.com Not Listed in Regional Yahoo? Don’t Despair! By Glenn
Murray *
If you’re a non-American business with a .com web address, and
your regional Yahoo ranking is important to you, then my story
might interest you.
Recently my copywriting website dropped out of Yahoo’s
Australian rankings. For quite a while, it had been at number 1
for my primary keywords “advertising copywriter”, “copywriter”,
and “website copywriter”. But then it suddenly disappeared. I
clicked through about 10 pages of results, and it was nowhere to
be seen. I then searched for my domain, and Yahoo couldn’t find
it.
Something smelt fishy.
I’d done nothing ‘naughty’ to my site to warrant a ban, and I
still had heaps of links to my site (actually, I had more than
ever before).
I’m an Australian advertising copywriter. I’m based just north
of Sydney and I host my website with a major Australian host.
But my web address is a .com, not a .au. I started thinking this
might be the problem.
So I emailed Yahoo support, explaining the problem, and sharing
my thoughts on the cause.
And all of a sudden, nothing happened.
So I waited. And I waited. And I waited. And finally, after
about a couple of weeks, I received an email from a Yahoo
support representative informing me – incorrectly – that my
keyword wasn’t featured in my page title or description. I
should remedy this shortcoming and re-submit my site to Yahoo.
Frustrated, I replied. I repeated the important facts from the
first email just to ensure they’d listened. They hadn’t. They
hadn’t even searched for my domain to confirm that Yahoo no
longer recognised it.
When they got back to me this time, they had started paying a
bit more attention. The support rep confirmed my suspicion that
Yahoo had excluded my site because of its .com URL. Her very
helpful solution was that I should change my domain to .au! She
included some ridiculously complex instructions for how to do
so, and sent me on my merry way.
As you might expect, I wasn’t satisfied. Nor was I merry. I
explained to her that this was not an acceptable solution
because all the links to my site on the internet are pointing to
the .com and my email address uses the .com.
She was unmoved. She asserted that this was the best and only
way to solve the problem. Oh… and it might help if I added my
primary keyword to my title and description.
My laughter was not good humoured! I wrote back expressing my
displeasure at this “solution”. I painstakingly explained how
Yahoo had made a mistake, and that if Google was capable of
recognising my Australian business despite its .com addresses, I
would think it’s technically possible. I also cited several
other .coms in the first couple of pages of Australian results.
No response.
The situation didn’t look promising…
If this sounds like a familiar story to you, don’t despair. A
week or two later, I searched Yahoo Australia for my primary
keyword, and surprise, surprise… My site was ranked number 1
again!
The moral to the story? Don’t be intimidated by Yahoo. Trust
your instincts and don’t give up. If you’re an Australian
business with a .com, and you’re not listed in Australian
searches, this might be why. In fact, I would think this story
is relevant to all regional Yahoos. (Of course, before making
any accusations, it’s a good idea to make sure your site is
properly optimised and that you have plenty of inbound links.)
Anyway, that’s my story. I hope it helps someone.
And they all lived happily ever after. So far at least…
Yahoooooooo!
The End.
About the author:
<p>* Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter and heads
copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney
+612 4334 6222 or at <a
href="mailto:glenn@divinewrite.com">glenn@divinewrite.com</a>.
Visit <a href="http://www.divinewrite.com"
target="_blank">http://www.divinewrite.com</a> for further
details or more FREE articles. </p>
