~~~Search Engine Optimization~~~
From: Jamie Kiley
Hi Jill,
I don't think you have addressed Yahoo's new changes in their search
results. I'd love to know what things have changed and what I should
expect now.
Thanks,
Jamie Kiley
www.kianta.com
~~~Jill's Response~~~
Hey Jamie,
I had thought about commenting on Yahoo's recent changes a few issues
ago, but then I noticed lots of other newsletters and articles were
already discussing the subject, so I didn't want to look like a big
'ol copycat! Danny Sullivan gave a nice overview in his Search Engine Watch paid subscription newsletter, and
so did Brent Winters in his Market Position newsletter. There was also a
recent article on ClickZ by Paul Bruemmer that outlined the Yahoo changes.
But since you asked...
If you already have a site listed in Yahoo, their new way of
displaying sites may help your site be found more easily. On the
other hand, it may also hurt. Unfortunately, you have no control over
your current Yahoo listing, so there's no sense getting bent out of
shape over it. Where Yahoo is concerned, whatever will be, will be.
Because it's a directory that already has your site information in the
form of your URL, Yahoo title and Yahoo description, changes to your
Web site content or HTML Title and Meta tags, will have no affect on
your listing.
So which sites are the big losers and which are the big winners?
LOSERS: Sites with company names (or a Yahoo title) that start with
letters at the beginning of the alphabet (A, B, C) may see a drop in
Yahoo traffic.
This is because instead of bringing up reams of category links, most
searches now bring up actual Web page URLs. Previously, the relevant
categories would be shown first. The searcher would often click these
categories, and then browse through them to find sites that seemed
relevant. If your company name began with the letter "A," you had a
good chance of getting a click-through, as the listings within
categories are alphabetical. However, with the new changes, fewer
people will be browsing through the categories than before, therefore,
those alphabetical listings will not be quite as important.
WINNERS: Sites with company names and URLs that use keyphrases.
These types of sites have always done well in Yahoo; however, they
have a chance to do even better now, because they won't be buried
under all those category listings. The top-ten sites that currently
come up for any given search usually have some form of the keyphrase
in the Yahoo title, URL, and/or Yahoo description.
On the surface, it makes a lot of sense for Yahoo to structure their
results this way, because titles, URLs and descriptions should
certainly be using the most relevant keyphrases to describe the given
site. If Yahoo were spidering sites and using the info it gleaned
from it's crawling activities, then I would agree. However, let's
look at Yahoo's submission criteria for a second. One of the main
things Yahoo has always stressed is that your submitted title *must*
be your company name. Generally, *real* company names are not keyword
rich. They're just not. Along the same lines, *real* company URLs
are also not keyword rich. They usually emulate the company name.
Therefore, Yahoo's "algorithm" makes it nearly impossible for *real*
companies to get a good a top-ten listing, simply by the fact that
their company name is probably not keyword rich. All hope is not
lost, however. The Yahoo description is also important, so if your
keyphrases are in your description, you do still have a shot. The
problem is you'll most likely be listed beneath those sites that have
keywords and phrases in their Yahoo title and their URL (and probably
their description too).
In a perfect world, all of that wouldn't matter, because companies
that just so happened to have their keywords in their company name and
URL would most certainly be the most relevant, and Yahoo would be
serving up the best results possible. Unfortunately, the Internet is
anything but a perfect world. Instead, it's rife with people and
companies who want to get to the top of the search results and will do
anything to get there. These people have figured out (and please...it
doesn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together), that
they can simply start a new company. Perhaps a new company called,
"My Best Keyphrase R US, Inc." Of course, it makes perfect sense that
My Best Keyphrase R US, Inc. would need the matching domain name of
www.MyBestKeyPhraseRUS.com. And it also stands to reason that the
description submitted to Yahoo would include "my best keyphrase."
So now we have a Yahoo listing that looks something like this:
My Best KeyPhrase R US, Inc. - offers my best keyphrases to all those
who need my best keyphrase on a daily basis.
http://MyBestKeyPhraseRUS.com
For real life examples, do a search for "search engine optimization"
at Yahoo. There's no "Search Engine Optimization R US, Inc.," but
there are many that are very close to that! If most of those top
results are REAL company names that weren't created simply to obtain a
good Yahoo listing, I'll dance on the tables (with Heather, of course)
at the next conference!
I'm sure that Yahoo has no intention of encouraging people to spam
their directory with these sorts of sites; however, this is exactly
what they're doing by ranking sites with their current formula, and by
forcing people to use their company names as their Yahoo title. If
they keep this method up, and continue to add these types of
"companies" to their directory, Yahoo will lose whatever usefulness it
might have had, in my opinion.
Don't get me wrong; I actually like Yahoo's new way of displaying
results. I thought the old way with categories cluttering up the page
was a real pain. But until they can do something to stop the
contrived companies from beating out the real companies, they won't
get a big thumb's up from me.
Many thanks to Doug Heil from the IHelpYouServices Forum, for putting the bug in my ear about all of this.
Jill
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