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Step 1
Read the terms and conditions of the Yahoo Answers service to see exactly what they say is allowed and not allowed.
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Step 2
If you answer a question rudely (even a really stupid question!) other users will flag your answer as inappropriate, and if you get too many flags, your account will be disabled. Therefore, always answer questions politely and diplomatically. Never put down the asker or other answerers.
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Step 3
Yahoo's terms are somewhat vague about what constitutes spammy answers. One good rule is to always copy and paste links into the resources section, rather than in the body of your answer. Also, don't post more than two links in the resources, or else it will appear as spam to the Yahoo Answers bot.
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Step 4
Another guideline to follow is to give links in no more than 15% of your answers. That means for every seven questions you answer, only one of your answers should include links.
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Step 5
If you are just starting Yahoo Answers with a fresh account, try to answer about 20 questions WITHOUT links before you write an answer that includes a link.
If you use Yahoo Answers primarily as a promotional tool, answer some questions outside your area of business without links. For example, if you run a car maintenance website, answer a bunch of questions about baking and relationships, and THEN answer a question about cars where you include a link to your site. -
Step 6
Keep your answers and questions set to "Private." If another user wants to create trouble for you by flagging all of your answers, all he has to do is look on your profile to find questions you've answered--unless you select to keep that info hidden.
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Step 7
If your Yahoo Answers account is suspended, wait a few days and open another account. You may need follow a simple procedure to change your IP address, as Yahoo will log your IP address if you have too many suspended accounts originating from the same computer. It's not worth the bother to appeal the suspension.
Comments
jadedragoninbc said
on 11/12/2009 zzzz has only joined ehow to post the same comment on every article about yahoo answers. I find this strange, even spam like. Say someone posts a question about baking muffins and you answer the question referring to detailed instructions via a link - that seems to be well within yahoo answers guidelines. In fact the guidelines encourage you to link to resources.
What is wrong is posting "buy my crap" over and over on questions that have nothing to do with anything around your crap.
This article makes good sense - moderation is the key. Participate in the answers community like a human which could sometimes include links to relevant info by you or others. I doubt you will have an issue then
skullforker said
on 10/12/2009 Hi, I did the above and got Y!A suspended yesterday... is it perm and will they take my email too?
prettygrrl said
on 10/6/2009 zzzz, you've commented on a lot of articles about Yahoo Answers. I'm not sure if you work for them or not, but I can attest that Step 6 works! Most of my problems with Y!A were caused by other users. But since I set everything to "private" it's been clear sailing.
zzzz said
on 9/28/2009 STEP ONE do NOT ADVERTISE on Yahoo Answers.
DO NOT TRY TO USE YAHOO ANSWERS to drive traffic to your E-how pages (or blog or website).
Yahoo calls that "solicitation", and it is taken as seriously as simple spamming. It WILL lead to your account being suspended and all your content wiped.
Some people who persisted found even their ISP accounts suspended.
Even if you don't do it on every answer, they will get you for it. None of the tricks listed above will work in the long run, as there is a new improved version of the "bot" doing the checking.
rsdiqbal said
on 8/22/2009 Can i post the same Question or answer again and again?