Yahoo One Search Lowered My Mobi Rankings?

[thinking1]

Maybe it's just temporary but last week and for the past few months my StudioCity.mobi and AreaCodeFinder.mobi were listed in the top 3-4 results for the terms "Studio City, Area Codes, and Area Code Finder".

Today they are nowhere to be found for those keywords.

I do get a major part of my traffic from yahoo's mobile site. Does anyone know why my sites dropped? I didn't change anything. Did they change their algorithms?

Thanks,

Mike

[Scandiman]

They're always messing with that stuff. Keep an eye on it each day, I've had stuff bounce between 10 and 50 in google within days, both up and down. Not .mobi's but .coms. As hard as I try to figure it out they keep changing the rules of the game. Sucks but that's the way it is.

[thinking1]

They're always messing with that stuff. Keep an eye on it each day, I've had stuff bounce between 10 and 50 in google within days, both up and down. Not .mobi's but .coms. As hard as I try to figure it out they keep changing the rules of the game. Sucks but that's the way it is.

Thanks. I wish my rankings stayed the same for today. I had the number 1 spot for "Area Codes" in the mobile search. Mondays are my favorite mobi day and bring in the most $$.

What's weird is that when you type in "area code finder" you see a bunch of sites linking to areacodefinder.mobi, but areacodefinder.mobi doesn't show up.

[Scandiman]

I find this to be disturbing and indicative of a problem I was concerned with. My theory is simplified mobile design = bad seo in today's world. I just searched Area Code Finder mobi and you still don't show up. I even searched areacodefinder mobi and still nothing. All your backlinks show up but not you? It's almost as if they are now ignoring the keywords in your URL!? This is ridiculous! Worst of all I just searched for areacodefinder.mobi and still nothing!:mad2::mad2::mad2:

A search for antioxidants puts antioxidants.mobi at 14 and a search for antioxidants mobi puts antioxidants.mobi in the top spot. Why? I think it is because Reece has got the word Antioxidants in his site a few hundred times. (Reece, if/when you see this, I'm not ****** at you, you know I like your site and am just using it as an example of a content rich mobile site)

This is the problem I was trying to point out to our visitor from Google, obviously he can't comment for Yahoo but the results aren't much better on Google.

It's sad and eye opening at the same time. Where to go from here? Bloat your beautifully simple and highly functional site with unnecessary content to get good SEO? Are the SE's going to step up and find a way through this nonsense? I don't think we can wait for them.

Mike, please report back on this in the coming days, this is very disturbing IMO that your URL keywords are being ignored.

[thinking1]

I find this to be disturbing and indicative of a problem I was concerned with. My theory is simplified mobile design = bad seo in today's world. I just searched Area Code Finder mobi and you still don't show up. I even searched areacodefinder mobi and still nothing. All your backlinks show up but not you? It's almost as if they are now ignoring the keywords in your URL!? This is ridiculous!:mad2:

A search for antioxidants puts antioxidants.mobi at 14 and a search for antioxidants mobi puts antioxidants.mobi in the top spot. Why? I think it is because Reece has got the word Antioxidants in his site a few hundred times. (Reece, if/when you see this, I'm not ****** at you, you know I like your site and am just using it as an example of a content rich mobile site)

This is the problem I was trying to point out to our visitor from Google, obviously he can't comment for Yahoo but the results aren't much better on Google.

It's sad and eye opening at the same time. Where to go from here? Bloat your beautifully simple and highly functional site with unnecessary content to get good SEO? Are the SE's going to step up and find a way through this nonsense? I don't think we can wait for them.

Mike, please report back on this in the coming days, this is very disturbing IMO that your URL keywords are being ignored.

Scandi, I appreciate you checking this out yourself too.

A while ago the same thing happened. Before areacodefinder.mobi was indexed, the other sites linking to it were. Finally they indexed areacodefinder.mobi and it was at a prime spot in the search listings. It seems the same thing is happening now but backwards. Its pretty odd though how it has so many links but it doesn't even pop up.

I will definitely report back to you if it pops up again. I'm sure it will, they are probably just adjusting it's ranking.

