Re: Yahoo!

From: Michael Martinez <Michael_at_xenite.org>
Date: Thu 23 Nov 2000 09:44:24 -0500

MICHAEL MARTINEZ <Michael_at_xenite.org> WROTE
> I'm guessing you'd rather be listed in the Electronic
> Commerce category than the Australian Electronic
> Commerce category.

TO WHICH MATT MICKIEWICZ <matt_at_sitepoint.com> REPLIED:
> Actually, this is how the submissions panned out:
>
> Submitted PromotionBase.com to:
> Computers and Internet/Internet/World Wide Web/Site Announcement and Promotion
>
> Submitted WebmasterBase.com to:
> Home > Arts > Design Arts > Graphic Design > Web Page Design and Layout
>
> Submitted eCommerceBase.com to:
> Home > Business and Economy > Electronic Commerce
>
> We never submitted SitePoint.com, and if we had, it
> would have been submitted to Business and Economy/Small
> Business Information.

I've gone back and reread your first message. I see
where I misunderstood part of what you were saying.
And I've looked at your Yahoo! listing and at
http://www.promotionbase.com/,
http://www.webmasterbase.com/,
http://www.ecommercebase.com/, and
http://www.sitepoint.com/ and I think I see what led
Yahoo! to consolidate your listings into one
comprehensive entry.

Your masthead uses a tab graphic that makes all three
domains appear to be part of the same single site.
That the content of each is distinct and that each
resides on its own domain doesn't matter. The visitor
is encouraged with clear and easily understood visual
cues to browse all three domains as if they were one
Web site.

Your sites all use the same logo in the title tags:
"Helping business grow online". Everything about the
design and navigation insists these domains are really
just part of one single entity, which Yahoo! has
described as "network of sites that provice
information, tools, and resources for internet-focused
businesses and web developers, including
Webmasterbase.com, eCommerceBase.com, and
PromotionBase.com."

I would have made the same call (and we do run
directories on my domain, including a very large one
dedicated to Hercules and Xena Web sites -- we have
seen all sorts of submissions through the years). I
believe some comprehensive redesign to separate those
sites from one another would be in order. You can
cross-promote your content in other ways. If Yahoo! is
THAT important to you.

At the very least, if you assign distinctive title
tags, keyword meta tags, and description meta tags to
your individual pages, targeting the precise search
terms you want to be found for, you'll drastically
increase your chances of turning up in the Yahoo!
Google results. That's small compensation for not
being listed in the directory, but I get more traffic
from Google than Yahoo! and almost as much from
google.yahoo.com as from search.yahoo.com.

Or, to illustrate my point better, here are the top six
search engine/directory referrals to my domain for the
week of November 8 - 14:

     2003 http://www.altavista.com/
     1868 http://www.google.com/
     1791 http://my.netscape.com/
     1474 http://clubs.excite.com/
     1171 http://search.yahoo.com/
      964 http://google.yahoo.com/

Not everyone is going to get the same kind of traffic
patterns from the various engines and directories.
But it's true that you CAN get traffic from Yahoo!
merely by being listed in Google. Until you can give
the directory what it wants for your three domains,
you still have the option of getting into the
secondary listings through Google. And that costs you
nothing but time.

And you might try to get Yahoo! to change that
description for sitepoint. It's not doing you any
good right now. At least try and get some keywords
into it. That would be better than what you've got
right now.

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http://www.xenite.org/forums/science_fiction_tv/
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Received on Thu Nov 23 2000 - 08:44:24 CST