over the past several months.

Something stinks here....

[GuyFromChicago]

It's not so much the links as the site they are being pointed to.

[Web Gazelle]

It looks like the co-op network has become a weapon that can be used to knock competitors out of Yahoo. The real test would be to try the same experiment on an established site. ;)

[Mia]

It looks like the co-op network has become a weapon that can be used to knock competitors out of Yahoo. The real test would be to try the same experiment on an established site. ;)

I am not so sure that is going to work. I think the Yahoo is considering several factors when it comes to ranking/de-ranking a site.

I kinda think of them as doing something simliar to say spam assasin scoring an email. I think Yahoo looks at how long the site has been around/indexed. How often it is updated, content changed, etc. I think they also look at the number and length of time that backlinks are around, as well as outgoing links, along with God only knows what else. I think they give each of these items a score.

So let's say you have a site that has been around since 97, has its own domain name, a decent amount (not huge) of back links, well indexed, a lot of pages, etc..

The scoring would be something like 0 - 5 with the highest number being considered a "spammy" site.

Top Level Domain = 0
Age of Domain = 0
Number of Back links = .02
Indexed Pages = 0
hidden text = 0
keyword usage = 1
Link Farm = 0
Outgoing Links = 1.2

Total = 2.4

Now take a site that is say less than 6 months old, indexed, good content, a few back links or a lot, but say uses a second or third level domain like "whateversite.mydomain.com.

Top Level Domain = 4
Age of Domain = 5
Number of Back links = 1
Indexed Pages = 0
hidden text = 0
keyword usage = 0
Link Farm = 0
Outgoing Links = 3

Total = 13

Hmmmm.... Ok, so my back links are not horrendous enough to get me banned, but that 1 point along with the fact that my site is pretty new, and my domain is an offspring of another domain name, etc...

Now do something like this:

Top Level Domain = 0
Age of Domain = 0
Number of Back links = .02
Indexed Pages = 0
hidden text = 0
keyword usage = 1
Link Farm = 0
Outgoing Links = 1.2
Coop = 5

Total = 7.4

Ok so the well established site score went up, but still not enough with the Coop alone, NO MATTER WHAT THE WEIGHT.

I still contend it is a multiple of factors that weigh into Yahoo's weighting/scoring of a site. The Coop is just one part of it. Assuming you have some pretty high scores in other areas, even the smallest of weight from the Coop could knock you out. But if you are on the low side score wise, you could point the world to your site in terms of weight and Yahoo would never flinch.

That's my 2 cents anyway.

[upside]

This is an amazingly long thread that serves only to demonstrate what everyone knew all along: unnatural linking patterns are penalized. That in no way suggests that '" coop is a weapon that can be used to ban competitors." That experiment was tried, and of course didn't work. Anyone perpetuating that myth is misreading the experiences presented here. No established site was negatively impacted - in fact (as everyone knows) the SE's interpreted the anchor text and started ranking the site for that phrase. Just like everyone already knew. A brand new site instantly achieving mass links got droppped - not banned, it was still in the index just didn't rank for anything. Nothing new there. Sounds more like algorithms working just like they should - detected unnatural links that were not in fact "votes" and discounted them. What's the problem?

[Mia]

I really do not think "un-natural linking patterns are to blame. The idea behind the Coop is to provide "Advertising Space" for free to others in return for the same. The "linking" is nothing more than a happy coincedence IMHO.

I think that Yahoo has specifically targeted the Coop itself, along with other factors that tie into their natural ranking of a sites importance or lack there of.

I have sites that have NO COOP WEIGHT at all pointed at them, but display coop ad banners on them that have also been dropped. So it is not just about pointing weight/links to a site, but the outgoing links themselves that are at risk in Yahoo/SBC land.

Has anyone (CoopGuy) looked at sites that have NO COOP WEIGHT at all? But DO have Coop ads on them? I think that would be an interesting test as well. Take a simlilarly ranked/indexed "new" site and just load up Coop ads on the site. Do not point any weight to it. Just the outbound coop links. Watch how fast it goes poof.

It's really disappointing that this is happening because the Coop works IMHO. Aside from the fact that the ads that show up are not targeted to content that is simliar on the sites they are listed on, I have seen people coming to my sites from Coop ads. In fact I have noticed a few sites that showed up in the top 10 referrers on one of my sites. Imagine my amazement when I found it was a site that displayed my ads.

