If you search “Ask Directory†I am first at google and msn but not yahoo 4º page. (I am listed for 2 months at yahoo directory and have 200 pages indexed and 4,500 links)
I get traffic because people visit the site and then want to visit again and don’t remember the url and go to google and type “Ask Directory†I get a loot of traffic this way.
is www.ask.com in anyway related to yahoo, if so it may have something to do with that. They all have different algos, maybe yahoo finds something fishy about your pages?
I'm stumped but I hope someone answers this very soon because I am anxious to know why you are having this problem.
In this case, bring in the heavy artillery ..if you think this keyword is worth the trouble, check the IBLs of your top 10 competitors then try to obtain links from the same sites plus some more (use article marketing, directory submissions,etc) to help you outrank them
I've seen the same thing happen to one of my sites last year. Turns out that site was being penalized by Yahoo for some bad design decisions I made (my subdomains were being counted as dup content). I cleaned the site up and submitted a re-inclusion request to Yahoo explaining the problems I found and how I fixed them. After many months my site reclaimed its top spot. However in your case, your search term/site name is a bit generic. I don't think you are being penalized, it is just a more competitive search term. Hence you asking the million dollar question... ;-)
Interesting if I put "ask directory" I am on 3 spot and several of my directory submissions are on first page. I don’t care a loot because I am first in google and msn, but this is strange.