Avoiding Search Engine Spam

Search engine spam refers to pages that are considered unwanted and appear in search results with the intent to deceive or attract clicks, with little regard for relevance or overall quality of the user experience.

Yahoo! strives to provide the best search experience on the Web by directing searchers to high-quality and relevant web content in response to a search query.

Pages Yahoo! Wants Included in Its Index

Original and unique content of genuine value

Pages designed primarily for humans, with search engine considerations secondary

Hyperlinks intended to help people find interesting, related content, when applicable

Metadata (including title and description) that accurately describes the contents of a web page

Good web design in general

What Yahoo! Considers Unwanted

Some, but not all, examples of the more common types of pages that Yahoo! does not want include:

Pages that harm accuracy, diversity or relevance of search results

Pages dedicated to directing the user to another page

Pages that have substantially the same content as other pages

Sites with numerous, unnecessary virtual hostnames

Pages in great quantity, automatically generated or of little value

Pages using methods to artificially inflate search engine ranking

The use of text that is hidden from the user

Pages that give the search engine different content than what the end-user sees

Excessively cross-linking sites to inflate a site's apparent popularity

Pages built primarily for the search engines

Misuse of competitor names

Multiple sites offering the same content

Pages that use excessive pop-ups, interfering with user navigation

Pages that seem deceptive, fraudulent or provide a poor user experience

About the Author