Yahoo! strives to build and maintain an index containing the best and most useful content on the web. To this end, Yahoo! looks for high-quality pages from its feed contributors.
This section explains how to choose the best content for submission to Yahoo! Search, and lists the content that is unacceptable. It contains the following sections:
Selecting Pages
General Content Guidelines
Ineligible Content
When building the feed, the first step is to choose the web pages to include. Selecting the right content helps drive the most relevant traffic to the right pages on your site. When selecting pages, consider the following:
Does the content reflect the interest of potential searchers?
Is the page the best possible landing page available for your content?
Is the content on the page represented on another page included in the feed?
Does the content meet all SearchMonkey content guidelines?
Yahoo strives to provide the best search experience on the Web by giving searchers high-quality, relevant web content in response to search queries. The following sections describe content in general terms.
Pages designed primarily for humans, with search engine considerations secondary
Hyperlinks intended to help people find interesting related content
Good web design that is easily navigable
Not all Web pages contain information that is valuable to a search user. Some pages may be created deliberately to trick the search engine into offering irrelevant, redundant, or poor quality results. Yahoo! attempts to exclude such pages from the index. Yahoo! does not permit sites with the following qualities in the index:
Pages that harm the accuracy, diversity, or relevance of search results
Pages that change the user’s browser preferences without providing notice and obtaining consent from the user, reset default home pages without notice or consent, resize browser windows, disable back buttons, or otherwise interfere with a user's ability to navigate
Pages with automatic software downloads including viruses, spyware, or other self-installing programs
Pages with text that is hard to read, such as text that is too small, is obscured by the background of the page, or is located in an area of the page not visible to users
Pages that artificially inflate search engine ranking
Pages built primarily for search engines
Pages with excessive or off-topic keywords
Pages that are deceptive or fraudulent
Pages that use cross-linking to inflate a site's apparent popularity, including sites that participate in link exchanges or use non-navigational links
Pages that employ cloaking or stealth, a technique used by some web sites to deliver one page to a search engine and a different page to all other users
Sites with dynamic, numerous, or unnecessary virtual host names or sub-domains
Pages with content that is duplicated across multiple domains or hosts
Pages with content improperly copied from other sites
The quality and stability of Yahoo! Search content is of great importance. URLs in Yahoo! Search must only appear within search results for relevant queries. Due to the dynamic nature of the search engine, certain content, domains, or businesses may not be eligible for participation in Yahoo! Search; their presence in the search index would be counter to the interests of the search engine by directly or indirectly harming the relevance of search results. The following content types are prohibited in Yahoo! Search:
Content providers that own multiple sites having identical content or nearly identical content, displaying only minor variations, such as slight price differences, minor text changes, or different page layouts.
Content on a web site that is not created by that site. This includes content sourced from an affiliate or partner of that site, or from an industry database.
Content from any site where the site redirects search users to another site is also considered affiliate content. The forwarding may happen at any point during the user’s session, but typically occurs when the user first attempts to access the site, or as part of the checkout or payment process.
Sites with a primary business model of directing users to a page of listings provided by the World Wide Web or listings available on the World Wide Web.
Sites owned by domain monetization businesses are those that buy and maintain domains in order to drive search traffic to sponsored links or other ad units prominently displayed on the landing page
Sites with gambling as their central theme, including those that accept wagers or require payment in exchange for the chance to win prizes, as well as sites that offer both information and links related primarily to promoting online gambling.
Organizations that offer casino services as an element of their overall entertainment offering (e.g. Las Vegas hotels) are acceptable provided that the content generally relates to the advertiser's offerings as an entertainment destination.
Yahoo! Search does not accept content promoting or distributing tobacco. Exception: Cigar retailers.
Sites whose primary purpose is the collection of personally identifiable information to be used for consumer or promotional marketing, or related purposes.
Defamatory, libelous or threatening sites. Any content on landing pages that contains racial or religious epithets, advocates doing physical harm to people or their property.
Sites that appear to facilitate the distribution, use or cultivation of illegal substances, substances of questionable legality or substances whose primary purpose seems to be recreational mind alteration.
Beating Drug Tests: Sites that appear to facilitate the evasion of drug laws, such as those promoting ways to "beat" a drug test.
Bypassing Copyright Protection: Sites that offer or promote software that bypasses copyright protection.
Cable Descramblers: Sites for products that descramble cable and satellite signals in order to get free cable services.
Counterfeit Products: Sites that offer counterfeit, fake or bootleg products.
Fake IDs: Sites that offer fake IDs or education transcripts.
Traffic Tickets: Sites that offer products or promote ways to evade traffic tickets.
Weapons: Sites that offer automatic weapons, military-style assault weapons, or integral parts for these weapons.
Areas of Questionable Legality: Sites that offer products or services of questionable legality. For example, Cuban cigars, ephedra, falsely obtained passwords, pyramid schemes, non-FDA-approved HIV home test kits.
Sites that advocate, glorify or promote rape, torture, human cannibalism, human suffering or death, graphic or violent images (such as those showing blood or dismemberment).