Why is Yahoo beating Google SERPs for so many Sites?

[greeneagle]

Recently there have been several threads where webmasters have indicated that Yahoo is beating the bejeevers out of GOOGLE in SERPs and subsequent relevant traffic stats for Sites. We personally have 2 that way.

How are they gaining this ground?

GOOGLE taught us that metatags must be relevent and then seemingly abandoned them. Did Yahoo just pick up a "bird nest" on the ground?

The peculiar thing is, and others bear witness to it too... those Sites that rank well with Yahoo seem to be more dismal with GOOGLE.

What is going on there?

Ken

[pne]

Ken,

Have to agree. I took the view some time ago that I was going to focus on content and on-page optimisation pretty much to the exclusion of everything else.

I haven't run a link campaign because I don't want to and don't have the time anyway. Naturally I'm doing c**p in Google (tho' still get some referrals). Yahoo!, on the other hand has been a revelation. Sure it returns some spammy results, but it's getting a lot better. But my site is doing really well and generating lots of traffic with the beginnings of decent conversion.

There is IMHO a huge amount of potential for an algo that looks at on-page issues and gives them the attention they deserve. Google certainly doesn't do this and as a consequence is providing results that seem crappier by the day. The new MSN engine also seems to place more emphasis on-page. Three cheers for them.

I feel that the inbound links bias is time-limited. It's like athletes on steroids, the good cheaters always get away with it. On-page bias, however, is potentially much easier to control and regulate.

In the long run, there more relevant the SERPs (+marketing budget natch) the more searchers.

pne

[rovers]

Yahoo is run with common sense......
Google isn't!

[ronniethedodger]

Yahoo is run with common sense......
Google isn't!

You are right.

Yahoo is run with common sense to allow doorway pages.
Yahoo is run with common sense to allow spamming of meta tags.
Yahoo is run with common sense to withhold legitimate pages from its index.
Yahoo is run with a lot of common sense.

...and Google isn't!

[pne]

Ronnie,

True of course. However, I genuinely believe that Yahoo! is getting better, certainly at the results it's sending back for top-level domains.

Perhaps the Google hegemony is coming to an end. Perhaps not. I am, for the moment anyhow, going to give Yahoo! some credit for improving.

Regards,

pne

p.s. The DMOZ thread could do with some of your (now) legendary irrascibility!

[ronniethedodger]

p.s. The DMOZ thread could do with some of your (now) legendary irrascibility!

Oh no. I ain't going near that thread!

I did jump in there real quick once though. Just to keep my horns sharpened up a bit. ;-)

[pne]

Shame! I'm working on the "random contributions freak them out" principle.

[ronniethedodger]

Okay, I randomly contributed a question at Max Beauty!

[pne]

Ronnie,

Classic!

pne

[ronniethedodger]

Do you think I should randomly answer it for him? ;-)

...back on track.



Perhaps the Google hegemony is coming to an end. Perhaps not. I am, for the moment anyhow, going to give Yahoo! some credit for improving.


Well, my thinking is, if they continue to hold pages from the index after spidering them -- what good is it. Static pages fair better than dynamic pages from what I have been observing, but those static page counts are far from impressive.

If the page count is down ... so are your referrals. One site (static) has been running 87% Google to 17% Yahoo over a three-month period.

Not what I would call an improvement. BTW, I do rank pretty well for the pages that are actually in the Yahoo index. That has never been a problem.

[rovers]

Yahoo is run with common sense to allow doorway pages.
Yahoo is run with common sense to allow spamming of meta tags.
Yahoo is run with a lot of common sense.

I'm talking about the relevant results in between! Regarding the stuff mentioned above, all are being addressed and Yahoo is doing a damn good job of it.


Yahoo is run with common sense to withhold legitimate pages from its index.

Do you mean huge database driven sites full of useless information and c**p, which are knocked together in no time!
Yahoo deserves massive credit for the way they are playing the game and I can see them being #1 again very soon.
Roll on Yahoo!

[ronniethedodger]

Yahoo is run with common sense to withhold legitimate pages from its index.

Do you mean huge database driven sites full of useless information and c**p, which are knocked together in no time!
Yahoo deserves massive credit for the way they are playing the game and I can see them being #1 again very soon.

