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Yahoo Guidelines

While its important to focus on natural search optimization techniques (see our natural search best practices), it is more important to adhere to the policies of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and now MSN).

Yahoo aggressively monitors its index of websites and is careful to reward websites that:

  1. Offer "original and unique content of genuine value"
  2. Are "designed primarily for humans, with search engine considerations secondary"
Websites that offer little or no original content and/or are built specifically to perform well in Yahoo's search algorithm are considered "spam" by Yahoo. If your site is deemed "spam", you run the risk of having your site excluded from Yahoo's index: "Yahoo reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to take any and all action it deems appropriate to insure the quality of its index."

Below is a list of what Yahoo "Wants Included in its Index" and what Yahoo "Considers Unwanted". This information is also available on http://help.yahoo.com. Although these guidelines pertain specifically to Yahoo, they are general best practices for all natural search endeavors; following these guidelines and our other Natural Search Best Practices will result in stronger rankings and long-term index inclusion:

Yahoo Guidelines on Spam

Yahoo! strives to provide the best search experience on the Web by directing searchers to high-quality and relevant web content in response to a search query. Pages Yahoo! Wants Included in Its Index
  • Original and unique content of genuine value
  • Pages designed primarily for humans, with search engine considerations secondary
  • Hyperlinks intended to help people find interesting, related content, when applicable
  • Metadata (including title and description) that accurately describes the contents of a web page
  • Good web design in general
Unfortunately, not all web pages contain information that is valuable to a user. Some pages are created deliberately to trick the search engine into offering inappropriate, redundant or poor-quality search results; this is often called "spam." Yahoo! does not want these pages in the index.

What Yahoo! Considers Unwanted

Some, but not all, examples of the more common types of pages that Yahoo! does not want include:
  • Pages that harm accuracy, diversity or relevance of search results
  • Pages dedicated to directing the user to another page
  • Pages that have substantially the same content as other pages
  • Sites with numerous, unnecessary virtual hostnames
  • Pages in great quantity, automatically generated or of little value
  • Pages using methods to artificially inflate search engine ranking
  • The use of text that is hidden from the user
  • Pages that give the search engine different content than what the end-user sees
  • Excessively cross-linking sites to inflate a site's apparent popularity
  • Pages built primarily for the search engines
  • Misuse of competitor names
  • Multiple sites offering the same content
  • Pages that use excessive pop-ups, interfering with user navigation
  • Pages that seem deceptive, fraudulent or provide a poor user experience
YST's Content Quality Guidelines are designed to ensure that poor-quality pages do not degrade the user experience in any way. As with Yahoo!'s other guidelines, Yahoo! reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to take any and all action it deems appropriate to insure the quality of its index.

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