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Yahoo charging e-commerce sites for priority placement?
Maniacal wrote in to let us know about an
article that talks about new "service" Yahoo! has implemented that would move e-commerce sites to the top of the line for placement, for 199$. As almost everyone knows, Yahoo! doesn't use spiders, but humans for placement. This means that the placement of a particular site can take a /long/ time. This service would move the sites using it to the front of the line-although Yahoo! still doesn't guarantee placement, nor will it necessarily guarantee priority placement. This service is part of new wave of services that Yahoo! will be aiming at small business. While part of me thinks this is the wrong way to do it, I know that a lot of places out there will use it-but for the true small scale start-ups, this still hurts.
no way that Big Business could ever rule the 'net,
because everyone got an equal start?
I guess we were wrong.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I guess this is a sign that as the Net gets more and more commercialized, it gets harder and harder for the small guy to go big (w/o being eaten up).
-Derek Moeller
moeller@networksplus.net
I don't understand the whining. What's wrong with this?
If you don't like the fee, then don't pay it. It'll just take a little longer.
If you don't like the principle, don't use Yahoo. Use NewHoo, or some other hierarchical web directory.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was actually in Yahoo's business plan. How else are they going to make money? Banner ads? Rob's $7-a-week sandwich bill will tell you that banner ads just don't cut it for generating revenue.
If you have a large audience, that is a valuable asset. Yahoo is using that asset to its own gain. Amazon is using that asset to its own gain. I'm shocked that people find this sort of business tactic so appalling. This is how the free sites are going to wind up making any money.
In fact, I'm surprised that Rob isn't selling "time at the top of the news stories list" for a pretty penny to, say, Redhat, VAR, or other companies.
This is to help small businesses get the same exposure big businesses already get due to their prominence.
Most small businesses I'm sure would rather pay the measely $200 than wait and wonder for months.
Also, its called leverage folks. Yahoo was bound to leverage their dominant position sooner or later. They aren't a public service - they're in business.
Hopefully people will stop using Yahoo because the sites they want to find stop showing up, or are # 3421 of 6789 sites matching search criteria.
Yay google.
This seems like plain old advertising to me. A client who wants prime exposure pays for prime space; it's Yahoo's site to sell. It seems like it's only when banner ads leave an ugly mark on an otherwise useful and valuable presentation that these things get a strong negative reaction.
Now, if Yahoo were representing placement as a "customer satisfaction index" rating, for example, but simply selling off slots, then there might be something fraudulent happening behind the scenes.
I wish there was a search engine that actually listed useful information. Heh, guess thats the holy-graile of search engines. For instance, wanna find out about Pontiac cars? Do a search for "Pontiac" on yahoo. You will be presented with 100 links all pointing to www.pontiac.com, which is basically just a big bloated advertisement.
.com names that aren't really "for-profit" sites (my url for instance), so grepping out the .com sites wouldn't work.
Wish there was a search engine that filtered out all these "official" sites!
Unfortunately, there are lots of sites with
This is nothing new. An acquaintance at a local commercial Web site told me over a year ago that his site had "bought" keywords in Yahoo's search engine, guaranteeing that it would come out at or near the top of certain searches.
Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me at all if I found out that all the commercial "portals" were doing this.
( EdSeek.com )
thomasb@sapphire.co.nz writes:
Can you imagine the Encyclopedia Britannica putting an ad for Microsoft in the section about operating systems?
How about the Oxford Dictionary putting in a favourable mention for nutrasweet in the entry for 'sugar'?
These are two of the most trusted references around and they didn't get that way by whoring off their content to the highest bidder.
Search engines have to decide whether they want to be trusted references or just another advertising brochure. Unfortunately most of them seem willing to take the quick bucks and settle for the latter.
Personally, I'm still looking for a good search engine. One that doesn't waste time with 'portal' wankiness and free email accounts. One that dedicates itself to providing good and up to date searches. One that doesn't sell its virtue for a couple of bucks and a half of bourbon.
Assuming the Net is still vaguely similar in 10 years, is Yahoo going to get any respect or is that big name going to get eroded as more people work out that it has nothing to offer but paid advertising?
Yahoo has been placing sites near the top of their lists for a while - Internally, they refer to it as "topping off" a site. Before this, it wasn't an official policy, you had to ask the right person and maybe some money changed hands. My company did some work for Yahoo, and in addition to our regular payments, we got topped off as a bonus. It's actually nicer to have the policy stated and understood.
Rejemy
No comment necessary.
i used to have my personal webpage indexed on their site, but one day they took my site off and never bothered to tell me why!! i've tryed many times to reaply, but they never restored my site or bothered emailing me a reason why it was taken off.. bunch of assholes!! i've never used their crappy site since.. there's much better out there!!
Google or Open Directory Project they both are better at finding what i need sometimes i use Altavista too... but now i will never use yahoo cause i need results not ad's!
God forbid one of those "humans" back there make a mistake in listing your info. It'll never change or get fixed.
Thanks but no thanks. Yahoo lost it's gleam for me years ago.
Whoa.... banner ads don't make revunue? That is a ridiculous statement, considering the fact that banner ads are the #1 method of revenue on the web right now...
Hey, I got no problem with you makin' money. That's what E-biz is about. Otherwise, why bother?
But in a SEARCH engine? Screw that. When I go to a search engine, I want to find what's related to what I'm looking for... Not a bunch of worthless links because some jackass or company bought their way to the top of the list.
Yahoo is more like a phone book than a encylopedia. And just like a phone book, almost everyone gets a listing, but if you want special treatment you pay for it.
I can't agree with your statement. These guys were already making money. Just take a look at thier stock. The main guy (Jerry Yang???) was a billionaire for a day a few months back.