[Scandiman]

Scandi, I appreciate you checking this out yourself too.

A while ago the same thing happened. Before areacodefinder.mobi was indexed, the other sites linking to it were. Finally they indexed areacodefinder.mobi and it was at a prime spot in the search listings. It seems the same thing is happening now but backwards. Its pretty odd though how it has so many links but it doesn't even pop up.

I will definitely report back to you if it pops up again. I'm sure it will, they are probably just adjusting it's ranking.
Thanks Mike, I think I'm more ****** off about this than you! :laugh::laugh::laugh:

[ezinaz]

Dumb question...where do you go to check where you fall in the Yahoo! One Search results? (If you don't have Mobile data access...)

[Scandiman]

yahoo.mobi silly boy!:laugh::laugh: BTW, Bakersfield.mobi is on top of the mobile results! :) :)

.

[ezinaz]

yahoo.mobi silly boy!:laugh::laugh: BTW, Bakersfield.mobi is on top of the mobile results! :) :)

.

Doh!

[thinking1]

Don't worry ezinaz I have a stupid question too.

What is google's true mobile site? I go to google.mobi, click on search and type in a keyword. The results appear to be normal pc websites just reformated. Is there a google search for only mobile websites? I could have sworn I saw it before.

Thanks,

Mike

[Scandiman]

Don't worry ezinaz I have a stupid question too.

What is google's true mobile site? I go to google.mobi, click on search and type in a keyword. The results appear to be normal pc websites just reformated. Is there a google search for only mobile websites? I could have sworn I saw it before.

Thanks,

MikeThey dropped it. It used to be able to select search web or mobile web. but no longer. Now they blend it all together with the transcoded pages.

[srowen]

They dropped it. It used to be able to select search web or mobile web. but no longer. Now they blend it all together with the transcoded pages.

Hi guys, thought I'd drop in. On this particular point -- sit tight. :) I note that outside the US the old search interface still exists, with a Mobile Web search option. But, the old interface won't be around forever.

On the subject of stuff changing a lot -- indeed we make changes more aggressively, that we believe are a net win for search quality. Sorry if it hits one of your sites for the worse. This stuff is still being actively tweaked and (hopefully) improved.

"antioxidants" -- I'm not sure this example shows you need to bloat your site. antioxidants.mobi, you'll admit, is a pretty sparse page right now. I am not sure what Reece's site is like. It's not just your page's pure IR-score relevance than matters, it's also how good and popular it is, where "good" is a function of stuff like PageRank. You don't need to bloat such a page to make it clear it's about antioxidants; in fact doing that may hurt how much people link to it and use it.

[Reece]

One thing I've found very useful for SEO purposes is to start a blog, provide unique content daily that is found on your sites and give people a taste of the content, followed by a link to your site.

First of all, I call my blog antioxidants.mobi and it's located at antioxidants.wordpress.com (good name for free traffic). I give them a little taste of the content on my sites by letting them read a few lines of content without having to visit my site. If they're interested, they can check out the actual site.

I also have another site (orac.mobi) which provides antioxidant information and is linked to it. It scores very well for: "food_name orac scores" and gets me a lot of free traffic from Google (no tricks here, it's perfectly relevant to what they're searching for, so I get repeat visitors). Slap on a link to my antioxidants.mobi site on each page and I get plenty of extra free traffic. Working on quercetin.mobi now, which will also be linked to antioxidants.mobi. Because all the content is relevant, it's not like I'm creating an ad network (I don't even serve ads) and SE seem to treat this as a reputable source.

[Scandiman]

Hi guys, thought I'd drop in. On this particular point -- sit tight. :) I note that outside the US the old search interface still exists, with a Mobile Web search option. But, the old interface won't be around forever.

You've certainly piqued my interest :) I look forward to what is in store.


