Keeping it real… simple

Editor’s Note: In the previous edition of our series on improving relevancy, Cody Simms and Amit Paunikar offered up tips on writing good content that’s friendly to both bots and users. In the fourth and final installment (for now), our intrepid Yahoo! Publisher Network product managers offer handy tips on what not to do, both content- and code-wise.

Content Don’ts
The things below can result in us displaying all sorts of wacky and random stuff on your page. You don’t want that, we don’t want that, and your users don’t want that.

1) Don’t use unnecessary code. If you right-click and “view source” on your webpages and don’t like or understand what you see, it’s time to get to work.

• Use structured, consistent code. This saves time in the long run
• Reference a separately hosted CSS file rather than hard-coding style information into the HTML page at hand
• Remove unnecessary scripts from your page. Host them in a separate document if you can

2) Don’t use unnecessary language.Remember high school debate class? You were told to find an argument and stick to it. No wishy-washy-ness. Well the same thing goes for pages that do well with contextual advertising. When a page contains unnecessary words or too many topics, we get lost somewhere around your third rebuttal.

• Don’t have too many topics on a page; stick with one or two good ones. Otherwise, it is difficult for us to know which topic the user finds most interesting…and thus, it is difficult for us to know which type of ads to put on your page. We usually figure it out over time by testing multiple options, but the clearer your page is, the more quickly we’ll get our ad engine tuned up properly for you.
• Reduce unnecessary marketing copy (e.g., “best in class”, “top-reviewed service”).
• Remove jargon (e.g., “iChump user reviews” or “iChump product reviews” vs. “iChump reviews”).  Only use words that actually mean something to users and to advertisers.

3) Don’t try to take shortcuts around lack of content or traffic. You don’t want to take actions that bring low-quality traffic to your site (such as people who were duped into coming to your site in the first place), and you should avoid using content that appears elsewhere. Be an original! If you have to stop and wonder if a given practice is bad or not, it probably isn’t something that you should be doing.
 

• No keyword stuffing. This refers to the dirty practice of filling a page with very targeted keywords, but not offering any true compelling content. Again, your page content should exist for the delight of your readers, not for the padding of your wallet.
• No link farms. Let sites link to you naturally. Remember, you can’t buy love. Buying or forcing links will be equally fruitless for you in the end, too
• No small, illegible text
• No duplicate content. Thou shall not steal or violate other people’s copyrights. It’s not only a bad contextual practice; it’s illegal!

4) Whatever network you use, don’t violate “Terms of Service” or “Terms and Conditions.” These terms are in place in order to protect advertisers. Remember, without advertisers, there is no network. And all of the advice we’ve given you up to this point would be for naught.

• Keep ads off of pages with non-compliant content
• Do not directly alter the ad unit code
• Do not encourage your users to click on your ads (and don’t click your own ads!)

Useful links and best practices:
Yahoo! Search Content Quality Guidelines
Traffic Driving tools
Site Enhancement tools

Read the rest of this series:
Optimizing for Relevancy, Part I: Semantics and Bots
Optimizing for Relevancy, Part II: Anatomy of a Web Page
Optimizing for Relevancy, Part III: Content Do’s

—Cody Simms, Senior Product Manager and Amit Paunikar, Senior Product Manager