Yahoo's content is URL's. Proprietary URL's that they don't own the right's to but still make money from. They should be paying royalties to these companies, not collecting money.
I know this is kind of rediculous and will never happen but if you think about it, it almost makes sense.
M
MG
The problem is that when you search for an internet site, you will not find free sites, only sites that have paid.
We must be reading different stories. All I saw was that pay sites get listed first. Free sites are still there.
The problem is that yahoo is giving the pretense of being unbiased.
First, you can't give a pretense. You give an impression. Secondly, could you point me to the yahoo page that claims they are unbiased? I see adverts all over it and that screams "biased" to me...
The Yellow page companies have been doing this for a while in both their Paper books and web-sites. I hate whats happening to the web. The marketers are having fun though.
The problem is that this wouldn't be necessary
if Yahoo's service weren't so terrible. They won't
cough up the cash to hire more editors so that all
sites get looked at in a timely manner. Instead,
they give businesses preferential treatment by
"letting" them pay $199 for halfway decent service.
The rest of us poor schmoes can go hang, as has
long been the case with Yahoo.
Yahoo wants to go a little further than Encyclopedia Britannica. In fact, it is lame that you would presume that this is their goal.
Yes, they started off cataloging sites, but they never promised anyone that they would maintain some sort of benevolent hierarchy.
And don't worry about ten years - Yahoo, linux, and open source will all be distant memories.
--
(AP) Sacramento, CA- in an announcement that stunned the Internet investing community today, Yahoo announced that it is trying to make money. The ways in which it attempts to make money include targetted advertising, and charges for preferential placement on its search engine, Yahoo officials confided.
Condemnation was universal across Wall Street. "Everyone knows that in order to maximize your value to the stockholders, you have to waste money like crazy," one anonymous shareholder complained. "I've lost all faith in Yahoo."
Yahoo's stock plunged 78 points in the closing hour of trading.
So then by this logic, PC Magazine shouldn't run Microsoft ads when there is an article about Netscape, Sun, or Red Hat in the issue?
Yahoo is a commercial venture, and anyone who feels that they have some sort of moral obligation to arrange their database entries in a certain order is naive.
Sounds like Yahoo should soon be getting a call from Playboy Enterprises lawyers too... See, 2206782,00.html
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/filters/bursts/0,3422
How 'bout paying them to move your competitor's links to the end of the list? Isn't this just as ethical?
As I read it, you're only paying for one of their surfers to look at your site ASAP. The article explicitly states that the money does not guarantee a good placement.
``Yahoo! is quick to point out that the fee doesn't guarantee placement in the directory -- that's still up to the editors. And even if the site is accepted, the money won't ensure a priority placement in the site, either.''
David
If a small scale startup can't find 200 USD, where are they going to get the 100 USD for a domain name? 2000+ USD for the hardware? More so : e-comm developement is *not* cheap. I know, I do it for a living.
200 USD is cheap enough that lots of people will be tempted, but expensive enough that you'll think twice before signing on every little "me-too" web site.
-Leolo
Have you tried to use Yahoo? The linux links are very stale and uninteresting. Linux Source Navigator, the #2 link hasn't been updated since 1996! Yahoo dropped off my bookmark list.
Perhaps you could get Microsoft to pay up for
pro-Microsoft articles?
What an excellent idea!
Yes! I go with google because it gives me what I am looking for and no complicated syntax like altavista which is also a good search engine. We dont have to all use yahoo just because its a click away. Use what gives you the results you are looking for.
The world needs comprehensive, unbiased information about what resources are available on the web.
It is increasingly difficult to get "unbiased" results from commercial search engines. To my knowledge, none of the commercial search engines provide a complete description of how their engine works. The search algorithms change frequently. There is no requirement that the search engine provider disclose any financial relation it has with a referenced site. Since the internals of these search engines are hidden from public view, it is impossible to predict what types of results one should expect.
Which pages are included? Does the site fail to reference certain sites deemed objectionable? How are keywords determined? How are the results ordered?
What we can do, as those who realize the desirability and importance of the free and open exchange of ideas, is establish a freely-available database of all publicly available sites and a extensible, highly configurable search-engine based on open standards.
Unlike proprietary black-box search-engines, this search-engine should provide formally described services. It should be completely clear how the engine responds to queries. To ensure the integrity of the engine, the source code to the search engine as well as the formal descriptions of the search-engine services should be freely available.
Clients of the search-engine should be able to develop customized search strategies tailored to her particular needs, desires and biases. These search strategies can be shared with other users who may not wish to develop their own search strategies.
Many different front ends to the search engine may be created. The search-engine should be powerful enough to emulate the types of services provided by Yahoo, Infoseek, etc. Of course, a Yahoo emulator would place links to companies paying it money at the of its list. An Infoseek emulator would give special priority to offical ABC and Disney sites. Jerry Faldwell could create a specialized search engine that omits references to certain purple creatures seen on public television.
Meanwhile, the rest of us can have results free of hidden bias and targeted advertisements.
A group of netizens committed to the free and open exchange of ideas can establish a global, distributed network of machines to provide the aforementioned search services. The database provided by these servers should be as comprehensive as physically possible. All available sites should be indexed in the database. These sites should be committed to indexing all sites.
The privacy of users of search-engines should be respected. Therefore, providers of these public-servers should attest that they
will not collect information that links particular users to a set of queries.
So, is anyone working on a project like this?
michaelawells@mindspring.com
remarkable. this is badly needed, or the net will soon become opaque, biased and useless, obliterated by oceans of propaganda.
if passive defense is not to use yahoo, then an active one is to do just this. i know i would join & contribute to it as i can.
could not such an open data base project (or at least parts of it) be undertaken and maintained as a cooperative effort -like prime number searches or decryption challenges, using spare cycles on netizens machines sharing the task?
see how http://www.distributed.net/ does it!