Why Can't I Get Listed in Both????

[PunkyLZ]

Alright...I know I'm not the only person out there with the problem of getting sites listed in both Google and Yahoo! It seems as though if you are listed and ranking well in Google you are lucky if you show up in Yahoo and vica versa.

I have one site www.dynalec.com that ranks well organically in Google, but only shows up in Yahoo if you do a company name search and their URL is the very last result. Another client www.spallhomes.com ranks well organically in Yahoo! and for about a day actually showed up in Google.

What's the deal with getting listed in both organically? I know content, content, content and quality links, is there something more?

[jbgilbert]

Hope you don't want the exact answer, cause I don't think anybody has it.

As you can tell my the many threads at this forum it has become a fairly big issue.

Yahoo is either doing something VERY unusual or may just be having some issues.

[PunkyLZ]

The person who has the exact answer would be a millionaire:) I'm only hoping for suggestions.

We kicked off an Overture campaign for the one client hoping we can "buy" our way into Yahoo a listing. I could see if the spiders weren't coming to call on either site, but that just doesn't seem to be the case.

Who knows...maybe after MSN rolls out their own database of SERPs, things will stabalize and we'll be able to figure this out!

[Keimos]

Google used to supply Yahoo but in the last 6 months or so Yahoo have developed there own search.

Google as I see it uses Title bit not metatags and concentrates on content together ith inter site links as well as incoming and out going links.

Yahoo would appear to use All head content as well as body content.

I personally am going off google as the results although generally good throw in to many random sites ( as does yahoo and the rest) but the quality as dwindles in the last year or so.

To me work your pages for both using head content and body content so that you have a site that meets there criteria. Obviously your site meets both to some extent just tweak what you have already done

[Don Lee]

I had a same problem with one of my client's site where he was #1 on about 10 search terms on Yahoo while on Google, the site was doing poorly.

I knew why it did poorly on Goolge serp becasue it did not have enough links coming back with proper anchor texts. HOwever, on Yahoo, it seems to put less emphasis on incoming linsk and more on actual content.

I advice trying to build up links with proper anchor texts to do well on Google.

[ppayne]

One thing I've noticed for Yahoo is, if the keyword matches the header exactly (for example "Japanese girlfriend T-shirt" not "Looking for a Japanese girlfriend T-shirts in stock at J-List!") you'll get a higher ranking. If you get anything at all.

[edhan]

It seems very unlikely to get the same search ranking for both Google and Yahoo. But with a slight modified keywords, one will rank better than the other for Google or Yahoo. I do believe getting good content for surfers with different search terms will get you somewhere in ranking.

Edward

[Mac 5]

You can do a comparison of the Yahoo vs. Google results at
http://www.langreiter.com/exec/yahoo-vs-google.html
Type in your search phrase and move the mouse along the dots to look for your site. The blue line will show where that site ranked in the other search engine. You will see it is not uncommon for a top ranking site on one engine to be not even in the top results of the other. Some sites are in both, test it yourself with your key phrases.

[yugg]

One of my sites manages to achieve hits from all 3 of Google, Yahoo and Msn, although I have only done seo targetted at Google so far. I haven't done anything special to get the Yahoo or Msn traffic. The site is www.berkshireexpress.com, and the numbers of incoming searches for a recent period were:-
Google - 3121
Yahoo - 1246
Msn - 1542
Of course, given that 80% of users search with Google, these figures mean that, per searcher, I am getting better success with Yahoo than with Google, which ties in with the fact that if I repeat some of the searches my site appears higher up in the results listings for Yahoo than for the same searches with Google (a bit mortifying given the effort I've put in on Google!).

The site is a business directory for Berkshire, and after seeing these posts I took a look to see if I could spot what was bringing in the hits from the different engines, but I havn't spotted any trends so far. You are welcome to take a look and see if you can spot anything.

[ronniethedodger]

You can do a comparison of the Yahoo vs. Google results at
http://www.langreiter.com/exec/yahoo-vs-google.html
Type in your search phrase and move the mouse along the dots to look for your site. The blue line will show where that site ranked in the other search engine. You will see it is not uncommon for a top ranking site on one engine to be not even in the top results of the other. Some sites are in both, test it yourself with your key phrases.

Try this tool http://ranking.thumbshots.com/ which does the same thing, except you get the thumbnail image of the website also.

This tool compares more than just Google vs Yahoo. It includes Teoma, Wisenut, MSN, ATW, and AV. Additionally you can compare Google vs. Google with two different search terms -- this comes in handy to see what sites are ranking well for both and which ones are dogging out.

One other neat feature is that you can have one site in particular hightlighted in red thru all your comparisons.

[brian.mark]

I guess we're one of the lucky few after using that tool. Thanks for the link, ronnie.

For our best converting phrases (tool parts and makita parts), we're #1 in both engines. Don't ask me how, because I couldn't tell you exactly.

We just concentrate on quality content based upon our researched phrases. No meta tags, not all that many incoming links, and quite a few sites that have been trying to compete with us recently. Their changes haven't seemed to help against whatever I did that is working so well.

Our competition used to hold the top positions, but since I attended SES in NY, we have held the top spots in both engines.

Anyway, I'd have to say that recently our experience has been that content has more value to us than the incoming links, especially in Yahoo.

[Gary Golden]

Don't develop for one search engine develop for all, I ranked high on many keywords and I am not saying just 3 or 4 but many keywords on all of the major search engines and not concentrating on one inparticular.

And no, ranking high on search engines does not make you a millionaire, I am not one. Least wise not from my internet ventures, YET! But I am at or near the top on many top keywords in all of the major search engines.

I think people are still at the infancy stages of fully understanding how to use search engines, except of course for the people who have websites!!!! Though I had better throw that in.

Just my thoughts!!! Good Luck to all on your internet ventures and believe me it is a tough nut to crack.

[Peter (IMC)]

Lots of Content,
Lots of Links,
Lots of Time!

Especially the last one is necessary to reach high rankings on all search engines.

And of course, optimize them properly. Good structure seems to be key in all of them.