Yahoo results much different that Google

[cfinlayson]

OK, before I start here, I understand that Google and Yahoo do things fundamentally different, but what will become clear to you soon, is that I don't really know what or why.

If you search "hot tubs" in Google, our site, Welcome to Beachcomber Hot Tubs, connecting family, friends, and loved ones in a Beachcomber Hot Tub. appears at the bottom of the first page, (well it does for me in Vancouver, BC today anyway - yesterday we were at the top of page 2.). And yes, I switched to Google.com from Google Canada. We're number one for that term on Google.ca, so I worry less about that.

Now on Yahoo Canada we're number 6 in the organic results, but on Yahoo.com we're stuck way the heck back on page 4 of the results. What gives?

I know that Yahoo accounts for about 20% of all searches, (if you believe comScore's April 2008 Release - comScore Releases April 2008 U.S. Search Engine Rankings), but on our site it only accounts for about 7% of search engine referrals. This is obviously due to our crappy ranking in Yahoo.

Why are the results so different? Does anyone know specifically if there are, say 5 top things that we should be doing to help with Yahoo, that won't hurt on Google?

What is Yahoo doing differently, in general, that I need to take into account when considering SEO?

I'd like to be able to also provide this advice to our network of independent hot tub stores, most of whom have their own websites.

Thanks for your help, and patience reading this ridiculously long post.

Chris Finlayson
Marketing Services Coordinator
Beachcomber Hot Tubs Group

[incrediblehelp]

So whats the difference between Yahoo CA and Yahoo COM? Well more competitors is probably what it is.

[cfinlayson]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

So whats the difference between Yahoo CA and Yahoo COM? Well more competitors is probably what it is.

Well just like with Google, supposedly it takes the country of origin into account, so if you are searching Yahoo CA the pages that are returned higher up the results should have a Canadian IP address as the host... supposedly.

Our SEO people said one way for us to creep up the rankings for Google COM, (as opposed to Google CA), is to have an American IP address as our host.

[craigmn3]

It is difficult to please them all.

Yahoo, Google and MSN each have different focus. If you can find out exactly what you can make a fortune in SEO. I have several sites on the same subject....The indepth one does well on Google, the limited one with massive pictures does well on Yahoo
(number 2 on each respectively)

but the simple straight forward one with lots of content, but not much spread (it focuses mostly on one keyword) does well (5-6) on all the search engines. If you got Google you have 75% of all searches so you are in good shape

[vwickam]

I would agree with incredihelp on this one, the .com site will have much more competition than the .ca site, but the solution to your quandry is going to come onpage and off-page.

If you have great content, and work at creating inbound links using the keywords you are targeting you should see your rankings grow on google and likewise on yahoo and msn.

By the way, your site was not in my google.com front page results for the keyword hot tubs.

It isn't unusual for google traffic to dominate the referrals for well done sites. Google does a better job of getting rid of the spam sites.

Good luck!
<in your signature only please>

[cfinlayson]

Originally Posted by vwickam

By the way, your site was not in my google.com front page results for the keyword hot tubs.

Principal Web Solutions | Zello Pages - Better Than Yellow

Hi Vi,

Thanks for the feedback, I'm working to understand how they do things, and feeling a bit like Sisyphus...

Where abouts are you located, because when I do the Google COM search, I still see our site, Beachcomber Hot Tubs on the bottom of the first page. Could this be an example of different data centers returning different results?

Chris

[James Bull]

For what it's worth, here in Perth, Australia you're number 9 on the first page of Google .COM and nowhere on the first two pages of Yahoo .COM for "hot tubs".

[kgun]

Are your site included in the Google and Yahoo directory? If it is only included in the Google directory that may make a difference.

Related WPW thread:

The search engine and the directory.

Time to repeat these:

bruceclay.com - Search Engine Relationship Chart®

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