Getting indexed in Yahoo has become very difficult in the last few months. The indexing robot, Yahoo!Slurp, has become erratic. For some sites, the robot will view all pages, but only add a few to the Yahoo database. For other sites, sub-domain listings actually start disappearing! So, what's the secret to getting indexed?



Pleasing Yahoo!Slurp

The secret to getting indexed in Yahoo involves constant updates to your site. The updates, however, have to be done on both the site and through Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. Here's how you go about getting indexed.

The first step is to start a blog for your site. You can build a blog on your site or use a free service. I prefer blogger.com because it is easy to use, but you can use whatever you like. Once you have your blog up, you should make entries that correspond and link to content on your site. For example, I will post this article on my blog, Moshing Search Engines, and link it to the article page on MarketingTitan.com.

To supercharge the impact of the blog, you should also link to a site map on your site. If you don't have a site map, make one in HTML. The Yahoo robot will definitely follow it and index the pages. Don't rely on the xml site map strategy Google is promoting.

Once you have the blog up with content posted, you must turn the blog into a real simple syndication feed. Again, you can use your own system. I prefer to use a free service because I really don't have the time to waste on such things.

Feedburner.com seems to work find and is simple to use. Opening an account with Feedburner is so easy, I am not even going to explain it. At the end of the process, feedburner will kick out the link for your RSS feed. Here's where the magic begins.

If you have a yahoo email account, you need to access you're My Yahoo page. If you don't have an account, get one! Once you are on the My Yahoo page, do the following:

1. Click the ?add content? link in the upper left hand under the search box.

2. When the new page opens, click the ?Add RSS by URL? link on the right of the ?Find Content? search box in the upper section of the page.

3. Enter the exact link provided by Feedburner and click ?add.? Do NOT add the url for your blog.

4. Click the ?My Yahoo? tab at the top of the page and refresh the page.

At this point, you should see your feed at the bottom of the page. If you don't, be patient. Yahoo is sometimes slow, so just try it again in an hour or so. When the feed is added, you should see the name of your blog and the title of each post under it. Yahoo can take up to a day to add new posts, so don't panic if they don't show up immediately.

Once you've completed the above, Yahoo will follow the links in the blog and index the pages on your site. If one of the links goes to a site map, you are in business. As an added bonus, Google will do the same thing. Let's look at an example.

Depending on the size of your site, the process can take a few days or a couple of weeks. Every time you add new content, slap it into your blog with links. In no time, you will be taming Yahoo!Slurp.