SEO for Yahoo

[BonusS]

Given that their share of search is so small is it worth doing anything to my site to optimise for Yahoo?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by BonusS

Given that their share of search is so small is it worth doing anything to my site to optimise for Yahoo?

It is more worth to optimize for humans. ;)

[swoopster]

This is a very good question. I have been spending pretty much all my time optimizing for google and have only recently started to research what can be done to optimize for the other search engines such as yahoo and msn.

One would think that website optimization is the same because users search pretty much the same way no matter which search engine they use yet if you search, for example, for "seo elite". Googles top 10 results will be quiet different than yahoo's top 10. If your lucky, you might see 3 identical url's between the two.

I would have to say that if there is such a thing as optimizing for other search engines other than google. You should do it if it does not drastically affect your google ranking.

Peace

[Webnauts]

I optimize for all engines. Why should I optimize for single ones?

[Dinghus]

You don't optimize the same pages for Google and Yahoo. You have seperate pages for each one. You should have seperate pages for each search engine unless they are close enough that one page fits both (or more).

A proper optimization does a different page for each keyword/phrase for each SE.

Then you wonder why they get paid the uhmmmm big? bucks. LOL

[chrisJumbo]

I don't think you need a seperate page for each search engine. However, if you did go that route, I would wonder about duplicate content issues if they weren't different enough. Also seems like somewhat of a nightmare for linking strategies. But since I am not an expert, those that are, feel free to correct me (as I'm sure you will). :O)

Google is still big on links so with them it just takes time. MSN is big on the title fitting the search and the text on the page. It probably also helps to have a directory listing. MSN's price is certainly better than Yahoo's. And there are plenty of people who believe paying for both would be a good idea.

Yahoo is a different beast that we haven't quite figured out. But we get okay rankings there.

This is obviously very generalized but just take a gander through the different posts and you will find lots of great information.

And although I agree that you need to think about the humans reading the page, they won't find your page if you don't get the different pieces in place that the search engines are looking for.

I believe that you want as much traffic as possible, so naturally you want good rankings on the different search engines. I don't recall the exact statistic, but let's say it is in the realm of 100,000,000,000 searches a month. 25% of that is still a nice number (the approximate piece of the pie that other search engines share).

[glinted]

I tried to find the MSN directory, can you please point me to this as I'm interested in purchasing a listing.

Originally Posted by chrisJumbo

It probably also helps to have a directory listing. MSN's price is certainly better than Yahoo's.

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by Dinghus

You should have seperate pages for each search engine unless they are close enough that one page fits both (or more).

No, no, no. Basic optimization works for all three major search engines. You don't need a page for each search engine. Last time I heard that was 1999.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Dinghus

A proper optimization does a different page for each keyword/phrase for each SE.

LOL

That is for sure not true, and it is not funny either!

[azhariqbal5i]

For me, its very simple and a rule of thumb! Google loves LP, Msn loves titles and Copy and Yahoo loves all including links, titles and copy.

[dviney]

Originally Posted by glinted

I tried to find the MSN directory, can you please point me to this as I'm interested in purchasing a listing.

MSN Small Busines Directory (http://sbd.bcentral.com/) has recently closed it's doors to new listings (one of the more bizarre decisions MSN have made recently). See:

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusine...ransition.mspx

It is not clear whether the service will be offered again in some different form via live.com in the future (but doesn't look like it).

I have sent Bill Gates an email offering to buy the directory from him - I'll let you know how I get on.

Rgds,
D>

[dracula]

Yahoo IS pretty important too not only Google. Specially in Europe Google visitors are maybe less by counts but Yahoo has more buyers - visitors of higher quality.
I did different pages for Google, Yahoo and MSN and paid dearly with a duplicate content penalty from Google - maybe I was not careful enough - I now learned to try to optimize my index page for all 3 engines and I agree totally with Azhar and his rule of thumb, I may not get THE best result but good results in all 3 SE is good enough for me.

[chrisJumbo]

Thanks Dviney for the MSN update. They are offering set of tools for the Web from Office Live, but no directory listing anymore.

I guess there wasn't enough business to keep the bCentral and directory listings going.