Credit? For witholding pages from their Index? Static, as well as data driven pages?

Crap pages, or not, how is that going to improve their index, quality, or relavence? Unless of course, you mean that they are not intent on crawling the entire web in the first place. They just want to have a limited, under-represented cross-section of the web as a whole.

Look. Case in point (from a dynamic crap site as you put it).

A person was having a port opened up on his system, the system was acting sluggish. This is all we knew and we looked at his HijackThis log.

We discovered a file on their Windows System that nobody knew what it was for. The file was loaded on startup via the Registry.

We came to the conclusion that the file was not of any known services or software. A check for that file name in all the major SE's turned up zip, nada.

This discussion took place in a forum. We had the answer for that file and the registry entry. No known anti-virus or spyware sites were aware of it.

One week later, that file name appeared in Google's index and thus a "result". Trend Micro appeared 3 months later. Yahoo picked up on it 5 months later.

From week one, we recieved numerous referrals (mostly from the UK where the virus originated) for this file and registry entry. Still do.

But for the people using Yahoo -- nada, nil, zip.

Tell me, in terms that I can understand:

How does this help their search users?
How does this make them #1?
How can you give them credit?
Why does Yahoo withhold pages for several weeks to begin with?

And most importantly, how can they be "more relevant" when they do not have anything in their index to compare with in the first place?

[rovers]

Time to make my point clear....

For every one web designer there are tens of millions of others using the Internet.
Or are you missing my point?
You talk like the Internet should be designed for webmasters.
What did we have before the Internet. Newspapers and magazines!
Would you sit down at night and read the yellow pages? I'm sure you would rather read a colorful magazine on your chosen subject, instead of a list of name's and addresses!
That's my point about huge database driven sites!

[ronniethedodger]

Fair enough! Let me make my point clear...

Yahoo does not know its Slurp from a hole in the ground.

[pne]

Irrascible...? Incorrigible...!

I think the thing for me about Yahoo! at the moment is that they've improved in certain key areas. I'm only guessing but I think they've got better at on-page factors.

That's not to say that you're wrong about the rest.

Regards,

pne

[ronniethedodger]

Oh, I agree. They have improved greatly on their results. Quite easy to rank well too, by using the basics.

It is just that something from nothing, is still nothing.

[greeneagle]

"Something from Nothing" does bring one of my clients good business.

Ken

[ronniethedodger]

"Something from Nothing" does bring one of my clients good business.

I am sure there will be some success stories Ken.

Out of curiosity, this client, is it a static site with all of its pages indexed? How many pages? How often do those pages get updated when a change is made to them -- and how quickly do those changes get reflected in the search index?

[crankydave]

Something interesting. Do a Yahoo! search for "fine religious jewelry" minus the quotes and my site ranks #1 and #2. The top spot is my sitematch listing and the second my organic listing. Also of note, the text for the sitematchlisting is page text and the organic listing uses my meta title. Curious.

[crankydave]

Also of note (applies to another thread as well) is that my organic listing does not contain the WWW.

Dave

[greeneagle]

ronnie,
7 W3C validated PR4 Pages with validated CSS...
Updated frequently, client on a Web Maintenance Contract...
Spidered and Indexed frequently by both
Ken

[JayDrake]

I actually find my main site to be doing considerably better for the two primary search terms in Google than in Yahoo. The two major terms we optimize for are 'house plans' and 'home plans'. In Google we rank 15th/25th respectively and in Yahoo we're ranking 32nd/27th. (This based on a check on both SE's this morning.)

I don't have the best link exchange setup going and I honestly should go through the site and work much harder on optimizing my meta's, but I tend to get buried under development work as our primary focus right now is converting the 1000+ visitors a day to sales.

[danno]

I think there are a few fundamental
problems with Google:

1. My home page just got ranked with
PR2 while my contact page got a PR5.
hahaha funny but true http://www.firefoxie.net

2. Google must get a handle on these
mega index sites. You know the ones.
You search for a term, and you get a
directory of 10 million keyword phrases.
These are pages that are generated by
programs designed for nothing else but
to take advantage of Google's weakness,
tons of backlinks with keyword phrases.

