Yahoo Promoting Websites That Steal From Their Partners

As an avid MMA (mixed martial arts) fan, I wanted to watch UFC 117 online which starts in around an hour. I couldn’t remember the url to buy the pay per view event online, so went to do a quick search and find it.

Normally I’d do all of my searching on Google.co.uk, but given that Yahoo are the official broadcast partner of the UFC, surely a Yahoo search would be the better option when I know the page I’m looking for is on Yahoo.com? Well, apparently not:

Yahoo.com couldn’t really make it harder to find the official page if they tried for that search phrase. The official page isn’t even in the top 30 results. I’m not sure where it ranks, I didn’t check past 3 pages.

Yahoo are doing a horrible job across the board here. Firstly they are allowing illegal stream providers to advertise using pay per click.  Then they are letting their news system be abused, ranking a “press release” that advertises where you can steal the content.  If you’ve not went and stole the content yet, they then give someone else a chance to tempt you by ranking ufclivestreams.com as the 1st organic result – a site that does nothing outside of illegally rebroadcasting UFC pay per view events.

Even if we ignore the complete lack of relevancy from not managing to get the official page in the top 10, the results are packed full of illegal content. Looking at the top 10 (I’m not going to live link to any breaking the law, no sense in giving them link love ):

1st – news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20100807/bs_prweb/prweb4363054 – A “press release” which does nothing but promote a website where you can illegally watch the fights.

2nd – ufclivestreams.com – A site which only exists to pirate UFC copyrighted material. Added bonus for having a trademarked name in the domain too.

3rd – A page on MMAfighting.com. Not a bad result as such, but doesn’t contain any real content other than a link to the official page. Why not rank the official page instead?

4th – sportsnipe.com/main_sportsnews/2677572/watch-ufc-117-online-free-live-stream.html – A keyword stuffed article promoting another site where you can steal the content.

5th – hubpages.com/hub/Watch-UFC-117-Online-Free – A page hosted on hubpages offering stolen content.

6th – ufcreplay.blogspot.com – Blogspot blog which does nothing apart from promote stolen content.

7th – youtube.com/watch?v=cam1MdEZWps – A Youtube video which only contains a static image and a URL where you can go to steal the content.

8th – youtube.com/watch?v=nGDZY_jFwUY – exact same model as number 7.

9th – watchufclivestream.com – another trademark infringing domain that does nothing but steal UFC content.

10th – blurpalicious.com/upcoming.php?category=Sports – page on a social bookmarking site promoting a site that hosts illegal content.

When we look at the news story, the pay per click ads and the 10 organic results as a whole, there is only a single result which doesn’t directly involve theft of copyrighted content and breaking the law.

There have been multiple stories on MMAjunkie.com about the UFC cracking down on Piracy (you can read some here, here and here if you are interested). It would seem a great place for them to start would be on their own doorstep and having their official broadcast partner clean up their act!

I’m extremely surprised just how pathetic the Yahoo search results are. I did end up finding the page where I can give Yahoo my $45 – but I had to get there via a Google search. How many people would simply have given in, or went with one of the many illegal free options Yahoo were offering them?

While we’re on the topic of UFC 117, just for fun (and to rank for fighters names ) I’ve added the fight card below. My picks are bolded. Some of them (Sonnen and Alves in particular) are probably more who I want to win, rather than really think they’ll win.

MAIN CARD

• Champ Anderson Silva (184.5) vs. Chael Sonnen (185)
• Thiago Alves (171.5)* vs. Jon Fitch (170.5)
• Ricardo Almeida (170.5) vs. Matt Hughes (170.5)
• Junior Dos Santos (240) vs. Roy Nelson (263)
• Rafael dos Anjos (156) vs. Clay Guida (156)

PRELIMINARY CARD

• Dustin Hazelett (169.5) vs. Rick Story (169.5)
• Phil Davis (205.5) vs. Rodney Wallace (206)
• Charlie Brenneman (171) vs. Johny Hendricks (171)
• Tim Boetsch (206) vs. Todd Brown (206)
• Christian Morecraft (263) vs. Stefan Struve (247)
• Dennis Hallman (171) vs. Ben Saunders (171)

About the Author

Steven Spencer works for discountvouchers.org, where you can find money off most UK high street stores.

Visit Steven Spencer's Website

One Response to “Yahoo Promoting Websites That Steal From Their Partners”

1. Gina says:

   August 25, 2010 at 12:43 am

   Found your plugin post on the Guest Post forum, but this was definitely worth reading. I had never considered that a directory may be the worse thing to use for my site. Now Yahoo is in bed with MSN, that makes this even more scary for the future of our sites.

   Any followup post on how to prevent this or at least limit the possibility of it happening going forward?