How Does Yahoo Determine it's "Webrank"

Bizcut88

Mar 23rd 2004, 10:48 am

We have virtually disappeared from yahoo since they switched from google to overture with pay per inclusion. Still in the index, but rankings don't rank anywhere.

Do we have to pay the $229 to be included in the yahoo index to rank decently for our keywords? Or is it possible to do this with better SE optimization, as can be done with google?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

I have one site I never submitted to yahoo or ink and a couple days ago it started showing up #3 and 4 for a specific keyword.

So the answer is no you don't have to pay and yes SE optimization does work in helping yahoo rankings.

ViciousSummer

Mar 23rd 2004, 1:44 pm

I have one site I never submitted to yahoo or ink and a couple days ago it started showing up #3 and 4 for a specific keyword.

So the answer is no you don't have to pay and yes SE optimization does work in helping yahoo rankings.

Two of my keywords are consistantly showing up #1 & #14 in Yahoo, and I did not pay for inclusion. But, I also havn't done any SEO to this site, aside from a couple meta tags and a couple of links. Hmmm, maybe that's why I'm in the 180's in Google... :rolleyes:

compar

Mar 23rd 2004, 2:26 pm

Back to WebRank. Your palcement in the Yahoo's SERPs for any given keyword have nothing to do with their new WEbRank measure.

Again I haven't read that it works like Alexa -- you have to have the tool bar loaded.

And I would be very careful about drawing any conclusion from the relative placement of pages or site. This is only a beta version and I have found it very inconsistent from usage to usage. I've seen it rank the same site anywhere between 2 and 5. Put the same site in 3 or 4 taimes a day and see if it doesn't give you 3 or 4 different ranks.

sarahk

Mar 25th 2004, 1:44 am

Traffic huh?
Well according to my logs my sites should be ranked
* pcpropertymanager - Google PR5
* botspotter - PR5
* property coaching - PR4

but according to Shawn's tool Yahoo have them as:
* property coaching - 7
* botspotter - 6
* pcpropertymanager - 2

So, either the people testing this tool bar are right into property investing in NZ or there's something fishy going on.

compar

Mar 25th 2004, 8:37 pm

But the Yahoo tool cannot be compared to Google's PR. They are measuring two totally different things. PR is the mathematical sharing of all the PR from the pages you link to. It has got absolutely nothing to do with how often your site is visited.

The Yahoo Web Rank is all about visits. It is a pure popularity measure based on the number of visits.

There is absolutely no reason it should parallel or duplicate the PR ranking.

Foxy

Mar 27th 2004, 1:08 am

Absolutely

and as it is based on Alexa with a limited sample the factoring of the results will produce "strange" results

However I would not discount it as Yahoo obviously use it [obviously] but you will need to interpret it

candysmith

Mar 27th 2004, 1:59 pm

jeeez, how many toolbars do i have to have on my system... i thought google & Alexa was already too much, seems now I need Yahoo's one too? :(

... off to download Yahoo toolbar.....

GuyFromChicago

Mar 27th 2004, 2:12 pm

jeeez, how many toolbars do i have to have on my system... i thought google & Alexa was already too much, seems now I need Yahoo's one too? :(

... off to download Yahoo toolbar.....

You could just use Shawn's tool to check Yahoo rank rather than installing toolbar #3.

Me, no more toolbars until the digitalpoint toolbar hits the net :D

Foxy

Mar 28th 2004, 12:35 am

Yep just use Shawn's tool

tsptom

Apr 2nd 2004, 7:50 pm

GuyFromChicago

Apr 2nd 2004, 8:24 pm

My site was ranking 3 on both Google's and this new Yahoo ranking tool. I had an Overture and Google AdWords account but had some suspicious activity with Overture. I cancelled the account and now my Yahoo rank is 0 and my site will not come up at all on a basic Yahoo search.

Am I being paranoid or are they purposely "getting me back?"

thanks,
tsptalk

What do you mean by "suspicious activity"?

Might not be a bad idea to post your url in the website review section too - you can get lots of good suggestions from the users in this forum.

sarahk

Apr 2nd 2004, 10:03 pm

http://www.tsptalk.com/ ?