Google must repeat must, stop relying
purely on backlinks as a reliable reading
of popularity/authority. As this discussion
thread shows, it is damaging them severely.

Why doesn't someone from Webproworld ask
someone from Google that very question.

The best results I ever got from Google
were on the day it was launched.

Yahoo may yet come out on top because they
rely a lot more on human checking, as with
their paid inclusion program.

If you could pay $300, and know that you were
absolutely guaranteed a fair run against any
other web page on the Internet and no mega
Indexes were allowed and no mega backlink program
could oust you, would you do it?

You know you would.


Dan

[kjohnson5576]

I'm at least in Google. The new MSN (whenver it gets launched beta version search engine) also.

Yahoo figures I don't even rate because I didn't spend the $300 or so to be in their index? I mean, you can't even find the site by typing in the domain. You can find my links though. But I still Pay Overture which get's me sales and Yahoo bottom line.

There was a thread on here months back where the Yahoo guy stated that the "new" yahoo search engine didn't demand money for listing, but would be like Google in placing any and all in their directory. The relevance would be different though.

They (yahoo) spider my site pretty regularly, but don't use it.

[greeneagle]

IMO - It definitely makes a difference in the SERPS. But then if someone is going to pay enough due-diligence to good design practices from the start, including content depth and uniqueness then it's well worth the human review and better placement for the cost. And it is without the PPC monitoring hassles.
Ken

[danno]

There was a thread on here months back where the Yahoo guy stated that the "new" yahoo search engine didn't demand money for listing, but would be like Google in placing any and all in their directory. The relevance would be different though.

They (yahoo) spider my site pretty regularly, but don't use it.




There was a thread on here months back where the Yahoo guy stated that the "new" yahoo search engine didn't demand money for listing, but would be like Google in placing any and all in their directory. The relevance would be different though.

They (yahoo) spider my site pretty regularly, but don't use it.

I had no problem. As soon as I was listed in the Google search engine, I was also in the Yahoo search engine shortly afterwards.

Is it possible that you are accidentally spamming?
It could be you have too many links per page.
Should be no more than 50 links per page.
Also when you have a lot of items with the same
keyword, ie: "leather", whenever possible, use
a bulleted list.

There is also a free url submission for Yahoo!
http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request

You have to be a Yahoo member, but that's free too.

[jeffgarrett]

Remember Yahoo was using Googles old technology before they split.

Google needed to distinquish itself from Yahoos search results in anticipation of the IPO, so they basically rebuilt everything from the ground up. This is why so many sites have suffered with google by being completely removed.

Google scrambled to complete their new engine before the IPO. And did not really care how and who the new results would affect. So there is no rhyme nor reason to the new search engine results and trying to figure out the new algorythms is a futile waste of time.

Greed was the ultimate factor behind all the changes at Google.

[Larke]

I'm admittedly fairly new to SEO. And I avidly follow webproworld news and forums because I find you all excellent resources. I don't post often, but I read a lot :D

I have recently launched a very targetted website and have had really odd results. Google gave me a PR2 for a few days and now I'm back at PR0. I continue to seek reciprocal links in hopes of increasing my exposure and rankings.

I had not checked my ranking with Yahoo until just now. Interestingly it is 14th on the first page I got. Yet on Google I couldn't find me at all (got bored clicking next).

I really should submit my site to be reviewed here. But I'm still playing with keywords and tweaking design and features.

[ronniethedodger]

ronnie,
7 W3C validated PR4 Pages with validated CSS...
Updated frequently, client on a Web Maintenance Contract...
Spidered and Indexed frequently by both
Ken

Seven pages is a little different than a site that is adding 4 to 5 pages of content a day Ken. This is what I am getting at, they cannot keep up with it or they choose not to.


Remember Yahoo was using Googles old technology before they split.


No they weren't. They were using a subset of the Google Index. Just like MSN is using a subset of Yahoo' Index right now.

I am ignoring the rest of you post. It does not make any sense at all.


Yahoo may yet come out on top because they rely a lot more on human checking, as with their paid inclusion program.

If you could pay $300, and know that you were
absolutely guaranteed a fair run against any
other web page on the Internet and no mega
Indexes were allowed and no mega backlink program
could oust you, would you do it?

