Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Blog

Since Yahoo! actively edits their search results, they will be forced to edit them over and over.

After they remove a site for spam, it is very easy for someone to duplicate that site (and maybe even use a slightly altered version) at another location.

Yahoo! could also use a bit of coaching on determining the difference between editorial votes and spammy links. Some of my clients outrank their own manufacturers for their manufacturer's brand name in Yahoo!. That is just flat out bad relevancy to make it that easy to manipulate.

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Yahoo! tries to edit out many of the "site in a box"-type affiliate sites as well as any content that does not add value to your search experience. Yahoo! does not hate affiliate websites, they hate unoriginal, replicated content, as it degrades the quality of their search results if a searcher sees the same things over and over again.

It does not hurt you to have affiliate links on your website as long as you also have some original content. It is also worth noting that some search engines may also have custom algorithms designed to detect and demote thin affiliate sites.

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Yahoo! actively edits spam out of their search results. If someone with whom you are competing is not complying with Yahoo!'s guidelines, you may want to point that out to Yahoo!. There is a chance that Yahoo! will remove your competitor's site if they deem it as spam. Again, most of the time it is recommended that you do not use spam reports unless you are prepared for webmasters to play hardball.
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Yahoo! has a paid inclusion program that allows them to generate revenue from people who join their paid inclusion program. By relying on page content, Yahoo! makes it easier for its paid inclusion members (or other editorially reviewed content participants) to improve their rankings.
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……continued from PART 1

At the 2004 Las Vegas WebmasterWorld World of Search Conference, Yahoo! stated that they prefer if you have somewhat shallow directory paths of three or so levels deep or less.

example 1:
www.mysite.com/cheese/cheddar/sharp/yummie.html = good

example 2:
www.mysite.com/chs/chd/shrp/eat/now/today/yummie.html = bad
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Yahoo! usually lists a site within about a month. The best way to get your site submitted is by building a strong linking campaign. If you need to get your site indexed quickly, Yahoo! does have two paid inclusion programs. Search Submit Pro is recommended for large databases that are hard to crawl, sites with rapidly rotating inventory, event sites on a tight deadline, or sites that need the tracking provided by the program.
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Yahoo! created a free question-answering service and includes many of these questions and answers in their search results.

The idea of integrating Yahoo! user questions and answers directly into the search results shows how much Yahoo! wants to keep their users on the Yahoo.com domain and how much Yahoo! wants to be the most important content site on the web. Compare that strategy to Google who wants to send away visitors as quickly as possible and hope they come back.

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Looking for an easy and efficent keyword ranking tracker? I found one :)Shawn Hogan's Digital Point keyword ranking tracker allows webmasters to track their Google, Yahoo!, and MSN rankings for free, although it will require you to place a php page on your server.

You can also look for other Yahoo! SEO Tools at the Yahoo! Developer Network.

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Mike Grehan interviewed Jon Glick of Yahoo! Search, and he stated that the meta description tag is treated similar to page content. He also stated that the meta keywords tag is used for inclusion into a subset of search results, but has no effect on relevancy. I also covered the issue of meta tags above in the meta tag section earlier in this e-book.

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