GuyFromChicago

Apr 3rd 2004, 7:38 am

My site was ranking 3 on both Google's and this new Yahoo ranking tool. I had an Overture and Google AdWords account but had some suspicious activity with Overture. I cancelled the account and now my Yahoo rank is 0 and my site will not come up at all on a basic Yahoo search.

Am I being paranoid or are they purposely "getting me back?"

thanks,
tsptalk

What key phrase are you targeting?

As far as your rank goes, you only have 1 site linking into yours. It has a PR 4, and that�s where your PR3 in Google is coming from.

With only 1 link & an 8 page site (indexed in Google) it will tough to be competitive on any keyword phrase with any competition what-so-ever.

nlopes

Apr 3rd 2004, 8:15 am

Yahoo ranking is strange...
digitalpoint.com has only 2 and mine website has also 2.
but PR of digitalpoint is 6, while mine is just 4.

What are the differences?

GuyFromChicago

Apr 3rd 2004, 8:42 am

I really don�t think Yahoo�s web rank has any real relevance at this point. I can�t really see any rhyme or reason as to how/why sites rank the way they do with Yahoo.

digitalpoint

Apr 3rd 2004, 10:13 am

Yahoo ranking is strange...
digitalpoint.com has only 2 and mine website has also 2.
but PR of digitalpoint is 6, while mine is just 4.

What are the differences?

digitalpoint.com has a PR7 and a WebRank of 4...

- Shawn

compar

Apr 3rd 2004, 12:24 pm

I am really having a problem with this thread for two reasons.

1. There is absoultely no relationship between Google's PR and Yahoo's Web Ranking. That has been explained earlier in this thread, but in case someone missed it, PageRank is a measure of number of links to your page and the PR of each of these links.

Yahoo Web Rank is a popularity measure based on how many people loaded your site. Exactly how Yahoo is measuring this we are not sure but Web Rank is purely a popularity measurement.

2. All that we no for sure about Yahoo Web Rank tool is that it is in early Beta and is giving very erratic and inconsistent results.

So based on this why are people trying to establish any relationship between Yahoo Web Rank and PageRank? They aren't even apples and oranges. They are more like hamburg and kumquats.

And why are people using it for anything besides idle curiosity. The damn thing is broken and the results are meaningless at this time.

There, I feel better now. That rant will probably last me all day. :eek:

tsptom

Apr 3rd 2004, 6:43 pm

What do you mean by "suspicious activity"?

Might not be a bad idea to post your url in the website review section too - you can get lots of good suggestions from the users in this forum.

As someone mentioned it is http://www.tsptalk.com. I paid Overture per click obviously, and someone set up a website called tsp.org that had links to other tsp type sites. In the first few weeks I could see in tsptalk's stats that I received over 700 clicks (with overture ID's in the links) originating from this site. I didn't think this sounded right so I contacted the owner of the site and asked what his motive was. I figured he was somehow acting as an affiliate, and he was getting paid for these clicks. He gave me a one line bogus answer and the next day the whole site was gone.

I contacted Overture to assure me that I did not pay for those clicks but I noticed that my clicks per day immediately fell by the amount I was getting from this site. So yes, I was paying for them, but Overture denied it and then they said they would pass it along to someone else, and I didn't hear from them for weeks. So I cancelled.

But anyway, before I cancelled, I was getting a 3 on Yahoo rank (as I am on google's rank) but after I cancelled, I get a zero.

And, on the normal Yahoo search, I have been removed. If you type in "tsptalk" you get some of the domain names I point to tsptalk.com, but tsptalk.com no longer comes up. Sounds deliberate.

Thanks.
Tom

tsptom

Apr 3rd 2004, 6:48 pm

What key phrase are you targeting?

As far as your rank goes, you only have 1 site linking into yours. It has a PR 4, and that�s where your PR3 in Google is coming from.

With only 1 link & an 8 page site (indexed in Google) it will tough to be competitive on any keyword phrase with any competition what-so-ever.

