Yahoo Answers

by 52 replies
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Hello Everybody

I received a note from Yahoo Answers saying I had been suspended. I have made it a point to write lengthy on topic answers and then put my name and a link to my blog. I read the guidelines and according to this I thought it was OK to do this. Does anybody have any experience with this? If you can't post a link to your blog, what is the point of posting to answer sites as an SEO strategy?

THanks!

Tim


"Yahoo! Answers is a place to gain knowledge, not customers, page views, or dates. If you have years of experience in something, have a special hobby, own your own business, or if you are a knowledge partner, it's OK to accompany a good, on-topic answer with a link to your website, blog, or email to offer more information."
#search engine optimization #answers #yahoo
  • Did you link to a page on your blog that is selling something?
  • I had the same problem. If you check out my blog (link in my signature), you will see that I had the exact same problem. ALL of my answers were chosen as best answers, and I posted a link that was on topic, to an article on my blog relating to the questions and not selling anything, and I got suspended. When I asked why, they never told me, they just said sorry, I violated their TOS. I have discontinued used of Yahoo! Answers.
  • They usually suspend someone if they think they are affiliate marketing.

    they won't give you a reason either i complained and they told me i had definetely violated their "community guidelines"

    all i did was answer sometimes at lengh without spammy canned answers. posted a link to my blog (see signature) and whammo got suspended twice.
  • They do suspend you if they think you are affiliate marketing, but they don't tell you that is why they are suspending you, and they don't give you a chance to redeem yourself. I linked to pages that were just articles, that is all, and I still got suspended.
    • [1] reply
    • I don't sell anything on my blog. Just free information. Nothing more. I had two "best response" e-mails from Yahoo TODAY and one suspension notice. That, to me, is insane. I didn't link to any page. Just the home page of the bog. Onward and upward.

      Where do you all "answer" questions other than Yahoo?

      Thanks for the help!

      Tim
  • Is your blog totally related to the question?

    If it is a blog about everything then it is probabaly why you got suspended.

    It is all about relevance and you need to have high relevance in the answer and the link.

    Same goes for hubpages.
    • [1] reply
    • I'm a financial blog dealing with investments and I was only answering questions dealing with investments.
      • [1] reply
  • The same thing happened to me - Yahoo blocked me for answering to questions about insurance and saying that if they needed more info, they could feel free to call me. I wasn't promoting myself b/c the person was asking about insurance companies in the area - I was just answering their questions!

    My consensus is that Yahoo really doesn't care too much about its customers b/c I tried replying to their email as well and they never gave me a response. Between that and their non-existant phone numbers, I think they might have the worst customer service I've ever experienced.

    You'd be much better off searching for forums related to your specific geographic area or industry and answering questions there.
  • If you link back to your blog for every answer you make, no matter what you do, they will flag you. What you could try doing is opening up a new Yahoo account and linking back to a different blog you own every 5th post or so, but you may get flagged as well. It does stink when people say you can do something in their TOS, or they don't forbid certain activities, but they crack down on you anyway. My best advice is to come up with a different traffic strategy, or link to your blog only on occassion.
  • Happened to me too even though my answer was original, legit and totally relevant to the question. I guess I got suspended because I put a related website (which I own) in the Source box.

    There is no written rule that what I did was illegal in their TOS.
    • [1] reply
    • Search Engine Watch posted an announcement that Yahoo! would be integrating the Answers platform into their results pages.

      If your an SEO, you know what this means. If not...here's the good part!:

      Let's pretend you're a sheet metal fabrication company specializing in payday loans

      1. Go to Yahoo! Answers - Home and create an account. Good idea to have your company name reflected in your user name, too.

      2. Search Questions pertaining to your line of work. An advanced search can be executed to make sure your search only returns questions that are still open for questions.

      3. Answer away! This is the important stuff: If you're answering a question relating to short term loan, link back to the page on your site that conveys your financing capabilities. use anchor text, like the example above. In the "source" box, you can reference your site using the full url to your home page.


      If you site / blog is not selling anything or is not an affiliate program then chances are that you will survive. Its also advisable not to post links often in yahoo answers. You can however posts links to your site or blog once in 5 answers or so.


      Regards
  • Banned
    I keep on using yahoo answers for traffic generation but never experienced such problem from them. But once I received that my answer was reported as a abuse. I cant find that's reason uptill now. but that was related to financial terms, i thought I might used it as wrong meanings. But in general terms I never faced this problem. Can you please send me a copy of your response and your blog URL.
  • Banned
    Someone has reported your answer... be careful in posting links... is should be in the resource box.
  • Interesting discussion. I have been participating in Yahoo Answers for several months now. I'm at Level Two with a 40% Best Answer score and no problems. I regularly link to my sites that sell my products.

    So maybe it's just that they want to go direct to the source not thru affiliates?
    • [1] reply
    • This might be true. I'm also using affiliates for my products promotion while posting on Yahoo Answers, and am also been suspended just recently.

      Rafael
  • I'm now at level 4 and top contributor and answer questions on 3 of my sites. I always use good answers and get best answer often. In the beginning however they did report me for abuse which wasn't true, I'm sure it was a competitor. I disputed the reports there were 3 altogether and I won all 3.

