In this article, we will be looking at how the standard SiteMatch program works, the impact (if any) it has on results and other issues that may have caused concerns with the new Yahoo! Search Engine.
Were we seeing a revamped Inktomi? According to Yahoo, no - this was an entirely new search technology created by combining the best elements of their recently acquired crawlers. In fact, Inktomi - as a brand, came to an end. Yahoo Search, along with their crawler Slurp (hmmm - seem to remember that from Inktomi) replaced the Inktomi crawler..
At the beginning of March, Yahoo announced that they would be replacing the 3 paid inclusion programs for the 3 crawling engines they had purchased by a single paid inclusion program, SiteMatch. Administered by Overture, SiteMatch could be purchased via Overture directly or through a selection of partners...
In the past, each of the engines had different prices per URL and submitting a page for a year to all 3 engines could cost around $115 per page for guaranteed inclusion. SiteMatch offered an inclusion price of $49.00 for the first page, $29 for the pages 2-10 and $10 for all subsequent pages of the same domain. On the face of it, this appeared initially to be a substantial discount for sites who wanted the fast inclusion and 48 hour refresh provided by paid spidering. Instead of an initial outlay of $1,115 for a 10 page site, you paid $310! This would get you inclusion in all the search portals previously covered by AltaVista, AllTheWeb and Inktomi - with the addition of Yahoo! To good to be true? Well, yes - there was a catch!
Depending on the category your website/pages fell into, you would also have to pay an additional 15 cents or 30 cents per click!
Webmasters world-wide were shocked. Pages receiving hundreds of referrals per day could cost hundreds of dollars per week instead of the fixed annual fee.
Q: Is SiteMatch the only way to get indexed by Yahoo?
A: Yahoo state that 99% of all Yahoo's listings are derived from freely crawling the web. This is done by following links, although, to assist webmasters, Yahoo have now introduced a free submission location. We have tested crawl speeds by putting a new site into the Yahoo directory in March to see how long it would take to get a site crawled from this single link. The root directory was crawled within 2 weeks and we were getting referrals from pages on this site from MSN and Yahoo by week 5. We also put another site into free submission with no incoming links at the same time. Although the home page has been crawled (and no further pages as I write), I have yet to see it rank anywhere.
Q: Will Penalties from Inktomi carry forward to Yahoo Search?
A: Inktomi started imposing some heavy penalties last year via both manual reviews and automated methods. If you were in paid inclusion, this meant that you would appear last on any targeted search term. Another indication is that Slurp will only read your robots.txt file and proceed no further. These penalties have been carried forward to Yahoo. Yahoo have stated that they intend to start a re-review process and have offered the e-mail address: reportsearchspam@yahoo-inc.com for webmasters who wish to appeal a penalty. SiteMatch users can also contact their SiteMatch vendor to find out if they have a penalty and most try to find what has caused it and offer assistance. We have used the standard appeal procedure for a site that we felt had received an unfair penalty. We received a reply confirming Yahoo would review the site within 3 weeks of us making the request and (fortunately) saw the penalty lifted within another 7 days. So, it is possible to appeal their penalties, but ensure the site is squeaky clean!
Q: Will SiteMatch pages receive a boost in the results?
A: This used to be asked about all PFI programs in the past. SiteMatch pages get crawled and re-indexed every 48 hours. A good SEO or webmaster will use this frequent re-spidering to "adjust" the page to see how that affects the page rankings. That is the sole advantage SiteMatch (or any PFI program) gives you. A poorly optimised page will get poor results and vice-versa! So SiteMatch gives no inherent ranking advantage but it does give the webmaster the opportunity to adjust their pages frequently to find the ideal mixture of content to ensure decent listings. It's in your hands!
Q: If Yahoo is crawling the web for free, why do you need SiteMatch?
A: It all depends on how quickly you want to see results! If you have a commercial site with content changing frequently and you want to be showing this content in search engine results within a couple of days of publication, then SiteMatch gives you a great advantage. If you have static content and you are happy to wait a few weeks for the natural crawl and updates then SiteMatch is of no real benefit.
Q: How long does it take for Yahoo to crawl a site in full?
A: Currently, this is a difficult question to answer as Yahoo Search has been out crawling for only a few weeks! Yahoo seems to crawl a site in "layers". First the root directory, with pages linked to by the home page seems to be crawled, then index pages from sub-directories and then some internal pages. The initial crawl seems to take around 2-3 weeks, the second "level" crawl another 2 weeks and we have just started to see Slurp nibbling at some more internal pages. Updates seem to occur on a rolling basis but spidering is not as aggressive as Google can be. As soon as we have seen a sizeable site indexed in its entirety we will post an update.
Q: How does the SiteMatch submission process work?
A: SiteMatch paid inclusion is different to previous PFI programs as pages have to go through a review process to identify or check you have selected the correct category and also to check for spam. This is done manually by human reviewers.
When putting a page into SiteMatch, you are asked to select the most appropriate category for your site or pages. Categories (and their associated CPC rates) are:
Travel $0.30
Process & WARNINGS....
Having selected the correct category, you have the option of selecting the areas or countries you wish to have your results displayed in. As such, you can exclude your listings from markets where you do not want visitors or enquiries. As a default, all listings are displayed worldwide - so make sure you select just the UK or Europe if this is what you want!
After giving SiteMatch the pages you want included, you are asked to pay the appropriate fee along with a $50.00 deposit to be used for click-through costs. Your pages are then put in a queue for editorial review.
In our experience, this takes around 5 working days. The review process appears to consists of not only checking pages that were submitted, but also other aspects of the site. This can include contact information, links to other websites and (probably) a search for related sites or possible cross-linking. So this is not purely a check for spam on the pages submitted. Your whole site is checked out and (if you have a network of sites) possibly your whole network. If you have other sites with what the reviewer may consider substantially the same content, you could have them all penalised! Sites that have affiliate links may also receive penalties. Any attempt to submit old fashioned doorway pages is doomed to failure. The full list of rules laid down are listed in the SiteMatch Guidelines.
...few can continue to state that SiteMatch is going to flood the results with "paid spam". The criteria for inclusion are tough.
Conclusion: SiteMatch will remain a controversial program for many and can be confused with PPC by webmasters who are inexperienced with SEM. You can't target specific keywords without optimisation of the pages - and for many webmasters, this could cause dissatisfaction with the program. Similarly, many will expect a ranking boost for paying the fee. This just doesn't happen - you are paying for a service which can be used as a tool in your optimisation and SEM portfolio. This, too, may lead many webmasters to question the value of the program. For most it appears that SiteMatch will be unnecessary, for some - it can be of immense benefit. Only time will tell if this model becomes a success. But if it does, expect other search engines to follow suit (particularly MSN).
posted by Jen @ 8:11 AM
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