I think you guys are all wrong. Read this page from Overture http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ays/sm.jhtml. Yahoo will certainly be crawling non PFI sites, but it is pretty clear to me they only intend to use them for back fill or for real niche subject areas where nobody would bother paying to be included. But I don't know how you can read the Overture information without knowing that for a popular or commercial web page you are going to have to pay to be decently placed in the SERPs and then you are going to have to pay 30 cents every time someone clicks through to your page.
Yahoo results show two sections: SPONSOR RESULTS (What's this?) (Become a Sponsor) TOP 20 WEB RESULTS ... (What's this?) Sponsor Results Sponsor Results are sites that pay for placement in search results on terms that are relevant to their business. These listings are provided by Overture Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Yahoo!, and appear on Yahoo! Search results pages and other sections of Yahoo!. You'll see Sponsor Results when they're relevant to the specific search terms you used. For example, if you search for "digital cameras," you'll see Sponsor Results for web sites that provide information about or sell digital cameras. The Yahoo! Search results pages separate Sponsor Results from other results so you can tell them apart. For more information please see Sponsor Results or, if you are interested in participating in this program, please see Overture Advertising. Web Results Web Results are the most relevant web pages found by Yahoo! Search in response to your search terms. Web Results are generated from the billions of web pages discovered, crawled, and indexed by Yahoo! Search. More than 99% of web pages in the Yahoo! Search index are included for free through the web crawl process. Web Results may also include links to sites that participate in the Content Acquisition Program (CAP). CAP enables content providers to submit web content directly to Yahoo! for review and inclusion in the Yahoo! Search index; content providers that participate in CAP through the Site Match program pay for these services. Participation in CAP does not guarantee placement or ranking in search results. There appear to be two forms of paying with Yahoo? Overture and SiteMatch. The sample search I did showed GSM Security as #1 for the search phrase "GSM Security". That site is #62 in Google for the same keyphrase. Yet I am seeing 50% more traffic from Google than from Yahoo for that site. This tells me not to worry too much about my Yahoo ranking.
I really do hate where Yahoo! is heading. I meandered through the free submit pages only to be inundated by pay for this and pay for that options. If they push this hard, Google and MSN will eat them up and spit them out. Smart web surfers know who is and who isn't paying for those top spots. I never click on paid for ads unless I KNOW it is what I am looking for. Little SEO's like us can be eaten by $$$$$
They are looking for the money- I'd be in the same boat as them. Thing is, if this continues and MSN does the same thing, Google will easily remain the best search engine.
I do not have a happy experience with Yahoo. I introduced a new domain on 21 March to replace an old subdomain. While the new domain (after two months) is in the top five in Google it is not ranked in Yahoo. The old subdomain is still in third place despite that there are no links to it that I can find. I have been checking the order of the top 50 sites for my desired keywords in Yahoo & I have to say the order remains unchanged from 1 April. What is going on with the updates to Yahoo that makes it so different from Google?
Yahoo is not worth my time or all of our times, we should all focus on Google and encourage a www wide ban on Yahoo until they change there methods. By the way, i knew about the free url submition page, but since you have to login to submit, i think it's a little dangerous if you have more than 1 website. especially if they are of the same theme. Yahoo are trying to monitor who's doing what, how and when, and that is no good to anyone. My 2 cents.
I do respect it just because hes the second search engine by counting number of visitors I get from them. Its way under Google, but still, it seems that many people still use it...
"Yahoo is not worth my time or all of our times, we should all focus on Google and encourage a www wide ban on Yahoo until they change there methods." riiiight....
Happy to see some people do agree. Now i wonder how we can implement this, and get the word out. Worldwide TV spots, Like they do for tabacco
Someone needs to read more, Google is known for traffic redirection, see www.webcenter.squarespace.com or go to www.searchenginewatch.com and read Danny Sullivan's articles on Paid Inclusion. You will see the same points made at both websites. Google is guilty of PAID TRAFFIC REDIRECTION. While at the same time proclaiming in the press that their results are completely organic. At least Yahoo is honest, they admit a paid inclusion program, while Google lies about their traffic redirection to ADSENSE partner sites. Would you rather do business with a liar?
I'm not quite sure i understand what you're saying. I know google has organic results and payed results that are separated from oneanother. Its clear and Google doesn't force anyone into buying anything to get included into there organic SERPS. Yahoo in the other hand is deliberatly removing every small successfull or very successfull websites from its SERPs and asking that they pay a certain amount PER PAGE to be included, not only that, they will CHARGE YOU if someone clicks on you. That is ludacris, and also ABUSIVE. Really i don't see your point.
I knew that SB, I was talking to the post before mine. Yahoo is adding paid inclusion to the search index, I have not heard of them blackmailing webmasters with threats to remove organic listings if you do not buy advertising. If you find this happening, I think the the FTC would be interested in hearing about that. You will have to base your complaint on some proof that they did this to you and not base it on rumors heard from others.
I don't know if your an advocate for Yahoo by conviction or that your an employee. But i'm getting the feeling that you are not totally biased. Yahoo is definitely pulling websites, some that are very interesting ones, and i'm not talking about mine. Many request for an explaination has been replied with "pay per click options" among other none really usefull informations. I participate in 4 forums and lurk in 3 others, and i am seeing the same complaints over and over. Even some who where going great in Yahoo and where advocating for the only SE that was going good for them (Yahoo), started to turn there jackets around when they had to suffer the same fait as many others, and for no apparent reason. I don't here as many complaints about Google.