Optimizing For The New Yahoo

[Garrett]

Well, it's official. Yahoo's now deploying their new algorithmic search technology and you'll see it rolling out across their network in the next couple of weeks. (Good timing for the Search Engine Strategies Conference (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=13965), eh? They're sure to be the big buzz now.)

The only question now is how do you optimize your site for the new Yahoo?

First we've got to get to know their new spider, YahooSlurp, and how he looks at web pages.

Jim Hedger of StepForth (http://www.stepforth.com) investigated and reported some basic facts that will be important to how you optimize your pages:


* YahooSlurp will work a lot like GoogleBot in that it will follow every HREF link on found a website. YahooSlurp will NOT follow SRC links such as images or FRAMES. When optimizing a site that uses FRAMES, correct use of the <noframes> tag will be necessary.

* YahooSlurp can follow dynamic links but Yahoo is advising webmasters to post static pages with HREF (text) links directed to specific sections featuring dynamic content. This tells us that the use of a sitemap will continue to be an SEO Best Practice technique.

* Yahoo will respect common ROBOTS.TXT statements. For more information on ROBOTS.TXT files, please visit: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/norobots.html

* Paying to get into Inktomi database should attract more attention from YahooSlurp. I am pretty sure if YahooSlurp will find your site if you don't pay however paying will buy you much greater frequency of visits from the Slurp spider.

* Inktomi is very old-school when it comes to Keyword densities, keyword arrangement and simple-site structure. Optimizing for Inktomi is a lot like optimizing for AltaVista was a few years back (without the leader-pages and gateways that were once so popular).
Jim left us with an excellent question: "what is the relationship between Directory and Algorithmic listings?"

I'll be sure to follow up on that one, especially in light of the Yahoo Directory Debate (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=12201), where webmasters and SEOs argued about the value of paying to be in the directory. Thanks Jim!

Visit YahooSearch (http://search.yahoo.com/) and tell us what you think of the results!

[Garrett]

In an article from eWeek that he published in his blog (http://searchenginelowdown.com/2004_02_01_searchlowdown_archive.html#107711299523 247969), Andy Beal said that 15 people from his company spent the majority of Tuesday analyzing Yahoo's results.

Beal noted that the results on Yahoo's search were slightly different from other sites that use Inktomi - do some searches yourself to determine Yahoo's distinct algorithmic flavor.

Chris Sherman, of SearchEngineWatch said (http://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3314171), "for popular or common queries, there seemed to be very little difference between the two engines in top few results. But once you get past those, the results tend to diverge dramatically."

Beal thought that, "it looks like Yahoo is trying to mimic Google in many ways."

However, Sherman said, "while Yahoo and Google are likely using similar algorithms, one reason for the differences in what's displayed is that Yahoo's email and search teams are now working together to leverage what they've learned about spam.

"Since Yahoo mail processes billions of email messages, this knowledge is likely quite helpful in providing Yahoo with a much deeper understanding of the characteristics of spam -- and helping keep the nasty stuff out of the web page index."

What do you think of the new Yahoo algorithm (http://search.yahoo.com/)?

SearchEngineWatch article on the new Yahoo (http://www.searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3314171).
eWeek article on the new Yahoo (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1528734,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594).
The Yahoo press release (http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release1142.html).

[magpie]

I received a notice from Market Leap last nite on the Yahoo optimization recommendations. see below:
Also, our site http://www.planetmagpie.com has been performing well with Google...and we have been starting to optimize for Yahoo..will these new guidelines create problems for us in Google..or can we use the same rules in optimizing for both engines?
Robert Douglas
http://www.planetmagpie.com

HTML Titles:

Contains less than 80 characters.
Provides call to action.
Uses important keywords and phrases unique to the individual page.
Uniquely describes what the page is about.
Consistent with page Description and web page Body.
Does not unnecessarily repeat your Company Name at the beginning of each Title Tag. The first few keywords of your Title tag are given the
heaviest weight by the search engine, so it is important not to dedicate these first few words to your Company Name if your name is not what customers are searching for the most.
Your Company Name is moved to the end of your Title tag.

META Keywords:

Contains less than 15 keyword phrases each separated by commas.
Uses important keywords and phrases unique to the individual page.
Combines important online action words with your product/service keywords such as, "buy", "shop", "find" and/or "purchase". Use
WordTracker.com to research what action words are used by searchers of your keywords.
Minimal repetition of individual words.
Consistent with Title tag and web page Body content.