    Yahoo said I didn't do anything against their rules. It was right after that they gave me top contributor and since then no one reports me. I think if you give good answers and help people there is no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to promote your site it's a fair trade.
    Sonni
  • Probably you are just bad luck, Due to heavy spammer, they rarely bother whether you posting a good or bad link. They banned my level 3 account and guess what, i just posted 1 link in source before. And that is the reason.
  • I have spent some time using yahoo answers. being banned Two times. First time I got banned was because I didn't realize if you link more than once every 5 or 6 posts they ban your account. When I finally got the hang of it. I Did setup a Google Analytics account, I'm finding that I'm getting very little traffic from yahoo answers. Maybe I need to give it more time. But it's starting to feel like work.. I found that using Forums are way more forgiving and you can target your audience beter.
  • I just got suspended and am in a panic that 'they' will deactivate my Yahoo Mail account, where I receive all my 'guru' email.
    I'm really upset about this, since I, too, was at high level 2 with tons of best answers in a very specific niche which also gave me most of my pitiful sales.
    I made the mistake of see there were a lot of questions on how to make money on the internet and answered a few. I believe you are correct, some 'competitor' flagged me. I see TOS violations constantly-direct links to affiliate pages within the answer, among other things, and nothing gets done about it. "Self regulating" stinks!
    Will they really shut down my mail account? Does it take them long, or if they are going to do it, would they have by now? Appeal rejection was sent several hours ago.
    Thanks
  • Sometimes, we don't remember if there are a few times we have posted something that is unacceptable to their guidelines. Maybe with the hundreds of answers you have posted there is a single one which does not follow their guidelines.
    • [1] reply
    • You can forget about your account bein reinstated. They most likely won't shut down your email address though. I actually filed a appeal and WON and they still wouldn't reinstate my answers account.

      I learned a long time ago to stay out of answering questions in the "make money online" niche. You'll get flagged by another marketer real quick.
      • [1] reply
  • if you link to q page with adsense on it they will ban you everytime. My brother uses answers for his airsoft business and has not had a problem pointing people to is airsoftFAQ on his retail site.

    Me on the other hand have been banned like 30 times!!!

    use answerbag,askville and some of the others instead
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
    • [1] reply
    • I have had very similar problems with yahoo answers. I personally think that anyone can flag you for any reason and it doesn't matter if you did anything wrong or not Can someone suggest a better alternative?

      thanks
  • The same thing happend to me - I was only using yahoo answers for 1 week then got banned. When asked why I never got an answer (damn autority site's)
  • People say they make quite a lot of money there, the maximum I made before my account went blocked was 10bucks.. lol
  • I'm chuckling now because I got suspended earlier this week, but my answers (off the suspended account) are still being picked as "Best Answer".

    "Ain't that a hoot!" as my Mother would say.
  • Too many people flagging your account will get you banned regardless of the quality of your posts...
    A blackhat way to stay in the game is to make 2 accounts... ask a question from one.. answer it from the 2nd and login back from 1 to mark your answer as the 'best answer''......
    5,10 best answer gives u a big boost in rep...
  • My account got suspended a couple of weeks ago. I read this thread and then sent them an email pointing out that my answer had been picked as the 'top' one. They replied with an apology, I am reinstated, just have to make sure that I abide by the TOS etc. I get the impression that someone reported me for abuse. Probably an evil competitor who is out to bash the competition!
    It is worth dropping them a line if you think that you have been unfairly treated.
    • [1] reply
    • If your Yahoo Answers account is banned can you just sign up again with a different Yahoo name?
      • [1] reply
  • I just used yahoo answers recently.

    Googled an error code a friends pc was having (he could not access sites) and yahoo answers had 2 or three spots on the 1st page.

    Checked them out and found out it was a virus, googled how to remove and got more yahoo answers listings.

    These answers led to blogs w/affiliate links or had straight affiliate links to reg cleaner, spyware removal products/reviews.

    One blog had a free cleaner that would get rid of the virus with recommendations for some paid (affiliate) solutions.

    The freebie worked.

    As a user I did not care if they were affiliate links or not. I just needed a solution and found one. Even if I had needed to purchase one.

    Took about 20min to fix my friends pc. He was just about to unhook everything and take the box down to Best Buy to get it fixed.

    So he was spared a big headache, being w/out his pc and some money.

    He had no clue any of the answers were there to sell a solution, he was just happy to find one for free or cheap.

    He had never heard of yahoo answers but will likely use them now and tell others.

    You would think yahoo would embrace sound answers even if they lead to a monetized blog page regarding the question.

