It all started with a gasp…while reviewing the traffic report
for one of our sites I noticed that traffic was down
significantly from the day before. I soon discovered that the
change had occurred at Yahoo.
So I navigated to Yahoo, typed in the keyword, and gasped. The
trusty Yahoo search ranking page we had come to know and love
(because our site was ranked #1) was gone! It had been replaced
by what appeared to be a normal, non-categorized search listing
like you would find at most other search engines. And more
importantly, our site was no longer on top of that list!
By now you probably know that Yahoo has changed the way that it
delivers search results. The old way, of showing a page of
categories (Business and Economy > Business to Business >
Construction > Metals) in response to a search has been
replaced. Visitors now see a few one-line category links
followed by a list of sites that rank well against that search
term.
What does this mean for Internet Marketers? First, it probably
means that your site has changed in ranking on Yahoo. You might
be lucky and your site is in much better position now than it
used to be. But you also may not even show up in the listing,
especially if your success was based on having an
alphabetically-prominent company name (Yahoo used to list sites
alphabetically).
Second, it means that the search engine battleground has
probably changed yet again. Yahoo currently represents about
half of all searches on the net. My prediction (and I’m sure
Yahoo’s hope) is that since this change makes information easier
to find, it is going to make them significantly more popular,
resulting in greater market share, and hence more searches,
going through Yahoo in the future. (I’ve already called my
broker…)
Keys To Ranking High on the New Yahoo!:
The formula for getting ranked high on Yahoo used to be one of
the easiest to understand in the search directory/engine world.
Now that formula’s not so obvious, and more importantly, it may
become a moving target, just like most of the other search
engines. What works well this week, possibly won’t next. But
that’s life!
In spite of that, it’s fairly clear that Yahoo will be utilizing
several factors in their equation to determine what comes up
first in their ranking. Keep these in mind as you register new
sites:
1. Presence in their database. They won’t list you if you’re not
there! So if you haven’t done it yet, get off your duff, dust
off your credit card, and fork over the $299 to get your site
listed. You can’t afford not to, period!
2. Presence of the keyword in your URL, Yahoo title and Yahoo
description. Yahoo still doesn’t appear to be ranking their
search results based on the page content of your site itself,
but rather by the information in the title, description and URL
that is listed in their database for your site. Your site must
provide valuable information to be accepted into the Yahoo
directory, but when it comes to determining who gets ranked
first on any given search, it’s the words in the titles,
descriptions and URLs that determine the ranking order, not the
actual copy on your site.
Ideally, the keyword that people will most likely find you under
will be listed in your URL, your company name (which Yahoo will
use for the title of your site in their listing) and right at
the beginning of your site’s description on their database. For
example:
http:compostmakers.com Compost Makers Inc. Compost makers,
tools, and equipment for making your garden healthy
will score considerably better for a search on “compost makers”
than would http:gardenstuff.com Bob’s Hardware Store Compost
makers, tools, and equipment for making your garden healthy
3. Primacy of the keyword in your URL, Yahoo title and Yahoo
description. Yahoo places more weight on words at the beginning
of terms than that same word later on in your description. So:
Compost makers, tools, and equipment for making your garden
healthy
will score better than: Garden tools, including compost makers,
rakes, shovels and more for the term “compost makers.”
Keep in mind though, that this second example will score better
on searches for the term “garden tools” which is searched on 70
times more frequently than “compost makers.” You need to know
what terms people are actually using to search for sites like
yours. How to do that is the subject of another article, but the
easiest method is still Overture’s (formerly Goto’s) tool,
(currently located at
http://inventory.overture.com/inventory/searchInventory.mp) Make
sure that if you’re going to go to all the work to rank high
against a specific search term, that it’s one that people are
actually using to search for your site!
It’s vital for you to not only know what you are truly selling,
but also what is being searched on in your category.
4. Other factors. Every search engine applies certain weights to
certain site criteria and change those weightings frequently. At
the moment, Yahoo is doing that in several areas, which may
change:
A. Placement in Yahoo’s categories. Yahoo has not abandoned
their old category structure, just changed the way they list
search results. They currently seem to be giving higher rankings
to those sites that are categorized under the top category for a
given search term rather than the lower priority categories.
B. Giving more weight to hyphenated URL’s than non-hyphenated
URL’s with the same keywords. Thus (everything else being equal)
http://compost-makers.com would score better than
http://compostmakers.com. This is especially true if the keyword
is not the first element in the URL:
http://best-compost-makers.com would score better than
http://bestcompostmakers.com.
C. Penalizing sites that have numbers or early-in-the-alphabet
letters before the keyword (probably in reaction to those who
tried to beat their old alphanumeric ranking system):
http://1compostmakers.com probably won’t even show up in the
first several pages of their listing.
D. Not differentiating between .com’s, .net’s, .org’s, etc.
This opens up opportunities to achieve top rankings through
purchasing alternative domains to the .com standby. (Caution we
have no idea how the new .info, .biz etc. domains will fare in
Yahoo’s new structure, so approach these with caution).
Several key issues are not yet clear at Yahoo: 1. There is no
indication of popularity or link popularity affecting rankings.
Yahoo is tracking click-throughs so it won’t be surprising to
see popularity affecting rankings in the near future. Link
popularity may be farther out, as Yahoo isn’t currently
spidering sites, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see an
acquisition or licensing deal in the future.
2. There are several thousand sites that are paying extra to be
listed at the top of the category pages as sponsored sites.
Yahoo has now significantly decreased the value given to those
paying partners by shunting as much as 75% of their search
traffic off of the category pages and into their search pages.
They stand to lose millions of dollars in sponsorship revenues
in the next few weeks if they don’t quickly find a way to bring
those sponsored links onto the search results pages in addition
to their category pages.
All of these changes are vital for internet marketers to
understand. Not only will they most likely result in additional
traffic to Yahoo, but for those who understand these changes it
can yield major benefits of extra traffic, sales and profits!
About the author:
Don Crowther is the founder of http://NetMarketingMasters.com a
company dedicated to helping companies build their sales and
profits through the techniques used by the masters of Internet
marketing. For more information on NetMarketingMasters or to
subscribe to their free online marketing newsletter, visit
http://NetMarketingMasters.com
