I have heard many people talking about Yahoo! Answers and saying it is a great way to promote your business. Now, there are different ways that people use Yahoo! Answers, such as for traffic generation and article writing ideas. Well, I heard people talking about it, and so I decided to check it out and see if it was worth all the talk. This is my story:
First of all I tried to use Yahoo! Answers for article ideas. I went and was looking through the questions to see if I could find questions that I could answer in an article. Well, the first couple I found I had already written articles on, so they were no good. And then I found a couple questions that I thought I could write articles on, but they were quite vague, and generally related only to that specific person.
It also suddenly occurred to me, if I have already answered a lot of these questions in the articles I have written over the past few weeks, then how many of these other questions already have articles that other people have written that answer those questions? Obviously the people asking the questions have done no research whatsoever before asking their questions, and I write my articles for the people that are actually willing to put effort into their business, so I probably can’t use these people’s questions as ideas for my articles. And seeing as I came up with over 1000 ideas for articles that I could write related to making money online, I have decided to just continue writing and publishing articles on the ideas I have already come up with, and on questions from visitors to my blog.
So using Yahoo! Answers for article ideas bombed for me. So I moved on to trying to use Yahoo! Answers for traffic generation. Now, as I said, these people for the most part have basically done ZERO research before asking their questions, so there were many questions that I could answer. Now, being smart and not wanting to get in trouble, I checked Yahoo! Answers’ Community Guidelines and Terms of Service before I posted any links or told people to check out my webpage. I found that it said that you could post links if they were related to the question and were not to try to make money.
Well, knowing this I looked for questions to answer. I found some questions regarding Clickbank, and choosing and promoting their products, so I gave a brief answer and placed a link to the page on my blog where I have the article on choosing Clickbank products. I found a few other similar questions and posted links back to my articles, which are pages with just content, not promoting any affiliate products. Yes, there is adsense and a few banner ads, but what website doesn’t have those? Well, I answered a few questions, and I gave some pretty helpful answers if I do say so myself, 50% of them were voted best answers, and hoped for some traffic. Well, I got some visitors to my blog, which was my goal, but then all of a sudden I checked my email and I had a lovely little message from Yahoo! saying my account had been suspended due to my violation of either the Community Guidelines or the Terms of Service. It also said that if I had questions or felt that this was incorrect that I could contact Yahoo!.
So, I sent an email to the address they told me to contact and said that I was positive I had not done anything wrong, that I had reviewed the guidelines and terms of service carefully and I had done nothing to violate the agreement, and I would like to know what I had supposedly done wrong. Well, a day or so later I got a message back from Yahoo! telling me to review the Community Guidelines and Terms of Service before submitting an appeal. It also said to state the details regarding my suspension.
Well, I told them in the first email that I had reviewed the guidelines carefully, so I found that to be quite annoying, and what details? If you saw the screenshot above of the email, there are no details! It just says that I violated their guidelines or terms of service. It didn’t even tell me which one I violated! Well, I replied saying that I had reviewed the Community Guidelines and Terms of Service multiple times very carefully, and still had no idea what I may have done wrong, and requested they inform what it was I had supposedly done wrong so that if I opened up another account in the future I would not make the same mistakes, if they did keep my account suspended. I also copied the original email and told them I didn’t know what details they were referring to, but I showed them a copy of the original email, which did nothing to help.
Well, thanks a lot Yahoo! You still didn’t tell me why my account was suspended! And I already read the Community Guidelines and the Terms of Service! Thank you for wasting my time! I sent another email to them asking them to please inform me what I did wrong so that I would not do it again, and they have not replied as of yet, so I doubt they will. So I am completely against Yahoo! Answers, and I will no longer be using their services, especially since my account has been permanently suspended.
Now, Yahoo! still lets you browse the questions, even if your account has been suspended, you just can’t answer them. So I was looking through the questions one last time and I saw a question that made me hate Yahoo! Answers even more. First of all, if you do not know the Community Guidelines, at one point they state that it must follow a question-and-answer format, no conversations. Well this post I found, was not even a question, it just said something like “I’m bored, which sports team do you like better”. Well, that is a complete, outright violation of the community guideline, and that person was still asking questions, but I couldn’t!
So that is essentially why I hate Yahoo! and I will never recommend Yahoo! Answers for making money online in any way. If you have had success with Yahoo! Answers, then all the power to you. But be warned, your success with them may end at any time.
To Your Success,
Shawn Horwood affiliate marketing
make money on internet
make money on internet
Shawn Horwood has been involved in internet and affiliate marketing for some time. At the age of 18 he became determined to make money on the internet, and has had success. Shawn has also encountered many failures, but these failures only cause him to become more determined to become successful online.