You know you would.


No I wouldn't. It does not affect the SERPS and the other sites will still be there. It does not guarantee you a fairer shake against them.

The "human checking" is an interesting thing to bring up. I am wondering if this applies to pages that have been crawled by natural means as well. Considering there is a delay between the crawl and those pages showing up in the index (if at all).

[greeneagle]

larke,

Submitting your Site in The Site Review Forum can be a great resource. I hope you go forward. PM me when you do and I will have a look.

Ken

[greeneagle]

THis and annother thread are running concurrently here and should probably be merged. If not, you may want to visit this thread too:
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=29362

Ken

[sem-seo-pro]

Okay

I had to chime in...


Who cares which search engine is better???

Are you as webmasters seos attuned to which search engine drives traffic and which one drives buyers ???

Would your clients care who you prefer ??? None of mine do...they prefer I know how to drive what they're looking for ...visits or buyers..

Item # 2 ....Mmmmm datadbase driven website are just a list of names and address like the yellow pages ??
Which database driven sites are you seeing.

http://www.carsunder5000.com - database driven

http://www.rippletech.com - database driven

http://www.holidayholidayholiday.com - database driven

Item # 3 Are we using the lynx browser to see what the bots are seeing..

I looked at google about two months ago looking for some title tag clues...while I was there I noticed google still had meta description tags but mo meta keywords... This was in the page source for the google groups, news, images etc.

I went tonight and those meta description tags bit the boat. So that tends to lead me to believe google dumped them..

Here is something else I noticed googlebot is taking the first path to text it sees and following that direction to make it's crawl..

I have seen frontpage listings with the meta description in the results listing, site links from left hand nav in the results listing and body content in the results listings for the same keyword terms.

Googles last update seemed to be a spam reduction attempt to appease investors in their IPO.. they're time to index sites new to the web has moved over two months typically closer to three, and yet yahoo has a sign up saying "we are two weeks behind in our indexing"

Maybe its a corp culture switch...google becomes the next microsoft..shutting its doors to all the prying eyes....yahoo becomes google opens the doors wide open, ...microsoft becomes linux .....

Somwhere here I had a point.....

Ronnie I have another posting I am making regarding time on line... I need opinions.....

Clint

[links2see]

I have noticed recently Yahoo has send my site a lot more traffic. Until the last Google update my site was ranked a PR4 now it's a PR3, but I'm receiving more hits and sales than in prior months. My wes stats show an increase from Ask.com, MSN Search, and Yahoo and a major decrease from Google.

Thanks just my two cents,
Kristian Pulz
http://www.links2see.com

[DrTandem1]

Firstly, there is a misconception that Yahoo was running with Google's old technology before they split. This is a bit misleading. Yahoo was Google as far as their search engine was concerned at the time.

Now, Yahoo runs their own system. With the visitor in mind, its results are poor. Lots and lots of sp^m along with the same sites being returned within those results. Plus, the results are nowhere near as relevant as Google's. Not only that, their results are quite dated in the blurbs they use.

If you're satisfied that you're found in Yahoo and not in Google, you are simply in denial.

[searchbuffet]

Hi everyone, another long time reader here (with no posts yet). I had to jump in on this one...

We had a site for about a year, and changed the domain after the end of about that year using the normal permanent redirect method. Now, our old domain is still showing in yahoo, and seems to get updated now and then, but the darn old domain won't update to the new one. The weird thing is that I've seen our newer domain (which is about a year old now itself) show up in the results a handful of times, but never consistantly; actually haven't seen it at all in the past month or so.

This leads me to believe that Yahoo's indexing method is flawed as it's not updating our domain correctly (and yes, I'm sure we've done it correctly using perm redirect htaccess). It was updated in Google and most other major engines within the first month at max, yahoo though just won't pick it up; at least not for good.