Even though the site traffic has exeeded my expectaion in it's first 2+ months, I know I have to work on my optimization. I will look around on DP for suggestions. My biggest concern had to do with Yahoo just completely taking me out of their search because I cancelled Overture and immediately dropped the Yahoo Web Rank from 3 to 0. (Not that I care about that web rank right now, just their ability to do that).

Thanks for your input.
Tom

Foxy

Apr 4th 2004, 12:27 am

Hi tsp - you should take your title

TSP Talk - Thrift Savings Plan Strategies

if that is what is correct [that is do people search on that phrase? Or do they search on TSP?] and then in the very first piece of navigation put it in H1s and then in the first piece of text do it again. "Home" won't do much for you - are you selling home? No, your selling tsp.

After that you can continue with the linkig strategy which basically means anchor text using the title,H1 and first piece of text.

Do that and you shouldn't need to pay away to those people who are skinning you and you could end up being a happier bunny :)

tsptom

Apr 4th 2004, 6:25 pm

Interesting. I'm still learning this optimization stuff. I appreciate the input. I made some quick changes for now. I'm not sure I know what you meant by H1, is that part of the header?

But even if I optimize my site for the search engines, can Yahoo turn me off as they appear to have done, because I cancelled my Overture account?

Thanks!

Foxy

Apr 5th 2004, 12:53 am

H1 is the first category of header and you will probably find that it raises size issues but if you have H1 in an anchor [eg navigation] it certainly gives credibility to the keyword if you follow the above.

But even if I optimize my site for the search engines, can Yahoo turn me off as they appear to have done, because I cancelled my Overture account?

Of course they can - its their car isn't it?

However if they have penalised you it depends on how mad you got at the time as to how long you will stay in the wilderness!

If you were to change your site quite a lot taking in the above you may find that it will come back sooner

tsptom

Apr 6th 2004, 6:16 am

Hi tsp - you should take your title

TSP Talk - Thrift Savings Plan Strategies

if that is what is correct [that is do people search on that phrase? Or do they search on TSP?] and then in the very first piece of navigation put it in H1s and then in the first piece of text do it again. "Home" won't do much for you - are you selling home? No, your selling tsp.

So this title should contain the search information rather than a real title? I assumed since it was what someone sees when they add the site to their favorites that it should contain the site's name. Is that wrong thinking? So when someone adds tsptalk.com to their favorites, it shows up as "TSP Talk - Thrift Savings Plan Strategies." But you're saying that I would be better off putting just "Thrift Savings Plan" or "TSP" only? Less discriptive but better for the search?

You've been a lot of help, Thanks!

Foxy

Apr 6th 2004, 7:03 am

Thats the way forward

For an example search on "timber top" and look at the first 10
then search on "timber top cabins" and do the same and you will find us at no 2 because of the title/H1/Text and the original anchor text to the listing which made it there in just 4 days.

This site I am experimenting with and you will notice that it was cached yesterday and that is different to todays page - but only a small bit different

awall19

Apr 8th 2004, 8:53 pm

from Danny Sullivan's article
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/3334891
"Where do the scores come from? Yahoo's help pages say the value is calculated by anonymously monitoring what people visit. So if many toolbar users visit particular sites, that might be a factor in helping the sites get a better Web Rank score.

But hold on! When I asked Yahoo earlier this month, I was told that the score is instead determined by Yahoo's search algorithm. That means visits to a site are not counted to create Web Rank. Instead, it's apparently link popularity based, as with Google's PageRank. Unfortunately, Yahoo hasn't yet corrected its help pages to reflect this."

GuyFromChicago

Apr 8th 2004, 10:55 pm

Instead, it's apparently link popularity based, as with Google's PageRank. Unfortunately, Yahoo hasn't yet corrected its help pages to reflect this."

I personally think Yahoo is still tweaking - I still some some pretty dramatic shifts in their serps from day to day.

compar

Apr 19th 2004, 6:18 pm

I personally think Yahoo is still tweaking - I still some some pretty dramatic shifts in their serps from day to day.

Read the article I posted in this thread http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=366. In it the Yahoo guy talks constantly about connectivity. The interviewer never asks him what that is, but I think it is Yahoo code word for popularity based on the number of click throughs from their SERPs.

