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 It had been replaced by what appeared to be a normal,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