Are Yahoo's top rankings being hijacked?

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Are Yahoo's top rankings being hijacked?

Posted By Jeff Martin

I was gauging the effect of the Yahoo! update on some sites I have a special interest in. I saw some very interesting shifts where these sites were now ranking #1 over state government agencies that police this industry and .edu sites.

What makes this even more interesting is that the #1 spots that the sites are occupying appear normal with the right title tag, copy snippet and green URL. However, once you click the Yahoo! SERP link you're taken to Business.com and then forwarded to the actual site with a bizcom tracking code.

Of interesting note is that the owner of these sites advertises through Business.com listings and through their PPC program. So it may be possible he is paying for all of these clicks. They did tell me that Business.com traffic was up significantly.

I've provided some information below on what's happening:

Case 1
A Yahoo! search for [texas real estate license]:

Click to Enlarge

The #1 natural spot embedded link is:

The embedded link is:

Clicking on the #1 natural spot listed as "www.texasrealestatelicenseonline.com" takes you through several 302 redirects one of which redirects to Business.com.

See the whole request process with headers here.
As a comparison here is the #2 spot headers here.

You eventually wind up at:

http://www.texasrealestatelicenseonline.com/?trackcode=bizcom

Case 2
A Yahoo! search for [illinois real estate license]:

Click to Enlarge

The #1 natural spot embedded link is:

Clicking on the #1 natural spot listed as "www.illinoisrealestatelicenseonline.com" takes you through several 302 redirects one of which redirects to Business.com.

See the whole request process with headers here.
As a comparison here is the #3 spot headers here.

You eventually wind up at:

http://www.illinoisrealestatelicenseonline.com/?trackcode=bizcom

Case 3

A Yahoo! search for [property management and construction software]:

Click to Enlarge

The #2 natural spot embedded link is:

Clicking on the #2 natural spot listed as "www.spectraesolutions.com" takes you through several 302 redirects one of which redirects to Business.com.

See the whole request process with headers here.
As a comparison here is the #1 spot headers here.

You eventually wind up at:

http://www.spectraesolutions.com/?trackcode=bizcom

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