META Descriptions:

Contains less than 225 characters.
Provides call to action.
Combines important online action words with your product/service keywords.
Uses important keywords and phrases.
Uniquely describes the page.
Consistent with Title and web page Body content.

[mctwofist]

I was wondering the same thing. If these 'suggestions' would actually end up being detrimental in the long run with Google. Anyone seen anything indicating conflicts with these changes??

As we are all aware, Google is still the King of the shit and as far as Yahoo is concerned its an issue thats being completely blown out of proportion here. Check your stats on who's using what. Don't matter if you rank number 1 or number 45 in Yahoo if 90% of the people are Googling.

And then what. What happens next month when they change again? YOu may control your SEO destiny now but in the long run big brother owns your ass.

cheers.

[teleconnect]

I'm #2 page 1 on both the following search terms -
consumer mailing lists
and
business mailing lists

if this is whats deploying I love the results...I have been in Yahoo directory since October 1996 so I think this may have some impact on my listing....?...any feedback on this is appreciated.

Marty Screeton
http://www.teleconect.com

[WebMetro]

Don't matter if you rank number 1 or number 45 in Yahoo if 90% of the people are Googling.

Google provides about 30% of all searches online according to comScore (Link (http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156431)). It's also quite obvious to tell, after spending a couple million in Overture, that Yahoo is a major contributor to product based sales and conversions. If you sell a product, such as a scooter, and ranked well in Google, you will not only see a drop of 30% in overall traffic, but you will also see a much more dramatic drop in sales because chances are you had more sales coming from Yahoo than Google.

Google is a research-based engine, thus, Google has never been great for selling products on Adwords. If you track sales closely, you'll notice that AOL and other Google partners generate most product sales. This also holds true for the natural search results.

As for optimizing for Yahoo!, WebMetro has seen YahooSlurp results for about two weeks and have been analyzing the different results using our clients as excellent case studies.

YahooSlurp / Yinktomi falls under the category, "less is more". Stick with the basics and use simple optimization tactics, ie - H1 tags, target titles, keyword anchor text hyperlinks, incoming links with keyword anchor text, ect. The one thing Yahoo seems to be better at is indexing dynamic urls. For an example of this, type in "membrane switches" in Yahoo and look at the first few results.

[htmlgirl]

In google I have experienced a varied position in ratings from being in the top 10 to nowhere...but I have just looked a the yahoo search as suggested and I am number 1 and 2 in the lone parenting search... I have used text links to each page of my site and I have a links page these have both been picked up by the spider...how is it that google hasnt shown my site for at least 2 months?...I have done at least a monthly submittion but to no avail...

htmlgirl

www.loneparenting.com

[Rninja]

I am still trying to understand why the results are differing so much. I am new to the art of getting on the search engines in no less than the top 30, so it interesting when all of these symantics are changed and affect so many variables...

[Deep13]

well about the results i will say it ALLOWS spam...infact it cannot detect hidden keywords at all...

for example do search for keyword Send Gifts to India in yahoo and check first result (http://www.servebanners.com/advt/ad_redir.asp?advt=122&site=1) which redirects to GiftAGift.com

now its time to check footer of the page...

found many many hidden keywords...

you can check their cached page (http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=send+gifts+to+india&u=www.servebanners.com/advt/ad_redir.asp%3Fadvt%3D122%26site%3D1&w=send+gifts+to+india&d=77DDBF23B2&c=483&yc=25249&icp=1)

waiting for comments.. :)
Deep

[jmatthan]

I have about 50 different topics (and over 5000 pages) and the one search engine I never really systematically submitted my sites to was Yahoo. Hence my results for the key terms used by my visitors used to be pathetic. See:

http://www.findians.com/focus.html

With my test of the new search engine most of my sites appear as an absolute No. 1 and all my key sites are in the top 20, and usually well within the top 10.

However, I will have to test the aspect of the speed at which my updates appear to come in the top 20 sites.

I have maintained my top positions in Google with no problems with most of my subjects, but the new Yahoo even betters my positions in the ones where I had lost ground in Google.

Secret of success - never do anything to get a placement on Search Engines and never pay for listing. Keep to the subject of your web pages!!!

