New Domain Rating system alleged incometance by Yahoo!

**David G** · 05-14-2010, 12:02 PM

Incompetence with an absurd new system! If you go to your Parked.com account Information tab and then click-on Domain Rating you will see a list of domains Yahoo does not like, many of which will not earn any revenue or less revenue, or possibly not permit optimization or keyword changes.

I can't believe how allegedly incompetent Yahoo appears to be with these ratings on my domains (probably some of your own too). For example, it's absurd to ban or mark as poor quality names such as CityStateNameRealEstate.com or CitynameRealEstateAgent or StatenameRealEstateAgent, and CommoditiesBroker or OptionsTrading and many other domains including non-trademarked generics such as FlatFeeMLSlisting and FinancialMarkets, etc. In addition, some domains have been incorrectly classified as trademarks but are not trademarks especially in the category of use.

**INFORG** · 05-14-2010, 01:04 PM

It does seem a little ridiculous. Also from what I have seen:

High % of .US are "quality block" even though they are great keyword generics
Any domain with more than one dash (-) is "quality block"

I have a few additional "quality block" or "banned", but I didn't really spend a lot of time trying to figure them out - doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to it. I also have a nice type-in .ws that is quality blocked.

I'm glad Parked put the tool in place though, so I can move those names to another provider or find other ways to monetize.

**stock_post** · 05-14-2010, 01:11 PM

Yahoo has lot of issues with incompetency.
They can not produce any more babies - the current ones have to age and die.

**TheLegendaryJP** · 05-14-2010, 01:27 PM

Thanks David, never knew of this feature.

So question now for Donny, what does each rating mean exactly? Do they all mean yahoo block?

Banned
Trademark
Quality Control
Controversial
Resrticted

At the top I read this so I assume they all mean BLOCKED but the term restricted.

Search Request

Restricted Domain Ratings: Restricted (1 domains)
Blocked Domain Ratings: Banned (1 domains) Controversial (1 domains) Quality block (3 domains) Trademark (8 domains)

**INFORG** · 05-14-2010, 01:38 PM

JP, according to the Parked.com forum:

Adult, Alcohol, Tobacco, Weapons, and Restricted still go to Yahoo.

The rest means Yahoo doesn't support them. I think that includes, Banned, Controversial, Quality Block, and Trademark. And these will go to our secondary providers.

Banned, means it's banned domain. Controversial means it has combination of terms or concepts yahoo doesn't like. Quality Block, means that today Yahoo doesn't like your domain. Trademark, means it's probably a trademark.

Donny

**exxe** · 05-14-2010, 01:39 PM

I have a "Controversial" one

**stevo** · 05-14-2010, 01:44 PM

I don't get it. Just yesterday I noticed that one of my names at "parked" was showing on Yahoo on the first page for exact search. Check out yahoo for( investment planner ). My domain InvestmentPlanner.us shows on the first page. The name is listed as "quality block" at Parked. Doesn't make sense.
I will be moving a lot of my .us names to another parking company. Any suggestions?

**NameGuy** · 05-14-2010, 02:23 PM

It's getting crazy there...

Yahoo quality blocked around 10 of my best domains about a couple of months ago. All .com with typein traffic, most with CTR > 50%. After I complained they eventually got unblocked. They should not have been blocked in the first place. This was before they started publishing the domain rating so the only way I knew was when the revenue tanked.

All my .US domains are quality blocked. All these are all generic, one word domains. Granted they don't get a lot of traffic, but I certainly don't see the problem.

A few other .com domains are quality blocked domains, which I don't understand why, but I'm just moving them elsewhere where they will do just as good or better.

They also blocked a couple for trademark. One was debatable, but I moved it elsewhere anyway. The other domain is the name of a town in North Carolina but also happens to be the name of a car. I am targeting the town on the lander but it was blocked for trademark anyway. So now I appealed to my account manager explaining this was the name of a town and should be unblocked, even sending the wikipedia link about the town. Her quote to me was "I submitted it, but I doubt it will make a difference if there is a town or not. A trademark is a trademark." This is totaly absurd. A trademark is ALL about the usage. If parked is going to block for trademark, they should know what a trademark is. I'll just chalk this one up to ignorance and I do expect it to be unblocked.

But anyway, you can't totally blame parked for this. Yahoo has got them by the balls and they really don't have any control that I can tell. They're just a feed publisher. I'm surprised they do as well as they do with the Yahoo feed as much as Yahoo's search volume is dropping. They must have a lot of loyal advertisers.

**Fearless** · 05-14-2010, 04:05 PM

You can take out "alleged". They also ban all 2 letter .coms. Whoever makes these stupid decisions must not own Yahoo stock.

**south** · 05-14-2010, 06:08 PM

Wow, thanks for pointing this out. Decent of Parked to show us the info though.

Bummer, looks like about 400 or so of mine make the list.. And I don't do typos, TMs or adult. Go figger.

**David G** · 05-14-2010, 06:53 PM

Originally Posted by south

Wow, thanks for pointing this out. Decent of Parked to show us the info though. Bummer, looks like about 400 or so of mine make the list.. And I don't do typos, TMs or adult. Go figger.

Ditto here too with few names like that but almost 200 on their non-liked list in my account. The good thing is thanks to parked.com and the list we at least know the names should be moved away from a Yahoo feed instead of tryiing to figure out why some domains income went down the tube. Now we know why.

