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Since Yahoo! actively edits their search results, they will be forced to edit them over
and over.
After they remove a site for spam, it is very easy for someone to duplicate that site
(and maybe even use a slightly altered version) at another location.
Yahoo! could also use a bit of coaching on determining the difference between
editorial votes and spammy links. Some of my clients outrank their own
manufacturers for their manufacturer?s brand name in Yahoo!. That is just flat out
bad relevancy to make it that easy to manipulate.
Yahoo! Mindset
Some searches are commercial in nature, and some are informational in nature.
Major search engines have the ability to distinguish which search queries are more
likely to be commercial and which search queries are more likely to be
informational.
Search engines can also classify whether they think a particular result is commercial
or informational in nature. In the search results, search engines like to show a mix
of result types so that they have a greater chance of solving the searchers needs.
Yahoo! Mindset is a beta test tool that allows Yahoo! searchers to bias the results
toward commercial or informational type resources.
Yahoo! Robots-Nocontent
Yahoo! supports a robots-nocontent attribute, which you can wrap around the
unimportant parts of a page to tell Yahoo! to ignore it. The code could be applied
likeso:
This is a boilerplate legal disclaimer required
on each page of the site
I wouldn?t recommend using the robots-nocontent attribute on site navigation as
well structured local navigation tends to be rather rich in keywords that help
support the current document. Rather than using robots-nocontent I would be
more inclined to add more original userful content to the page and limit boilerplate
code as best you can.
Yahoo! offers tips on using the robots-nocontent attribute here
http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000444.html
New Yahoo! Patent
Yahoo! filed a patent application on May 12, 2005 for using My Yahoo! data to
help improve search relevancy. Bill Slawski links to the patent and reviews it at
http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=24500.
