5 replies to this topic

[gsimerlink]

Hi,

A co-worker of mine just received a call from a company saying there were in the "Yahoo Master Program". They claimed that they could get our site listed in Yahoo natural search for any keyword(s) we want for only .25c a click.

My first assumption is that the salesperson who called was wrong or mis-stating facts. But then I did start to wonder if there is any way that Yahoo would pervert their natural search by letting paid results creep in there. I doubt the error comes from my co-worker since he handles all of our PPC advertising and knows the difference between PPC and natural search.

Any information or thoughts would be welcome. We're not planning on talking to the company again, but if any part of this is true it will make me rethink our company's ranking in natural search.

Thanks,
gsimerlink

PS if this is in the wrong topic area please move it, I couldn't figure out any place better.

[robwatts]

Yahoo Master Program...never heard of it.

There once was a program called SiteMatch that dabbled with paid inclusion (PPC) invisible serp blending, but I think they dropped it or at least in name.

http://searchmarketi...o.com/index.php shows their existing offerings.

[vinnie2227]

If you participate in SiteMatch, formerly Inktomi, your listings will show up in the natural results. There is no guaranteed position, just a guarantee that your results will show.

[Mr Skyline]

As above really ... sitematch exchange (as it was called after Inktomi) is a guaranteed entry into the Yahoo index for all the domains/pages you wish to pay for ... when a user queries the index your url's should come under the same scrutiny of the algorithm that naturally added url's do and ranked accordingly ....

There is a big BUT on this though, having worked closely with Inktomi (visiting their offices in San Fransisco) back in the days before SiteMatch you CAN submit content within the XML feed that doesn't necessarily appear on the site in text form so to fool the algorithm is easy, also trusted providers are allowed to provide secondary titles and descriptions for ranking purposes and have primary ones displayed within the listings for marketing purposes.

Also there is what was referred to as a "big red lever" where trusted content providers can have the quantity of traffic that they receive (ie rankings I guess) turned up or down accordingly.

I don't know for sure but I conclude there is a slight weighting towards the paid inclusion listings over natural which can be controlled, though I don't know if that is still the case. This would make sense as they are making money from them, and visitors cannot differentiate between the two without looking at the link string and knowing what to look for.

Edited by Mr Skyline, 22 December 2005 - 10:23 AM.

[Michael Martinez]

Sounds to me like they are promoting Yahoo! Search Marketing (which I've also called Yahoo! Internet Marketing) that used to be the popular Overture PPC service. The current minium per-click fee is $0.10 US so you could bypass their offer and manage your own PPC program.

There is no mention of a "master program" on Yahoo!'s Web site. Not sure what to make of that.

[Trellian]

Just to confirm:

The "Yahoo Master Program" that they would be referring to would be the
"Yahoo Search Submit Pro" program, which used to be called:
"Overture Site Match Xchange" and before that "Inktomi Index Connect".

This is a valid program that can indeed provide ranking boosts as the xml feeds that are suplied to Yahoo for indexing can be "better" optimized than what a normal page would be.

How?, because with the xml feeds, you do not need to include any of the page content that you do now want included, such as text links to other pages.. copyright footers etc... basically you can strip all the extra keywords on a page that deflat the keyword densities of search terms that you really want to target on that page..

There is a bit more to it... but this gives you an indication that yes URLs part of the xml feed programs are far more optimized and as a result rank better.

Cheers
David