The Coop works. Yahoo is missing the mark here targeting it like this.

Anyway, my 2 cents again.

[aeiouy]

I really do not think that the number of links is the larger factor, but where they are coming from, ie., the delivery method. Explain why a site with great content, well indexed, (but new) ends up banned? I've got around 500 backlinks since December of 2004. I hardly call that a mass build up over the past several months.

Something stinks here....

Your site banned from yahoo?

I have tried a test on a new site where I am doing linking at an extremely hyper slow pace....

So far it has showed up in all three serps, where other sites I have tried more aggressive linking have an extremely hard time showing up in Yahoo and Google. It is not in a terribly competitive field though, so the jury is still out... But I am going to track it over a period of time and see what happens.

[upside]

"Linking is nothing more than a happy coincidence"

I would, without trying to be an ass, suggest you count the references to link weight, pointing coop weight in this thread. That is, I think, exactly what is being discussed. Are you suggesting that the "I can take down a competitor with Coop links" has nothing to do with link weight in the algo's?

Either way you cut it, the Coop is gaming the algo. I am not - in any way - making a moral judgement about that. But a person would have a hard time arguing that when linkage became a ranking variable something like the Coop was what they had in mind. That's gaming the SE's. Go for it you want. I am not passing judgement. But the only thing this this thread "proves" is that that is not a strategy viable long term. So don't base a business model on it. And don't complain if you choose to pursue it and it backfires - that's a lot of eggs in a flimsy basket and no amount of griping and foot stomping offsets the fact that the such approaches are a short-cut to start with. Given the genesis of the link paradigm it's hard to argue that something like the coop isn't gathering pennies instead of digging for the dollar bill. Good links outweigh less good and that's never been a secret. But don't complain and act like anybody owes you anything because you made the choice to take the short cut. Again, I am not making some high-brow moral judgement. I don't wear a hat. But I also acknowledge the inherent problem with quick schemes.

The only evidence offered thus far is that a new site suffers from a massive influx of links and established sites benefit. That's been interpreted to mean that someone might assinate a competitor. That's not true at all. It depends what "competitor" means. Basically a competitor isn't competition until they're an established site. Being able to knock off a brand new domain doesn't mean anything - except that Y reasonably views 10,000 links to a three day old domain as suspicious. And they should; that's unnatural linking and flies in the face of the whole idea behind giving any weight to links at all. Was it really the expectation that SE's would not ever catch on?

[SEOGuru]

I really do not think "un-natural linking patterns are to blame. The idea behind the Coop is to provide "Advertising Space" for free to others in return for the same. The "linking" is nothing more than a happy coincedence IMHO.

Though this is a nice thought and would certainly be the position I'd take if questioned by a search engine. I would venture to say that 99.99% of the members in the co-op are NOT in it for "advertising". I've had more links than most people in the coop and none of the coop sites that have had my links on them have made the top 500 referring domains.

The co-op is about one thing. Link popularity. One could even argue that being delisted in Yahoo is worth the possitive impact seen on MSN and GOOGLE.

Yahoo is walking a fine line here and may have ventured too far to one side of it. Of COURSE I can understand their need to combat link spam. It also makes sense in most cases that an unnatural growth of links in a short period of time would set off a red flag and could be a site that is trying to manipulate their rankings. My tests were not done on 3 day old sites. All were 6 months to 1 year old and had hundreds of pages and links before I ever pointed the co-op to them. All were already ranking in Yahoo at the time. But having 200 links over 6 months was no big deal and the sites were doing fine. They weren't ranked #1 but they were in the top 20 in their terms. It wasn't until the links jumped by thousands (or in some cases hundreds of thousands) in a matter of weeks, did they disappear.

I don't think Yahoo makes a distinction between a "great site with great content" and an outright black-hat-riddled link farm as long as both sites were trying to manipulate their results in one form or another.

There may be a difference between being banned and delisted, but there probably are not degrees of severity in being delisted. So, if you violated 5 of the guidlines, I don't think you receive a worse penalty than violating 1.

The other side of the fine line that Yahoo is treading is of course false positives. Sites that might see legitimately fast growth rates in links. Take a site about a natural disaster, or an Olympic website, or a site for a major upcomming movie. These sites are launched quickly due to the nature of the event and receive a skewed amount of traffic and attention in a very short period of time.