It would be very simple for them to keep a record of the total number of time any site is chosen from one of their search results. They don't need a toolbar or any other means, just record the sites that are selected from any search. That would be pure popularity.

If they wanted to keep popularity by topic or theme then they would need to also keep a cross reference of the keywords used in the searches that these site were chosen from.

I believe this second measure will probably play a large part in their SERPs. Whereas Google looks to backlink for "votes" for a page I think Yahoo is going to look at the number of time a site is selected from their SERPs as a "vote" for the page.

This of course tends to be a self fulfilling situation. A site will get more clicks -- votes -- if it is in first place and then it will stay in first place because it has the most clicks.

GuyFromChicago

Apr 19th 2004, 7:55 pm

Read the article I posted in this thread http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=366. In it the Yahoo guy talks constantly about connectivity. The interviewer never asks him what that is, but I think it is Yahoo code word for popularity based on the number of click throughs from their SERPs.

It would be very simple for them to keep a record of the total number of time any site is chosen from one of their search results. They don't need a toolbar or any other means, just record the sites that are selected from any search. That would be pure popularity.

If they wanted to keep popularity by topic or theme then they would need to also keep a cross reference of the keywords used in the searches that these site were chosen from.

I believe this second measure will probably play a large part in their SERPs. Whereas Google looks to backlink for "votes" for a page I think Yahoo is going to look at the number of time a site is selected from their SERPs as a "vote" for the page.

Thsi of course tends to be a self fulfilling situation. A site will get more clicks -- votes -- if it is in first place and then it will stay in first place because it has the most clicks.

That's an interesting theory. You have to wonder where they would "start from" if it's accurate.

compar

Apr 19th 2004, 8:29 pm

I'm not saying this is the only measure. Again the Yahoo guy in the interview talked about the progress of the search algo. So they may be using primarily links and content today, but there is little doubt they will be moving to include popularity. Popularity and the Yahoo Web RanK is for them what PageRank was/is to Google.

As to where to start, they can start anywhere. They could use Alexa numbers to start with. Maybe they have some data from when they used Google. They could have minded data from their own directory. If you paid for submission in Inktomi you could get this kind of data for your own site. There are all kinds of places they could use for a starting point.

mcdar

Apr 20th 2004, 8:40 am

Bob,

The "new page" we have been experimenting with (http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=256) just showed up in the #3 position in a search on Yahoo for sleeping bags this morning!

Up until this morning, I could only get it to come up in Yahoo! by searching for sleeping bags mcdar. I NEVER clicked on it when I did force it to come up so, I never "voted" for the page.

Yahoo is certainly a mystery to me!

Caryl

compar

Apr 20th 2004, 9:02 am

Bob,

The "new page" we have been experimenting with (http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=256) just showed up in the #3 position in a search on Yahoo for sleeping bags this morning!
Caryl

If anyone is interested in my response to this information you will find it here http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=2859&postcount=194.

arounddelhi

Apr 27th 2004, 5:04 am

Why is the yahoo rank more stable than Google,is it cos it is a directory based SE.
Rarkesh Anand
www.arounddelhi.com

GuyFromChicago

Apr 27th 2004, 9:22 am

Why is the yahoo rank more stable than Google,is it cos it is a directory based SE.
Rarkesh Anand
www.arounddelhi.com

The Yahoo rank is not as stable as Google's PR. Not even close.

Owlcroft

Apr 27th 2004, 10:18 pm

The Yahoo rank is not as stable as Google's PR. Not even close.
I would be cautious about such sweeping statements.

I can tell you that for many weeks now the ranks, under a couple of search terms, of one of my sites have been practically painted onto Yahoo's responses (at, in one case, #18), while during that same time Google has had that term show me at from #53 to #21 (and not in a steady procession, either).

So if some sites are yo-yo'ing on Yahoo (which I assume from your remark that you have seen), many others are not, not at all. So I don't think any general statement on Yahoo's stability is possible at this time.

GuyFromChicago

Apr 28th 2004, 7:54 am

I would be cautious about such sweeping statements.