[KateCB]

I have been free submitting to Yahoo, Google and many other search engines for 4 years, and have rated between #5 to nowhere in the past - I am pleased to say that I seem to have got it right at the moment, as I now show as #1 on BOTH search engines for my main keywords Martial art supplies UK....long may it reign (and long may they decide not to chage the algorithm for a few years!)

I'm not really keyword, SE savvy - I do what I think is right, and finally *my* logic seems to have paid off!

[Mel]

Pre-Florida Google optimization techniques seem to be working well for me in both the new Google update and in Yahoo.

I like the results I am seeing in Yahoo better than those in Google though as Yahoo seems to have cleaned out the spam better than Google

[Mac 5]

What about Yahoo (or Google) indexing sites with database driven dynamic pages with shopping carts? In the past, indexing the pages with dynamic content has been hard for engines to process, but I think they are working on it.

I am in the process of deciding on setting up a dynamic site with OSCommerce or choosing another product that "claims" to be search engine friendly. Will the engines adapt to how many of the dynamic sites are already built, or will people have to change to a more "friendly" program?

[Mel]

IMO Google is pretty good about indexing dynamic pages these days, as least as long as you take a bit of care in ensuring friendly URLs, but Yahoo is saying that while they can spider many types of Dynamic URLs the spiders they are using for "url discovery" are not so good at it and recommend that you use an html sitemap to make sure all your pages get spidered.

[fctoma]

I'm in agreement with WebMetro... Google may supply tons more visitors, but for conversions and buying, Overture has been the king. Now that there are no Google results to be in Yahoo... Google will have to start watching their back.

This should prove to be an entertaining year, I'm somewhat excited.... can't you tell :)... joy.

Google will finally have a few powerhouses to deal with. Not like before, when Google was fresh and new to the seen, stealing everyone's loyalty. Now, hopefully MSN and Yahoo can set their crosshairs on the right targets to make this a three-way battle in 2004.

Have a great weekend all of you!

[htmlgirl]

I have not been in the web design industry for long and am relatively new to search engines and rankings but I agree that MSN and yahoo are going to seem a bit more of a positive result for my site at least, so hopefully people will use yahoo more this year...google will still be more popular however and it will take a few more months to get the change that is needed for yahoo and the others to have an impact I think...

Hooray to that I say!!...

htmlgirl

[chris_g]

We are glad to see the new players in the market as well. Although we are still doing very well in both the old and new Google.

The one thing we have been discussing in our in-house strategic meetings is how the new players are diverging. When we started in 1997 we used to build pages (or websites) specific to each of the major players to attian the results we wanted. We appear to be heading back in that direction. Is this a step forwards or a step backwards for SEO?

Althought this can be done fairly easily and we can attain better overall results it does cause some problems with duplicate content we have not had to deal with for several years.

[Mukul]

Hello,

My yahoo listing looks more like pre-austin listings from google i.e. I am ranking #1 - #10 for all my keywords.

But still, my website gets no trafiic from yahoo. I am wondering that if yahoo controls 40% share then why is is happenning. I should be seeing some hits.

Mukul

[Mel]

We are glad to see the new players in the market as well. Although we are still doing very well in both the old and new Google.

The one thing we have been discussing in our in-house strategic meetings is how the new players are diverging. When we started in 1997 we used to build pages (or websites) specific to each of the major players to attian the results we wanted. We appear to be heading back in that direction. Is this a step forwards or a step backwards for SEO?

Althought this can be done fairly easily and we can attain better overall results it does cause some problems with duplicate content we have not had to deal with for several years.

I don't really see this a much of a problem Chris - on my site the same pages rank top 3 on Google, yahoo, MSN, ATW and Altavista to name a few.

[T2DMan]

I am in fact getting better SERP's on Yahoo, but only where their bot has visited all my pages for that particular phrase.

I like the longer snippets Yahoo uses. My "formula" of having a paragraph of descriptive sales text including the phrase twice works well with Yahoo. I have the same issue with MSN and other SE's.

Generally 1st where MSN has found the correct page. If you do all the SEO techniques well, when a SE picks on one aspect to emphasise, and you have done all aspects well, you can only but win.