The more I research this topic, I find that it may not just be the massive number of links alone (though I think that is a huge part of it). Keep in mind that it is equally unnatural to have those links disappear a day from now, or even 10 seconds from now when the page is reloaded. It really is not hard for them to detect these rotating links.

But here is the problem I have with their resolution to the link spam problem. One of the fundemental characteristics of the Internet is that you can't control who links to you. If getting massive links is frowned upon then why not simply devalue the links and make them worthless. The site would fall in ranking to where they believe the site should naturally be ranked according to their formula. I think the delisting of sites is a kneejerk reaction that has caused more harm than good.

At the end of the day, they simply might not even care. In the big picture, really only a small fraction of sites were really effected. Of course the number seems much larger when it is talked about on SEO message boards. I wonder why...haha In particular Digital Point Co-op members seem to have been hit hard. Is this really any surprise knowing how the co-op works?

I am more concerned about Yahoo's search philosophy than my site's rankings. I just don't see this approach heading down the right path. It seems more like a band-aid than a really solution. I am now more interested to see how close to the line you can get without going over it. Is it 30 new links a day or 150 or 1000? I don't know. Maybe there is a sliding scale based on other factors such as age of a site, relevancy and logevity of the links, etc. I don't have answers for any of these questions but I do think that a lot more testing is needed.

[Web Gazelle]

I still would like to know if throwing 80,000 points of co-op weight at an established site would have the same effect as it would doing it to a new site.

[maha]

I have 2 sites with co-op ads (displaying only) with competitive kewords ranked #1 in Yahoo.

I really do not think "un-natural linking patterns are to blame. The idea behind the Coop is to provide "Advertising Space" for free to others in return for the same. The "linking" is nothing more than a happy coincedence IMHO.

I think that Yahoo has specifically targeted the Coop itself, along with other factors that tie into their natural ranking of a sites importance or lack there of.

I have sites that have NO COOP WEIGHT at all pointed at them, but display coop ad banners on them that have also been dropped. So it is not just about pointing weight/links to a site, but the outgoing links themselves that are at risk in Yahoo/SBC land.

Has anyone (CoopGuy) looked at sites that have NO COOP WEIGHT at all? But DO have Coop ads on them? I think that would be an interesting test as well. Take a simlilarly ranked/indexed "new" site and just load up Coop ads on the site. Do not point any weight to it. Just the outbound coop links. Watch how fast it goes poof.

It's really disappointing that this is happening because the Coop works IMHO. Aside from the fact that the ads that show up are not targeted to content that is simliar on the sites they are listed on, I have seen people coming to my sites from Coop ads. In fact I have noticed a few sites that showed up in the top 10 referrers on one of my sites. Imagine my amazement when I found it was a site that displayed my ads.

The Coop works. Yahoo is missing the mark here targeting it like this.

Anyway, my 2 cents again.

[SEOGuru]

I have 2 sites with co-op ads (displaying only) with competitive kewords ranked #1 in Yahoo.

Of course. None of my sites WITH co-op ads were penalized. It was the sites that had the weight POINTED to it. Displaying co-op ads is not the problem (though I think it could be a problem in the future). It is GETTING links by using the co-op weight.

Basically what I was doing is using my 400+ websites in the co-op to point all of the weight to only a few. It was those few that got delisted even though they actually didn't have co-op ads themselves. This isn't about the ads, it is about the links.

[Blogmaster]

A friend of mine got hired before to get a page off of Google's #1 spot for a certain phrase. That page was badmouthing the service of the company that hired him. He basically created a lot of pages of his own and got them ranked on top instead. I think it's possible to get a competitor banned also, but it would be very costly.

[Mia]

A friend of mine got hired before to get a page off of Google's #1 spot for a certain phrase. That page was badmouthing the service of the company that hired him. He basically created a lot of pages of his own and got them ranked on top instead. I think it's possible to get a competitor banned also, but it would be very costly.

Yeah, but did that really get them banned, or did it just push them down further in the rankings? Either way, the cost would be minimal. It's only time, and as you said, they hired someone to do it?

[ferret77]

i have couple sites with a good amount of coop weight surviving in yahoo

but i also have a bunch that are gone