[ctabuk]

Not knowing if Broadband is still in it's infancy outside the UK, I guess we are lucky, by paying Overture I get listed on Yahoo, Wanabee,Tiscali,MSN, BT etc, all of these Companies are advertising Broadband packs on National TV, so the more they sell the more we sell. When Yahoo used payed inclusion you automatically got listed on Google. I refuse to pay Google PPC because of spamming. So here is one tip I have learned, and I hope it works wherever you are. Go to Google Add words on your search terms and see if any of the ad boxes say 'top 15 listings on Joe Bloggs Jeans - or whatever your keywords are. Find out which search engines are listed and work on your links (I dare not say submit!!!)or do a cheap pay per click, as long as you are in the top ten on bids you can piggyback ride on Google. David

[AjiNIMC]

Kristian Pulz says

I have noticed recently Yahoo has send my site a lot more traffic. Until the last Google update my site was ranked a PR4 now it's a PR3, but I'm receiving more hits and sales than in prior months. My wes stats show an increase from Ask.com, MSN Search, and Yahoo and a major decrease from Google.

I think its due to the meta keywords that you are doing well in yahoo ... for google you need more links . this time PR had a decrease on avearge.

Thanks
Aji

[njohnson]

I have been working on SEO for a site. I am finding better ranking in Yahoo than Google. I believe it is primarily due to proper keyword/phrase research and implementation. The site does not have a good linking system internally or externally. The next step is to implement a good link exchange program.

Personal experience tells me that it is important to have both a good understanding of what words people are using to find site's like yours and use those words in meta and site content, but also equally important is to develop a strong network of links with directories or other similarly related sites. <taking a breath> This will help ranking in both Google and Yahoo at the same time you are obtaining pre-qualified click throughs from your link exchange network.

[fctoma]

Yahoo seems to be working great for us. We have about 5 domains, each ranking well for their respective area.

One thing that stands out, just recently, is Yahoo giving better ranking for pages that have the search term within the page file name. A bunch of my old doorway pages (recently revamped to look better for a visitor) are coming up where they should be within Yahoo.... Google, no change, they'll display the DW pages down below, way below.

As for my referrals?

Last week: Google 81%, Yahoo 11%, MSN 6%
Last month: Google 83%, Yahoo 8%, MSN 6%
This year: Google 76%, Yahoo 14%, MSN 5%

Just an FYI... we are in the printing software industry. I hope this helps!

Loving living in Idaho...

Frank

[greeneagle]

Ronnie:
"Seven pages is a little different than a site that is adding 4 to 5 pages of content a day Ken. This is what I am getting at, they cannot keep up with it or they choose not to."

I flat a__ don't understand Ron... They can't or don't want to keep up with what?

Ken

[brian.mark]

Why would anyone be saying that database driven sites aren't relevant? Aren't most e-commerce sites database driven by now? I know that Amazon does very well in both Google and Yahoo, and they sure as heck are database driven. I think it would be more in your linking structure and properly setting up your website for spiders than the fact that the site is database driven or isn't.

Both of our database driven websites do very well in both Google and Yahoo, without huge linking programs, no doorway pages, no additional domains registered to create extra sites to point to us... just good ol' honest to goodness on-page SEO with naturally occurring IBL from satisfied customers and business partners.

Brian

[samanthaj]

As much as I dislike Google right now and I think their search results are a little sketchy (what can I say? I'm biased - my sites aren't doing well either), I sure loved them when I used to be ranking #1 and #2. Now my sites have disappeared into oblivion... And like many others, I have been searching for answers trying to figure what if anything can be done.

Our rankings started going downhill with the Yahoo - Google split or the "Florida Update" whatever that was, and have gotten progressively worse. Let's face it, I can rank #1 in Yahoo all day long (and I'm grateful for that) but losing Google traffic has hurt our businesses in a very measurable way. We can't afford Google advertising, being a tiny operation.

I have contacted Google asking if we have been penalized for some reason, and never gotten a response. So far, in all the reading and researching all I have found are a lot of different theories on shifting algorithms and inbound links, page weight, use of javascript or tables, etc. I guess the question is, do we have to advertise in Google to rank? Or have some kind of inside connection or something???

[ronniethedodger]

Ronnie I have another posting I am making regarding time on line... I need opinions.....

Clint

Two sites that went online late Feb this year. One is php/mysql database driven, and the other is pure static html.

I have another site I am monitoring, that used to have two pages submitted via Inktomi (3year-old site). This site has not had newer pages indexed since Slurp started crawling. There are some pages that are indexed though. Basically 1 in 3 new pages have been indexed. This is similar to the static site listed above, except this site is commercial, the other one is not.