    Just my nickels worth,
    Tom
    • [1] reply
    • I have had two accounts banned on Yahoo. People are quick to report you if they think you are marketing or spamming. One way around this is to pick the area you want to answer questions in, and if you think you have the time, then spend a lot of time on there answering questions. You can put a link in the resource box at the bottom to your blog or website, but NEVER an affiliate link. The best way to capture the "leads" you may get from Yahoo is to have an optin mailing list box on your site or blog. As you may already know, a mailing list is crucial. Even if someone visits your site one time, if they sign up for your list, you can market to them again and again. I only use Yahoo for traffic, and I put my website link in the box. I never add affiliate links. The people who hang out on Yahoo are mostly teenagers anyway, so you are probably wasting your time thinking that you will actually ever get a sale from them. They all ask the same questions over and over again and they are looking for FREE information. The main thing about Yahoo, and it was mentioned a couple of posts up, is if you give a good answer, it will show in a google search and it stays there for a long, long time. People pay good money with PPC ads to get that same position, and you are getting it for free. So say someone is searching a specific topic on google and your answer comes up from Yahoo Answers... there is your link right under your answer to your web page. TA DA!
  • I really think its people reporting you that are trying to gain higher exposure for their website on search engines. That is just my thoughts.

    Think about it. I am trying to rank #1 for google for a term and yahoo answers is above me with a good link I could report them and have that link removed. Benefits me then.
  • in yahoo answers you can not put your affiliate link
  • Thanks for sharing this info. I have to be careful for what I put on my blog for suspension.
  • I agree , Yahoo answers is a very fast way to get search engine ranking for some simple stuffs, and its also a important tool for niche research. As a newbie online marketer you can easily find out what problems people need to solve and what needs to be done.
    • [1] reply
    • Any of the big search engines are tough on spam. Better off not posting a link, but I guess its worth a try you never no what the end result will be. Sometimes its unclear as to what is not acceptable and what is not acceptable.
  • Banned
    You should have put your link in the source... not on the body of your message...
  • I have used Yahoo answers in the past, and have never gotten an account suspended. If your answers are relevant and on topic, it could be that competitors were flagging your answers to try to take you down.
    I have seen answers which were little more than blatant spam stay up for months though, so I dont think it is because of Yahoo themselves.
  • My Yahoo answers account was suspended and I was able recover it. I did this by sending a certified letter to Yahoo! I had been including links to ehow articles I had written, not affiliate links or even my own websites. one of my last answers mentioned a few sites in the answer, not the source. I think this might have been my undoing. the biggest problem is that yahoo refuses to explain why they suspend people or delete answers. it is pretty obvious that this is a machine driven selection process, but to me that seems to make it easier to identify the violation. I mean if a computer is selecting violations then it easy enough to also spit what part of the TOS is violated.

    I dunno. maybe it people. I mean it would take a human to think, "seems spammy" or "hideous grammer"

    anyhow, I have been reluctant to go back to Y!A because this was my longtime yahoo account. It would be nice if Y! just told you why they suspended you. It's belongs to them, they can toss whoever they like. It would be nice to able to detect their logic.
  • I've used Yahoo answers and my answer was reported by someone else. I appealed and receive and answer that I had violated their TOS, even if I couldn't find which one. I don't use it that much anymore, just once in a while.
  • Does it mean no affiliate links of your website but it is OK from authority sites? Some people make some money from Yahoo answers with affiliate sites.
    • [1] reply
    • There is definately an art to using Yahoo Answers to make money. Here are some tips to not get banned:

      1) It's not about the answer you write (although your answer should be good). It's all about the link you provide that will get banned or not.

      2) Only put a link in the resource box, not the actual answer

      3) Only put ONE link - not multiple.

      4) Make sure every answer is unique.

      5) Don't put a link in every answer you write - a good ratio is 1 in 5.

      6) Make sure that the page you send them to is directly related to the question.

      7) Blog posts are usually the safest place to link to

      8) Don't link to the same page more than one a week (vary the pages you send traffic to)

      9) Try to use different categories when you answer so you look like you are valuable to the community (don't just concentrate on one niche). If you only have one blog - use that to post your 'link answer' and the others as your 'no link answers'.

      10) You can't have anything for sale on the page that you send them to.

      Right now you are probably wondering how to make it profitable then. There are two ways - 1) make sure your mailing list and free report is visible on the page you send them to so you can get them on your list or 2) at the end of the blog post you send them to then send them on to a second page for 'more information'.

      Hope that helps
      Tracey
      • [1] reply
  • I've been suspended twice and agree that there are people there that dub themselves "The Yahoo Answer Police" and will report any answer that has any link in it...even if it is in the resource box (which was where I only placed them). I have to laugh, though, because I'm still getting voted best answer from the first suspended ID that was suspended over a month ago.
    With my new ID, I still answer questions in my niche because this is where I get the few sales I have. BUT, this time, I've put all the links, etc, in my profile (which is the way I interpreted the TOS to be the correct way). Then in my answer and resource box, I say see my profile. Not quite as effective, but I haven't been report yet either and get voted best answer almost everyday.
    So, put your links in your profile and hope for the best.
  • Well .. make another account and go at it again
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    Yahoo Answers

    Hello Everybody I received a note from Yahoo Answers saying I had been suspended. I have made it a point to write lengthy on topic answers and then put my name and a link to my blog. I read the guidelines and according to this I thought it was OK to do this. Does anybody have any experience with this? If you can't post a link to your blog, what is the point of posting to answer sites as an SEO strategy?