The article provides a comprehensive guide on how to achieve a prominent listing on Yahoo. It delves into the changes in Yahoo's search result delivery system and the implications for internet marketers. The article also offers key strategies for ranking high on the new Yahoo, including the importance of keyword presence and primacy in your URL, title, and description. It also highlights the significance of understanding what you are selling and what is being searched in your category.
While analyzing the traffic report for one of our websites, I noticed a significant drop in traffic. Upon further investigation, I found that the change had occurred on Yahoo. The familiar Yahoo search ranking page, where our site was previously ranked #1, had been replaced by a standard, non-categorized search listing, similar to most other search engines. Our site was no longer at the top of the list.
Yahoo has revamped its search result delivery system. Instead of displaying a page of categories in response to a search, it now shows a few one-line category links followed by a list of sites that rank well against the search term.
This change in Yahoo's search result delivery system has likely affected your site's ranking on Yahoo. Your site might be in a better position now, or it might not appear in the listing at all, especially if your success was previously based on an alphabetically-prominent company name.
Furthermore, this change signifies another shift in the search engine battleground. Yahoo currently accounts for about half of all internet searches. My prediction, which I believe aligns with Yahoo's aspirations, is that this change will make information easier to find, thereby increasing Yahoo's popularity, market share, and the number of searches conducted through Yahoo.
The formula for achieving a high ranking on Yahoo used to be straightforward. However, with the recent changes, the formula is less obvious and may change frequently, similar to most other search engines. Despite this, it's clear that Yahoo will consider several factors when determining search rankings. Here are some key strategies to consider when registering new sites:
Presence in their database: If you're not listed in their database, they won't list you. If you haven't done so already, it's time to invest the $299 to get your site listed. It's an investment you can't afford to skip.
Keyword presence in your URL, Yahoo title, and Yahoo description: Yahoo doesn't seem to rank search results based on the page content of your site. Instead, it ranks based on the information in the title, description, and URL listed in their database for your site. Therefore, it's crucial to include the keyword that people will most likely use to find you in your URL, company name, and the beginning of your site's description in their database.
Keyword primacy in your URL, Yahoo title, and Yahoo description: Yahoo gives more weight to words at the beginning of terms than the same word later in your description. Therefore, it's important to place your keyword at the start of your description.
Other factors: Yahoo applies certain weights to certain site criteria and changes these weightings frequently. Some of these factors include placement in Yahoo's categories, preference for hyphenated URLs, penalization for sites with numbers or early-in-the-alphabet letters before the keyword, and no differentiation between .com's, .net's, .org's, etc.
There are a few key issues at Yahoo that remain unclear:
There's no evidence of popularity or link popularity affecting rankings. However, since Yahoo is tracking click-throughs, it wouldn't be surprising if popularity starts to influence rankings in the future.
Yahoo has significantly decreased the value given to sponsored sites by diverting a large portion of their search traffic from the category pages to their search pages. This could result in a significant loss in sponsorship revenues if Yahoo doesn't find a way to include sponsored links on the search results pages in addition to their category pages.
Understanding these changes is crucial for internet marketers. Not only will they likely result in additional traffic to Yahoo, but for those who understand these changes, it can yield significant benefits in terms of increased traffic, sales, and profits.