The semantics and longer urls that Google now searches means there is that much more competition for phrases. And the fact that Google is still playing tricks on webmasters... I would not like to go down the track of having pages for specific bots and disallowing other SE bots.

It will take a while for the Yahoo traffic to start coming. Hardly have any here in New Zealand.

Just done a tally up excluding bots - todays % same as for month within 2 percentage points - month over 6000 so far. No promotions to skew anything.
Direct 27%
Google 47%
Yahoo 7%
MSN 5%
other 14% (affiliates, other SE's)
---
100%
Only 0.4% for Alta Vista, and I am top for all my phrases on it!
Interesting.

[I, Brian]

Ahem, :)

How to Optimise for Yahoo! (http://www.seo-lab.com/seo-articles/optimising-for-yahoo.php)


IS that of any use to anybody? :D

[Mel]

Nice writeup Brian.

[chris_g]

Mel Wrote:

I don't really see this a much of a problem Chris - on my site the same pages rank top 3 on Google, yahoo, MSN, ATW and Altavista to name a few.

I agree with Mel thats where we are today. We currently optimize websites based on good content and proper linking. The results are pretty consistant across all the search engines as well.

I was thinking about where we are going to be 2-4 months from now when all the search engines have their search engine technologies implemented. We could end up being back to where we were in 1998 and doing optimization specific to each search engine.

I prefer the current formula for organic optimization where you ensure the content tells the search engine and the visitor what the website has to offer and then make sure the search engines can spider the content.

But as we all know search engines are and always will be evolving so reality is we need to change as they change.

[goRank.com]

We just release our new research report comparing Yahoo's new results to Google for the same keywords. Over 40,000 data points in total. The report is at http://www.gorank.com/research/

[Mel]

HI GoRank
Thats a very interesting report. While there may be no major surprises there it is nice to have statistical confirmation of gut feel.

[craven]

I always read the posts here but never comment. This time I felt compelled to reply with my opinion.

From what I have seen so far I'd say Yahoo has made a big mistake. Their results are nowhere near as relevant as Google results and some are down right pitiful.

Everyone I've spoken to has had there traffic negatively affected by the change. Imagine that!

But there is a way to get that same traffic and more from Yahoo!!! All you have to do is use Overture........Pay-Per-Click. Wait a minute! Doesn't Yahoo own Overture now? HMMMMMMMMM!!!!


Message to Yahoo:

Hello Yahoo,

I'm sorry to see all the money you have invested in this search technology go to waste. It's been less than a week but I think it's time you realize that you can never beat Google and to just use their results.

You should stay with what you know like games, chat, e-mail etc. Concentrate on these services and use Google results and you may maintain some dignity.

It's sad to see Yahoo damaging their credibility in this way. I'd be embarrassed to be working at Yahho right now. Do you realize how bad you look in the eyes of your users and the world?

Google once again just kicks your A** when it comes to results. Bye Bye Yahoo

End outcome
Google wins big
Yahoo loses once more

Craven

[love2travel]

What happens if I dont seperate my meta tags with commas now?

[chris_g]

love2travel Wrote:
What happens if I dont seperate my meta tags with commas now?

Inktomi is one of the few remaining major search technologies that does anything with the keyword meta data. There has been a some discussion in the recent days that Yahoo is not planning to use the exact Inktomi algo and Trellian announced last week that the Pay for Inclusion programs will be seperated on April 15. To this point this is still a rumor but it does make sense for Yahoo.

Back to your original question. There are 2 things to consider in answering your question. What percentage in the algo does the meta data play. We consider it to be less than 5% at best. It is likely less that 2% but we have not tried to quantify the actual value in the algo.

The second is what is the purpose of the comma to Inktomi. Commas and spaces are considered the same thing when a search engine is parsing meta data. So whether your meta tags have commas or not will not make a difference in the results.

[minstrel]

Actually that depends on how the parsing is done - without commas, there is no way to differentiate between phrases and individual words. W3C provides a few examples of keywords meta tags, and in ALL cases, whether individual words or phrases, the items are separated by commas (i.e., word, this is a phrase, this is another phrase, word2).

Also see Yahoo's Guidelines for Webmasters (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=76599#76599).

[Mel]

Looks to me like Yahoo is also using the keywords tag in some way as it is indexing and reporting the keyword I put into my keywords file. Interestingly it allso reads and reports the keyword in the page text and page title, but not in the meta Description tag.

