SEO Tips for Yahoo!
SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization
With an estimated 60% of Internet users relying on Google for their everyday search engine needs, the rest of the market is divided between its competitors—and Yahoo! takes the biggest slice of this still very large pie. Thus, while SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experts rightly target Google, webmasters would be neglecting an enormous segment of the market by not also optimizing their sites for Yahoo!.
The challenge however of practicing effective SEO is that search engine providers are generally silent when it comes to discussing the specifics of the algorithms that they employ. Not only that, but these algorithms are subject to constant reprogramming, taking into account regional and cultural differences between the diverse mass of users that access search engine services, as well as seasonal factors that affect browsing habits. Yahoo! is not an exception. Although they briefly discuss their algorithm on their site, they are saying nothing that everyone already knows:
“Yahoo! Search ranks results according to their relevance to a particular query by analyzing the web page text, title and description accuracy as well as its source, associated links, and other unique document characteristics” (Source: Yahoo.com)
In the simplest terms, this means that your website will rank better depending on the quality of your content and the underlying details in the site’s programming and design. In practice, this works for the end user. When querying a keyword or key phrase in Yahoo!, the first ten results will usually yield relevant content. In fact, most search engine users seldom stray beyond an SERP’s top ten sites. For the webmaster concerned with SEO, on the other hand, this situation presents a challenge.
The most basic factor that affects your website’s Yahoo! search engine rank is, again, content. Despite the fact that a machine is working behind the scenes, Yahoo’s algorithm is designed with human needs in mind. “Relevance” in this case is measured by keywords and how they are used in your site. Practice intelligent SEO by reviewing your content and making sure that the proper and focused use of keywords are used. It has been observed that unlike Google and MSN, Yahoo! does not recognize “partial” keywords. For instance, if a user typed in “behavior modification” as his query, Yahoo! will not make a match with web pages that do not have this exact phrase. Even a website discussing Pavlov but not using that exact key phrase at least once will not be matched.
Meta tags are another often overlooked detail. While Google appears to ignore meta tags, Yahoo!’s algorithm on the other hand will rank even a blank page as long as the queried keyword is found in the tags. For webmasters curious as to why their sites show up in Google but are lost in Yahoo! SERPs, the simple lack of meta tags is sometimes the culprit. However, meta tag abuse is a technique that spammers resort to often—it is not meant to be a substitute for actual content in any situation.
Yahoo!’s algorithm favors sites with many external links—a virtual “link exchange” industry has emerged to offer new webmasters of newly published sites a way to increase the number of links on their pages and supposedly improve their page rankings on Yahoo and other search engines. However, this does not work the same way with Google’s algorithm that also considers the “weight” of the sites that link to your own—a site that ranks favorably in other search engines will carry a greater weight when linking to your site. Yahoo!’s current algorithm appears not to distinguish on an external link’s “weight” but given the margin for abuse that this presents, this may easily change in the near future.
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