**south** · 05-14-2010, 07:16 PM

Originally Posted by stevo

I don't get it. Just yesterday I noticed that one of my names at "parked" was showing on Yahoo on the first page for exact search. Check out yahoo for( investment planner ). My domain InvestmentPlanner.us shows on the first page. The name is listed as "quality block" at Parked. Doesn't make sense.
I will be moving a lot of my .us names to another parking company. Any suggestions?

Develop it.

Yahoo often ranks .us names well. I have quite a few that do nicely with them.

What concerns me is that bing will be powering yahoo's results soon, assuming it will hurt my .us names.

---------- Post added at 08:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:14 PM ----------

Originally Posted by trader

Ditto here too with few names like that but almost 200 on their non-liked list in my account. The good thing is thanks to parked.com and the list we at least know the names should be moved away from a Yahoo feed instead of tryiing to figure out why some domains income went down the tube. Now we know why.

I'm sticking with them for the time being at least. Revenue has definitely gone to hell, but I've tried them all, and sedo is certainly no better. In my opinion, parking is only a temporary stop on the way to a site.

**draggar** · 05-14-2010, 07:27 PM

Wow, I never realized how many of my domains were "blocked" by them.

Klee Kai is a TM? It's a breed of dog!
FerretPoo is "controversial"??

What parking companies do not use Yahoo then?

**south** · 05-14-2010, 07:36 PM

Originally Posted by draggar

FerretPoo is "controversial"??

What parking companies do not use Yahoo then?

sedo.

Again.

**Donny Simonton** · 05-14-2010, 07:37 PM

Yahoo has always blocked domains for many reasons. And until the last year or so I have always agreed with them about 99.8% on their ratings. About a year or so they started adding additional things, mainly quality block. Quality block is when a domain they think isn't worth the registration, more than one dash, taking a domain and just putting random numbers or other words, like thecarinsurance.com or carinsurance411.com. Those I can understand, people had figured out was to buy domains and get 1 click landers very easily, so they kind of put a stop to it. Then they started investigating domains based on gtld's and cctlds. The first to get blocked was .cm, then they started blocking some the cctlds when they didn't support that country, those all still made sense. But the one I didn't like is when they started blocking some gtlds and cctlds because they didn't have enough traffic or they had a high percentage of arbitrage being run to them. .us got hit mainly because GoDaddy was offering them for 99 cents and everybody who was doing arb started buying them because they were so cheap. I am working with Yahoo on trying to get a few cctlds unbanned, will it happen, I have no idea. But it's worth a shot.

Are all .us domains quality blocked? No. If a domain was parked with them before they implemented the filters the domain is still fine.

Domains that are adult, weapon, tobacco, or weapons are just an internal system Yahoo uses, those domains still go to Yahoo and have been for years.

If you really see something on the list that shouldn't be marked as it is, just send it to your account manager and they will evaluate it and if they agree with send it to Yahoo to get reviewed. And then usually you have about a 50% chance of getting the domain clean. If the domain is banned, you have about a 5% chance.

Donny

**Acro** · 05-14-2010, 07:37 PM

Time to move them to sedo.

With all due respect, Donny, the Yahoo model is broken. Some of my examples:

Argosaronic.com (trademark?)
TheParthenonMarbles.com (trademark?)
Parthenon.info (trademark?)

Give us a freaking break, Yahoo.

I mean, it must be something against Greek geodomains after all, cause all three are.

And lots of other such silly examples:

I know Satansoft.com might be "controversial" if you're a bible thumber but Helladic.com is not about hell.

In a nutshell: the process is pure filter-based and Yahoo is officially the nazis of domaining.

**Donny Simonton** · 05-14-2010, 07:39 PM

Poo, Shit, feces are controversial in Yahoo's eyes, they have been for about 3 years. Klee Kai is not, just submit it to your account manager.

D

**south** · 05-14-2010, 07:42 PM

Thanks Donny!

---------- Post added at 08:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:39 PM ----------

Originally Posted by donsimon

Poo, Shit, feces are controversial in Yahoo's eyes, they have been for about 3 years. Klee Kai is not, just submit it to your account manager.

D

Donny, perhaps our account managers be bringing this to our attention in the first place? And attempting to do something about it, particularly if it's an obvious mistake? Are they paid based on the revenue their accounts generate? Perhaps an incentive program for the account managers?

**Acro** · 05-14-2010, 07:46 PM

Originally Posted by donsimon

Poo, Shit, feces are controversial in Yahoo's eyes, they have been for about 3 years. Klee Kai is not, just submit it to your account manager.

D

Since when "cloning" is equal to the ones above?

Seriously now. Whoever imposes their morals onto others should be outcast first. I've never seen a bunch of more righteous mother****ers in my life before than Yahoo.

**Donny Simonton** · 05-14-2010, 07:51 PM

Our account managers do have an incentive plan, but they just got this the same day we launched it to everybody else. Understand, we don't have a piece of paper that says this is what will or won't be blocked. One of our own portfolios has about 75 domains in it that are not wanted in one way shape or form. Google has always claimed that they don't block domains, but I recently heard from a reliable source that about 20% of all domains that point to them are blocked now.

I think this is both companies way of starting to clean up some of the domains that get traffic to them both.

Donny