[minstrel]

See above and this link: Yahoo's Guidelines for Webmasters (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?t=14563).


* Use a "description" meta-tag and write your description accurately and carefully. After the title, the description is the most important draw for users. Make sure the document title and description attract the interest of the user but also fit the content on your site.
* Use a "keyword" meta-tag to list key words for the document. Use a distinct list of keywords that relate to the specific page on your site instead of using one broad set of keywords for every page.

[tceperry]

I'm not really sure what all of this means. My site has always bee ranked well by Google for kw nameplates (1-10ish), but never by Yahoo. All of a sudden last week, we appeared in #3 on Yahoo, with no optimization changes! We are not a retail seller, so Google has always been great for us. Looks like Yahoo just added to the mix for us!

[Mac 5]

Our site ranks good on Yahoo too. About the same as pre-Florida Google.

[teleconnect]

If this helps anyone out there with there optimization...I'm listed #1 (this afternoon) for both my 3-keyword groups on Yahoo

consumer mailing lists
business mailing lists

Both of these terms are used within the Title Tag and Description Tag of the site...as well as within the keywords.

Marty Screeton
Teleconnect, Inc.
http://www.teleconect.com

[gwsoccer14]

I am not trying to be mean or anything but I have made an observation. I know a lot about SEO and I know that clean code helps. But most of the sites on this thread that have #1 rankings have pretty bad code. (By bad code I mean multiple nested tables, multiple font tags, etc.). What I don't understand is how some of these sites rank as #1? Their code is not clean but the spiders are still finding all their content. What am I missing? Does clean code not really matter as much as I thought? What are the most important issues to address (not from the people who have high rankings, but from the people who work for SEO organiaztions). Thanks.

[Mel]

I really doubt if "clean code" is included anywhere in any search engines algorithm, firstly because there is no general agreement as to what clean code really means and secondly because it would be very very resource intensive for search engines to have to validate each page it spidered.

As an example of resource intensive if you do a query at Yahoo you get a result back in less than a second after it sifts through the billions of pages in its index, now if I go to say W3C and validate just one page of code it takes me on the average 5 seconds for just that one page. My numbers show that at 5 seconds per page it would take 13 years to validate the code on 5 billion pages.

[gwsoccer14]

You are missing the point. Obviously it can't search for "clean code" specifically. Clean code allows the spiders to read your code more effectively. If clean code doesn't matter then why are people converting to CSS. I understand separating content from display, but CSS also makes your text more readable. If I had two pages with the same content but one was full of font tags and table tags and one was done in CSS, the CSS version of the site should come up better in search engines. This is because all spiders see are div tags and content, no font tags, or tables. So it may not specifically look for clean code, but it in reality that is exactly what is doing.

[Mel]

Spiders don't interpret code they just read whatever is there and report it back to the search engines who do the parsing. If you read the original Google design paper (http://www7.scu.edu.au/programme/fullpapers/1921/com1921.htm) it will give you some great insight into how they do this.

The ranking is not based on how many font tags there are, for instance, but on wordsand how they are formatted, links and how they are formatted and certain items in the Head section.

[magnolia]

Has anyone read anything Yahoo! has published about link popularity and how it figures into their algo's?

Wondering if they're focused on the anchor text issues like Google has been.

[gwsoccer14]

I am not trying to argue here, but if a spider does not read HTML, then how come content between H1 tags are seen as more important?

[Mel]

The spiders only job is to go out and gather content, which it sends to Googles storeserver. Then the spider goes out and gathers more pages, since thats all a spider does.

You could think of it kind of like the Fedex of the search engine world going out an collecting packages (bundles of web pages) and sending them to their destination (the Storeserver).

The search engine has many more parts in its make up, which manipulate these pages in various ways so that they can rank them according to their algo, which is the part that determines how valuable your H1 text is in relation to the search query.

The pages are preprocesed as much as possible so that (in google at least) when a search is done with a view to determining what pages rank for certain queries the actual page code is not used at all but hitlists in presorted barrels, which record what words were found on a particulate document, their location, what type of hit they were, then data from the anchors sort and the pagerank sort are combined to produce a ranking list.

The bottom line is that the ranking is not done using your actual pages but hitlists based upon the words in your page.

[gwsoccer14]

cool, I understand a little better now.