From the WebMasterWorld forums comes word that Yahoo’s cracking down on affiliate sites. The thread, six pages long at the time of this writing, includes snippets of letters from Yahoo to the forum members, many of whom have been banned.
Have you been banned from Yahoo? Talk here.
From what I gathered, Yahoo’s weeding out sites with content that appears on duplicate sites. Affiliate sites are hit especially hard by the campaign.
Eyeinthesky said, “I got a reply from Y! that they don’t oppose affiliate sites but they don’t want their index to be full of the same stuff…”
Gavstar reported that, “they are saying that my site has been banned because I have traded links with other webmasters. And because I have affiliate links on my site.”
Some consider the penalization to be more like persecution. “I think this is an awful decision and isn’t being applied fairly either,” said TravelMan.
“If you are a traffic passer, or have heavy affiliate content then your entire domain will be blocked from their index,” continued TravelMan. He also claimed that, “there isn’t a route back via pfi either, so don’t waste your time or money. I’ve tried and failed.”
Tim Mayer, Yahoo’s Director Of Product Management, who posts there as “Tim,” said early in the thread that if you’ve been banned and are not sure why you should “try emailing webmasterworldfeedback@yahoo.com.”
Neither he nor any other Yahoo representatives appear anywhere else in the thread.
View the Yahoo What gives? How do you tell if you’re penalized?
thread here.
Thanks to SEORoundTable for the tip.
Garrett French is the editor of Murdok’s eBusiness channel. You can talk to him directly at WebProWorld, the eBusiness Community Forum.
