Yahoo Algorithm

[Zafar Ahmed]

Hello,

Yahoo is one of the most popular search engine and internet portal, their search engine is in fact as important as Google.
People search Yahoo for relevant information, you miss out potential traffic if you do not have good ranking in Yahoo Search Engine.
Much has been changed in Yahoo’s Algorithm. Yet, no one has properly understood how it works, only few people know how to rank for Yahoo.

As you all know Yahoo has one of the biggest directory, therefore it is in the part of their algorithm, means if you are not in their directory you have to wait for a long time in order to appear in their SERPs. Sad? I know.
However, this is not really true. Yahoo ranks website with high inbound links in terms of both quantity and quality links and the factors discussed below. Although, Yahoo and Google; they both have the “sandbox” penalty, which sometimes makes it difficult.

How can one optimize their website for Yahoo?
Here are few factors that helps optimize your website for Yahoo.

Title of your website:
Title is the biggest and and the most important ranking factor of Yahoo. Hence, you should have your major keywords in the title.

Relevant Content:
The more relevant content you add to your website, the better ranking you get. One of the best way is to create a “blog” and update the content daily through blogs, blogs are good for relevant content.

Inbound Links:
With Yahoo, inbound links are vital. Do not forget to put the anchor text, as with Yahoo anchor relevancy is very essential. Remember, the quantity of links will not really help, it is the quality links that matters.

Click Popularity:
This must be something you have never heard of. But, this is a part of Yahoo’s algorithm. The more clicks your site gets on Yahoo Search Page, the more changes of your website getting on TOP 10. Yes, this is not part of Google’s algorithm and probably something new to you.

These were few important factors discussed above, remaining like: sitemap, age of domain, keyword density are important part of Yahoo as well and should be treated same as others.

Good Luck and feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Regards,
Zafar Ahmed –

[Dallas Broker]

I agree Yahoo can be very rewarding. There are many that write Yahoo off and focus efforts only on Google which is not a very good business strategy in my opinion. Click popularity is new to me, but makes perfect sense!

[Portland Real Estate Guy]

I still haven't been able to put my finger on the yahoo algorithm. I have some sites that send me more traffic them G(there not in the directory).

[Zafar Ahmed]

Just to let you all know that Yahoo still follows the old meta tag algorithm unlike Google. So, optimize your meta tags carefully

[Dwell Atlanta]

Zafar,

is there such a thing as too much keyword meta tags?

[Zafar Ahmed]

Zafar,

is there such a thing as too much keyword meta tags?

Hi Jason,

To start with, the keyword meta tag is useless for Google but there is nothing wrong with placing it, Atleast yahoo follows it. It is just you guys should not put too much emphasis on meta, it does not bring you on first page.

Don't keyword stuff the meta tags and content of your website, but include the primary keyword/phrase because it is the correct thing to do. Just dont repeat it a lot.

hope that helps.

[GetSmart]

yahoo is a lot easier to rank than google, i must admit. for a lot of the keywords i am going after for google are mainly first page on yahoo. this happened by accident. now only if i can get my keywords ranked high for google.

[Portland Real Estate]

It seems Yahoo places a greater emphasis on the on-page optimization such as meta tags, while Google is very heavily weighted to inbound links.

I've wondered if some people have tried creating separate sites for Yahoo and Google?

[kermitjohnson]

I rank number one on page one for "minneapolis real estate" but I am nowhere for Yahoo. I have spent money on their directory, have good title tags, plenty of backlinks. Any ideas?

So Yahoo likes click popularity? How do you measure it? How do you get it?

[Portland Real Estate]

Very interesting... KJ- your site is a classic example of the challenge of ranking on both sites.

I might start by analyzing the #2 site www.minnesotas-real-estate dot com to see what their link profile looks like and how their keyword density compares to yours etc... for example, it looks like they have some fairly large sitewide links.

On the other hand, with a #1 ranking in Google, I wouldn't want to mess around too much. Better safe than sorry.