[Sigia-l] "Best Bets" the Yahoo way

[Christina Wodtke]

> Is Yahoo claiming it has no effect? I didn't see that. Otherwise, what are
> their salespeople selling? If my payment is not going to have any effect
on
> the result set, why would I pay?

http://www.content.overture.com/d/USm/ays/sm.jhtml
"Please note: All URLs must pass initial and ongoing quality review to be
included. Participation in the program does not guarantee rank in search
results; rank is determined by assessing site quality and relevance to
search terms. "

Even the advertising material promises nothing regarding placement from
sitematch.


> > One is the completeness of the result set. As long as Yahoo keeps up and
> > increases its efforts to spider aggressively, the result set will be ok.
>
> Yahoo can "spider aggressively," they don't have to extract money for it.
Is
> the result set OK when a privileged few can afford to pay to be included
in
> the first place? Google and AskJeeves, among others, don't think so.

If no one links to a page, the spider can't find it. Pay-for-inclusion helps
unlinked pages be found. Should only the privileged few who are "in the
know" get invited to the party? google has come under fire for that.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/08/29/google_watch/print.html
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/999

in any case, as well as spidering agressively, Yahoo is including nonprofits
*for free* in the PI program, sitematch.

"Non-commercial content sites include information that's in the domain of
public libraries, universities or nonprofits. National Public Radio (NPR),
Northwestern University, the Library of Congress and the New York Public
Library, to name a few, have agreed to give Yahoo certain pages to crawl. "
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/8082767.htm

Google is not a saint, nor is Yahoo. They are both businesses -- not
non-profits-- that have chosen different solutions to their twin problems of
user-satisfaction and profitability. The market will decide.

>
> > But that also means that the value of paid inclusion is limited.
>
> Precisely my point (that you didn't quote). Yahoo is deceiving either its
> paid customers or the user, or both.

Why do you say that? Can you back up you are saying with a quote, or data,
or is it all extrapolations based on your worldview?

Being suspicious is one thing (a good thing); casting unfounded accusations
is another.

Again, none of this is insider information, and you are all very welcome to
do the reading and decide for yourself. Everything I have covered is
available from a quick search on your engine of choice.