Search Engine Journal

Yahoo just updated their site guidelines. Here’s a look:

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