"antioxidants" -- I'm not sure this example shows you need to bloat your site. antioxidants.mobi, you'll admit, is a pretty sparse page right now. I am not sure what Reece's site is like. It's not just your page's pure IR-score relevance than matters, it's also how good and popular it is, where "good" is a function of stuff like PageRank. You don't need to bloat such a page to make it clear it's about antioxidants; in fact doing that may hurt how much people link to it and use it.
Reece's site is antioxidants.mobi and I agree, it is not a bloated site. Simply drawing a comparison between it and AreaCodeFinder.mobi which is a lean site with little content but serves its purpose perfectly. To add content to it would take away from it's functionality but if he can't get consistently ranked without it then he needs to do something. We're all learning here and like I said before, I don't expect you to answer for your competitor. ;)

[Reece]

I don't know much about programming or designing a site like AreaCodeFinder.mobi, but how would the search bot be able to read the site and report back that it has content? It seems like all content is only accessible after you input text (ie zipcode, city).

What I can't figure out is that my best ranked page is antioxidants.mobi/watermelon.asp, a page on which the word antioxidant is mentioned a whopping 2 times? Not the page I would have figured ranked best... But as you said Scandi, I have the word antioxidant mentioned 2-4 times on 90% of my sites ~70 pages so perhaps that has more to do with the ranking than other things.

[warsteiner21]

On a related note, does anyone know whether MSN has the option to submit a mobile URL for their mobile search?

[thinking1]

Does anyone have any contacts at yahoo they could question about my loss in rank in onesearch?

[Reece]

Does anyone have any contacts at yahoo they could question about my loss in rank in onesearch?

I was #1 for antioxidants until recently (now #10), so perhaps this is merely a consequence of adding in more sites?

[Scandiman]

I was #1 for antioxidants until recently (now #10), so perhaps this is merely a consequence of adding in more sites?
No, the problem is AreaCodeFinder.mobi is GONE from the results, at least it was 2 days ago.

[Reece]

No, the problem is AreaCodeFinder.mobi is GONE from the results, at least it was 2 days ago.

Oh dear... That's quite out of the ordinary.

[aggieuk]

Good job i wondered into this thread, just realised Plymouth.mobi is on the top spot for mobile web, so i'll keep my eyes peeled on this one for the moment! But good luck with all your sites though and lets hope we all hit the top spots as a reward for our work!

[Work In Progress]

My most recent results were mixed.
Pizzaz.mobi ranked #3, page 1 for "local Pizza search"
#36 for "Pizza Search"

OnFly.mobi :dontknow: Gave up looking. Searched under "Mobile Search". Funny thing is, Yahoo Front Page was #32 for "mobile Search

WeatherForecaster.mobi- ranked #21 under "Weather Forecaster"

DateRape.mobi ranked #7 for "Date Rape"

NewWindows.mobi :dontknow: Gave up after 10 pages. Searched for "new windows". Funny thing is, I have VinylWindows.mobi forwarded to newwindows.mobi. searching for "Vinyl Windows" , newwindows.mobi is #10!

[thinking1]

Good news. They finally re-indexed the site :D

Here are my rankings for these keywords in their mobile search:

area code(s) #1
area code finder #1
area code lookup #2

Now all of you develop some more mobile websites!

Let's get the mobile web flowing with content, get the mobi name known.

[Scandiman]

Good news. They finally re-indexed the site :D

Here are my rankings for these keywords in their mobile search:

area code(s) #1
area code finder #1
area code lookup #2

Now all of you develop some more mobile websites!

Let's get the mobile web flowing with content, get the mobi name known.Excellent! But has it been gone since your original post? If so that's a long time.

[thinking1]

It was, but now it's back so I won't complain.

[thinking1]

I spoke too soon. They indexed the "about" page for those keywords which has no functionality.

They were so close. They could have just indexed the "home" page and I'd be set.

I think I'm just gonna make it so the "about" page forwards to home.

[Scandiman]

I spoke too soon. They indexed the "about" page for those keywords which has no functionality.

They were so close. They could have just indexed the "home" page and I'd be set.

I think I'm just gonna make it so the "about" page forwards to home.
How about putting the "about" content on the homepage after the #1 and #2 menu items. That way your homepage will have more content. Silly but it probably needs to be done to placate the SE's.