These are tips for publishers in the Yardbarker Network. Please see the YBN Tips Table of Contents for a directory.

What do I need to do to receive automatic editorial promotion?
All you need to do is make sure that you have a working RSS feed in our system. You should have already provided an RSS feed during your onboarding process but you can check or change your RSS feed by logging in to MyYBN and clicking Site Manager on the left.

As a YBN member, where will my articles be automatically syndicated to?
All articles that our system ingests via your RSS feed are eligible for automatic promotion in the following areas:

1) Automated areas of Yardbarker.com. This includes every area of the site except for the "Latest Rumors and Gossip" and "The Backyard" sections of the homepage. The main ares include sport, team, and player pages, the Hot 40 section of the homepage, and the related article links that appear on every article page.
2) The YBN widgets that appear on all YBN sites.
3) The YB modules that appear on FOXSports.com's team pages.

Not all articles will appear in the automated areas. Our system automatically chooses articles based on player/team/sport tags it can identify and other factors.

I have an article that I would like featured on a team/sport/player area. What should I do?
Do NOT send the link via our pitching process because the editors at Pitch do not editorially control any of the areas described above. The only areas on YB we editorially control are the "Rumors and Gossip" and "Backyard" columns on the YB homepage -- unfortunately there is nothing the editors at Pitch can do to get your content to appear on the automated areas. Please check out the syndication tips below.

What can I do to help the YB system identify the proper player/team/sport tags for my articles so I'll have a better chance of showing up in the automated areas?
Check out the New YBN Members doc for a more detailed explanation of some of these tips:
1) Use full team and player names in your content.
2) Mention relevant teams and/or players in the headline or first sentence of your article.
3) Avoid blanket tagging (using many player/team names that are not relevant).
4) Write descriptive headlines.

I tried to follow the pointers above, so why didn't my article get tagged with the proper player/team/sport names?
Our system is automated, so unfortunately there will be some mistakes and omissions, especially in sports for which we don't have automated roster info such as MMA, boxing, college sports other than football and basketball, and minor sports. The system may also not be able to recognize nicknames, misspelled names, incomplete names, or common names that could refer to a number of different personalities.

Can I add or change the tags on my article?
Yes. If you ever see that one of your articles is not tagged with the appropriate player or team names, you can update the tags by going to MyYBN, choosing Article Management on the left, and clicking Edit for your article.

My article is tagged properly, so why isn't it on the widget or main page for that category?
As long as your article appears on your source page, then you can rest assured that it's in the YB system. Not every article will appear on a sport/team/player page or widget -- we have hundreds of YBN sites and our system tries not to duplicate similar articles, so not every story from every site will cycle through the various automated sections (and it depends on when you look). See the pointers above for tips on having a better chance of showing up on those pages and widgets. Another common problem is that our system does not favor articles that have very little text content. If you have provided an RSS feed that only displays the first few words of your article, then our system will think your article is very short and will have very little text to analyze -- this will hurt your chances of getting automated promotion. If you can provide an RSS feed that has the full text of your article, our system would treat your articles more favorably (but don't worry, if you choose "Abstract only" in the Site Manager section of MyYBN, we will only display an abstract on the YB article pages, not the full article).

How can I get my articles to appear in YB's Fantasy sections?
Unfortunately there is no "fantasy" tag available for you to add in MyYBN for an individual article. Fantasy is handled differently in our system -- only sites who are designated by YB as having 100% fantasy content will appear in the fantasy section.

-Alana