I can tell you that for many weeks now the ranks, under a couple of search terms, of one of my sites have been practically painted onto Yahoo's responses (at, in one case, #18), while during that same time Google has had that term show me at from #53 to #21 (and not in a steady procession, either).

So if some sites are yo-yo'ing on Yahoo (which I assume from your remark that you have seen), many others are not, not at all. So I don't think any general statement on Yahoo's stability is possible at this time.

I was referencing Yahoo's webrank, not its serp results. I think its serps are solid...or stagnant...whichever term you prefer:D

Owlcroft

Apr 28th 2004, 1:25 pm

I was referencing Yahoo's webrank, not its serp results. I think its serps are solid...or stagnant...whichever term you prefer.
Right. But does not the stability of the SERPs imply that the actual webranks are more stable than they seem? That is, that the instability is in their reporting, rather than in the things themselves? If webrank were truly bouncing all over, would we not expect to see at least some material SERP movement to correspond?

Whether Yahoo's ratings are "stable" or "stagnant" is an interesting question. I suppose that time will tell.

GuyFromChicago

Apr 28th 2004, 1:50 pm

Right. But does not the stability of the SERPs imply that the actual webranks are more stable than they seem? That is, that the instability is in their reporting, rather than in the things themselves? If webrank were truly bouncing all over, would we not expect to see at least some material SERP movement to correspond?

Whether Yahoo's ratings are "stable" or "stagnant" is an interesting question. I suppose that time will tell.

I don't think Yahoo's webrank has anything to do with it's serps.

compar

Apr 28th 2004, 3:19 pm

That is, that the instability is in their reporting, rather than in the things themselves? If webrank were truly bouncing all over, would we not expect to see at least some material SERP movement to correspond?
That's a gigantic leap in logic. It is akin to your argument about the importance of Google's PR. What makes you think for one moment that there is a direct one-to-one relationship between Yahoo's WebRank and their SERP placement?

To start with WebRank is a brand new tools that is only in beta. It is inconsistent as hell. The results are all over the place. You can test the same site 5 times in a row and get five different answers. And again there is no search term associated with it. So what does it have directly to do with a search for a specific topic.

In addition to that it appears to measure the "webrank" of domains not pages. The SERPs return pages.

Just because the SEs give us toys to play with is absolutely no guarantee that they are using the output of these toys are a major determinant of SERP placement.

Owlcroft

Apr 29th 2004, 11:43 pm

That's a gigantic leap in logic. It is akin to your argument about the importance of Google's PR. What makes you think for one moment that there is a direct one-to-one relationship between Yahoo's WebRank and their SERP placement?
What makes you think I said there was a "one-to-one" relationship?

What I have said before, and of which I have yet to see anyone set forth a reasoned denial, is that PR--or "WR"--must have some non-trivial significance and weighting value toward the computation of SERP. To say that "the SEs give us toys to play with" is to imply that the sole or dominant reason for PR's and WR's existance is that webmasters may drool over them; I, at least, do not believe that major for-profit corporations amuse themselves by creating essentially useless toys. If they are calculating them, they are doing so for a purpose.

To start with WebRank is a brand new tools that is only in beta. It is inconsistent as hell. The results are all over the place. You can test the same site 5 times in a row and get five different answers. And again there is no search term associated with it. So what does it have directly to do with a search for a specific topic.
Well, we know they're "all over the place". The real questions is whether or not the they we seem to see are in fact the they that Yahoo is using internally. That their method of reporting the WRs may give goofy replies does not assure us that the WRs themselves are correspondingly goofy.

In addition to that it appears to measure the "webrank" of domains not pages. The SERPs return pages.
That second assertion is assuredly so; I am unclear what the basis for the first is. Not, mind, that there is a problem with assigning a WR to a domain rather than a particular page: I have to think that through, but my gut reaction is that it is actually smarter than using a by-page basis. (It is smarter on the assumption that WR is used, as I hypothesize PR is, to weight the significance of backlinks; it seems to me--at first glance, anyway--that it makes sense to assign "significance" to a backlink on the overall strength of the site, which is to say the judgement of webmaster thereof, than on the particular site page on which she happened to place the link.)