[ronniethedodger]

I flat a__ don't understand Ron... They can't or don't want to keep up with what?


You can say ass*d her Ken! ;-)

See my post above. They do not want to keep up or cannot keep up. Take your pick.

I have a 300 page site, most of the pages are two clicks away from the home page. Only 100 pages are in the index at Yahoo. Are you following me on this Ken?

Your 7 page mini-sites do not compare to this type of site. I will be that all of those pages are just one-click off of the home page. Yes? Are you still with me on this Ken?

Yahoo Slurp has crawled the entire site however. I can see it in my logs. But -- and this is the good part Ken (or the bad part, depends on how you look at it) -- those pages are not in the index. 'splain it to me Ken?

[jbgilbert]

Anybody noticed all the "yellow page & telephone book" type rankings in Google for regional searches?


If Google is falling short of Yahoo I'd definitely say it's in this area. Axiom supplies the phone book feeds and all the sites uning them as "content... cough, cough" are achieving top rankings.

Yellowpage listings for Goodness sake -- hardly what I'd expect from a "technologically superior" search engine..

[greeneagle]

Ron,

The repetitive demeaning; "Are you with me Ken" is really not necessary here. I don't think I carry myself as a "dumb ass", most of the time anyway. All you have to do is explain what you meant.

If you have been following specific keyphrase trends in Yahoo you will have noticed that within the last 3 months that most search terms total returns have beeen being reduced by as much as 20% in that period.

Explain that!

Ken

[greeneagle]

Sorry I can't correct "beeen" to "been" in the last post since we no longer have edit capabilities!

Ken

[ronniethedodger]

The repetitive demeaning; "Are you with me Ken" is really not necessary here. I don't think I carry myself as a "dumb ass", most of the time anyway.

Jiminey Crickets Ken. Don't have a cow man!


If you have been following specific keyphrase trends in Yahoo you will have noticed that within the last 3 months that most search terms total returns have beeen being reduced by as much as 20% in that period.

Explain that!

I already explained part of it in round-about way. That part is that not all of the pages they crawl are put into the Index. This would explain why the Index is not increasing on the terms you are tracking, yes?

No I have not seen it decrease. I will keep an eye on that in the future.

If what you say is true, then why do you think it is decreasing? Pruning? If so, is it manual (my bet) or is thru some algorithm? If the later (algo), what would they be dropping -- dupes, spam, both, something else?

[ronniethedodger]

Sorry I can't correct "beeen" to "been" in the last post since we no longer have edit capabilities!

Well lordy lordy! It is about damn time too.

The back-editting of posts is a privelege in most forums. Unfortunately, there have been a few individuals who have taken advantage of that and misused it.

I for one applaud their decision to remove it.

[greeneagle]

Look like it's going to be modeled after GOOGLE:

"Trusted Site Status" and "Trusted Member Status", hope it works...

As usual dissentions occur from different perspectives, I have never not had "edit" capabilities for any period of time, in any Board I have been a member of.

I believe these different perspectives is at the base of a great deal of fact finding here.

Ken

[links2see]

Is it also possible that my Google PR dropped because I stopped advertisng with Google Adwords? Since Adwords advertising shows up on many websites, many of them with high PR's?

Thanks for your comments,
Kristian Pulz

[links2see]

Anybody noticed all the "yellow page & telephone book" type rankings in Google for regional searches?


If Google is falling short of Yahoo I'd definitely say it's in this area. Axiom supplies the phone book feeds and all the sites uning them as "content... cough, cough" are achieving top rankings.

Yellowpage listings for Goodness sake -- hardly what I'd expect from a "technologically superior" search engine..

Not to get off topic, but are online yellow pages worth paying adverte on? Especially if they are showing up more on search engines...

Thanks,
Kristian Pulz

[tcampione]

Yahoo figures I don't even rate because I didn't spend the $300 or so to be in their index? {. . . }They (yahoo) spider my site pretty regularly, but don't use it.
I agree. I spent the $300 and get spidered daily, but don't see changes for 4-5 weeks. Googlebot visits me in batches. . . everyday for 4-5 days digging away at the sitemap. Then, no visits for 5-7 days. But, I see my changes within about a week.