What are people's take on the Yahoo directory? Large price tag: $299 a year (I believe)

[nipplecharms1]

You know, every time someone brings this issue up I hear the same broken record (remember those) from the same SEO experts. I am surprised Ken has not yet voiced his opinion.

Its easy to sit back in the cheap seats and tell everyone you have to do “Site Optimization” for the visitors and not the engine, the spider but not the engine, the spider but not the visitors, the forum readers but not the visitors... blah blah blah

BUT few, if anyone, tells you exactly how to do that. I am beginning to think it is nothing more than luck. I will say it.. Yes, teach me with one page and I will eat the rest of my life. Or is that learn to fish... I get confused sometimes.

I had two people here that I paid to "Optimize" one of our sites for Yahoo. I am still on page 101. I did my own hocus-pocus for Gozizzle and made out ok. Do not ask me how or way. I tried the same on the other side for Yahoo and nothing. My blog does better on MSN that any of my sites.

And I really do not want to hear about content. I have competitors that have not changed their page(s) (site) in a year... ok, maybe 8 months, that are still number 1 or 2 for certain words or phrases on Yahoo. gimme a break.

Build it and they will come is not in the e-commerce lexicon, no matter what anyone says.

My plug nickel. Can you feel MY pain?

Great thread and I hope we get a kernel or two worth of practical advise. And I still love the forum by the way.

Michael

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by nipplecharms1

BUT few, if anyone, tells you exactly how to do that. I am beginning to think it is nothing more than luck. I will say it.. Yes, teach me with one page and I will eat the rest of my life. Or is that learn to fish... I get confused sometimes.

I had two people here that I paid to "Optimize" one of our sites for Yahoo. I am still on page 101.

Not sure what you mean here. It is like saying teach me how to mend broken bones so I don't have to go to the hospital anymore.

yeah it sucks getting burned, but shopping carefully is advised before purchasing SEO services

[scanmonkey]

Nipplecharms1,

Always like going to your site.

One thing I've noticed is that you have a canonical issue with the www and non-www version of your domain

You need to do a 301 redirect to resolve the problem.

To learn more visit http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-ad...onicalization/

For information to resolve the problem visit http://www.jaankanellis.com/301-redirection-help/

Both Yahoo and Google love on-topic authority links. One or two good links can bring you first page results for less competitive keywords in both Yahoo and Google.

[nipplecharms1]

Originally Posted by scanmonkey

Nipplecharms1,

Always like going to your site.

One thing I've noticed is that you have a canonical issue with the www and non-www version of your domain

You need to do a 301 redirect to resolve the problem.

To learn more visit http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-ad...onicalization/

For information to resolve the problem visit http://www.jaankanellis.com/301-redirection-help/

Both Yahoo and Google love on-topic authority links. One or two good links can bring you first page results for less competitive keywords in both Yahoo and Google.

Please visit anytime. :)

Ok Scan, direct question. Give me any example of "Both Yahoo and Google love on-topic authority links. One or two good links can bring you first page results". What exactly do you mean?

here is my .htaccess file. What am I doing wrong? Anyone?

redirect a bunch of old pages to new pages..

then the following at the end of the file

ErrorDocument 404 /index.html
ErrorDocument 403 /index.html
ErrorDocument 500 /index.html
order allow,deny
allow from all
Options -Indexes
Redirect /nipplecharms.com http://www.nipplecharms.com
Redirect http://www.nipplecharms.com/images/ http://www.nipplecharms.com

Sorry I did not mean to hijack this thread and if someone wants to move this to its own thread, that is ok with me. if one of the Moderators need to delete any of it, thats ok too.

I await everyone comments. thanks

Michael

[CAD]

here is my .htaccess file. What am I doing wrong? Anyone?

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

#For non ssl ports
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yoururl\.com
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^80
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.yoururl.com/$1 [R=301,L]

#For ssl ports
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yoururl\.com
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^443
RewriteRule (.*) https://www.yoururl.com/$1 [R=301,L]



By the way, we rank in the top 10 on all 3 major search engines for our main keyword without using different pages for different engines.

[nipplecharms1]

Well that was pretty much Greek to me Jeff :( :(.

See my message to you.

Anyone here speak layman? :)

thanks all.

Michael

[CAD]

try the code above in your htaccess file and change yoururl to be Your URL (nipplecharms.com)