Do you know what Yahoo Site Explorer is and how it can benefit you, as a website owner?

Simply put, Yahoo Site Explorer is a valuable tool which provides information regarding your URL and its popularity, based on internet traffic.

As one of the world’s largest search engines, Yahoo uses its database, along with algorithms, to produce listings of indexed sites, links to a particular site, popular pages on a domain, and site feeds. Submission of your website to Yahoo Site Explorer is free of charge.

What Information Does Yahoo Site Explorer Provide

Website owners can explore their own site by inputting the full URL in the Yahoo Site Explorer search bar. The retrieved information can be exported into a tab-separated value format and an online service, Site Explorer’s Web Services APIs, will aid in understanding the data provided.

When a website owner authenticates their URL, they are given access to additional statistics. They can determine if Yahoo is recognising and properly linking subdomains, what information Yahoo has detected, and if there are URLs which should not be associated with a particular contact. As well, they are able to obtain a listing of which websites include a link to their URL.

This type of data helps a business owner determine if there are problems with links and whether or not they should feed additional metadata to Yahoo and if the language indicators are appropriate.

Site Owner/Manager Accounts

The authenticated owner or manager of a website can set up an account. Each account can track when the site’s data was last updated by Yahoo’s web crawlers, if updates have been registered, list the data in a downloadable report, provide metadata information, and allow all URLs with owner to be managed in a central location. Site managers can also submit missing domain pages to Site Explorer.

Yahoo does not guarantee that all domains will be included in their search results. Their quality standards are outlined in their online guidelines. These include:

• Unique and original content.

• Content with value.

• Well-designed pages that are not developed solely for search engine consideration.

• Links to interesting and related content.

• Accurate metadata.

• Overall good design.

Yahoo makes a point of iterating that intentional, deceptive practices will result in the URL being deemed of little value and considered spam, and therefore will be not included in search results.

In its quest to provide meaningful and relevant search results, Yahoo will black list websites that demonstrate any of the following:

• Doorway pages.

• Mirror or cookie cutter pages or sites.

• A large number of links to affiliate content.

• Too many virtual host names.

• Excessive keyword usage.

• Artificial means to attract search engines.

• Cloaking.

• Hidden text or links.

• Any pages seen as fraudulent, deceptive or utilise malware.

Registering and authenticating your website with Yahoo Site Explorer gives you a good deal of information at no cost. There is truly no reason to not do so. Using the information makes sense as you can better develop your website to gain popularity and reach its target market.