[ronniethedodger]

Is it also possible that my Google PR dropped because I stopped advertisng with Google Adwords? Since Adwords advertising shows up on many websites, many of them with high PR's?


Untrue. I am an AdSense publisher and my PR dropped. The two are not related.

[greeneagle]

I guess I was one of the few that either saw no PR change and even advanced on some pages for 2 Sites. We also saw new pages meet new PR expectations. Nothing negative anywhere.

Yes we did see as many as 3 pages rise in PR on 2 sites, so blow the myth; that pages with existing PR did not rise completely out... That wasn't our reality.

What I am curious about though is this Site does not rank well in GOOGLE at all: www.huntandhunt.com . It is well designed, articulately expressed, informative, W3C validated and GOOGLE is "slammed" by Yahoo! What gives there? Any help would be appreciated. We have submitted with differing text to as many as 200+ PR4+ Directories over the last 3 months... Is it that damn sandbox or what?

Thanks,
Ken

[JayDrake]

Google must get a handle on these mega index sites. You know the ones. You search for a term, and you get a directory of 10 million keyword phrases. These are pages that are generated by programs designed for nothing else but to take advantage of Google's weakness, tons of backlinks with keyword phrases.


If I'm reading that correctly, backlinks aren't the problem with those. It's keyword spamming. Do people actually link to those mega index sites? Maybe I'm confused about what you're talking about here..?



Google must repeat must, stop relying purely on backlinks as a reliable reading of popularity/authority. As this discussion thread shows, it is damaging them severely.


Umm... Why? The popularity/PR of a site is only a small part of the calculation of where a site places in the Google listing. How do you intend to measure this without using backlinks? Why do you think that backlinks are categorically a poor way to measure the worth of a site?

Note also that authority is not the same as popularity. Authority sites are those that Google chooses to trust more than others for whatever reasons. This would include DMOZ, the reason for trust being that it's a human edited directory.



The best results I ever got from Google
were on the day it was launched.


I continue to get good search results when I use Google. I use Google all day every day and consistently find what I'm looking for. Most of the time that people say things about Google's search results that aren't complimentary they're speaking of their poor ranking, not whether or not Google's results for "dog house" pull up relevant pages.



Yahoo may yet come out on top because they
rely a lot more on human checking, as with
their paid inclusion program.

If you could pay $300, and know that you were
absolutely guaranteed a fair run against any
other web page on the Internet and no mega
Indexes were allowed and no mega backlink program
could oust you, would you do it?

You know you would.


I have a fair run in Google, Yahoo and MSN. Would I pay 300 dollars to have a fair run in another search engine if it were as popular as Google? Yeah! But if it's not going to generate traffic like Google does or, for that matter, like MSN or Yahoo do, not a chance! I don't try to get in search engines to get top rankings. I try to get top rankings in search engines to get traffic and ultimately sales.

[danno]

[quote=greeneagle]

Yahoo Slurp has crawled the entire site however. I can see it in my logs. But -- and this is the good part Ken (or the bad part, depends on how you look at it) -- those pages are not in the index. 'splain it to me Ken?

Hate to barge in but I couldn't resist.
I had this problem before with a 600 page site.
What I found was that although all my pages
were within 1 click, I was not doing enough
cross linking.
I ended up creating a mega site map and it
worked flawlessly.

A link for each page on the site was on the site map,
so I had the "1 click deep" aspect covered.

Then I would link back to the home page with
the primary home page keywords.

Then I would start cross linking.

If the homepage is page A
And if the 1st "link" on the site map is page B
And the 2nd "link" on the site map is page C

Link from B to Sitemap
Link from B to A
Link from B to C

Link from C to Sitemap
Link from C to A
Link from C to B

The link to the sitemap is to make
navigation easier.

It goes without saying that "every" link
should have not only a link to the home page
with the primary keywords for your home page
but also a link with the word "Home" linked
to your home page. Google will raise your
profile if you have a sitemap and if you have
a link to "Home" on each page.


Dan

[ronniethedodger]

Out of curiosity Danno, what does that have to do with Slurp and Yahoo?