Why do I get almost no hits from Yahoo?

[gary99]

I'm not complaining, really. I've got several fairly new web sites which are getting some reasonable traffic from Google and MSN. I'm just wondering why I get next to nothing from Yahoo. Everything I've read seems to indicate that most people will get traffic from Yahoo long before Google picks them up at all. Here are some referral stats from the last month:

- Google: 458
- MSN: 411
- Ask Jeeves: 105
- AOL: 15
- Dogpile: 5
- Yahoo: 4

As I said I'm pretty happy with Google delivering the most hits. Just curious what Google and MSN might like that Yahoo would not. Any clues?

Thanks!
Gary

[smindsrt]

You know there is a defiant trend the last few weeks.... people complaining that they are getting little to no traffic from Yahoo. I even read a post on another board about how a guy was #2 for a decent KW in Yahoo but got no traffic. :eek:

I wrote a small article on blog about position and how it effects traffic in MSN & Yahoo.... interesting stuff.

Has anyone thought that MSN & Google might be pulling in more of the searches lately???

[sji2671]

One of my sites is
#14 out of 92 million
#1 out of 5.4 million

The above is for yahoo and the keywords are mainstream products, jewellery/jewelry related and the traffic has been under 50 per day,gobsmackingly poor for the positions it holds.

[rmccarley]

I get tons of traffic from Google. MSN sends me quite a bit. Yahoo has been dropping out accross all (6) sites over the last couple months. Right now they are barely sending more than Ask.

[gary99]

So this means one of two things:

- No one is using Yahoo anymore, or
- People are using Yahoo but most of them are only clicking sponsored listings

I find both of those hard to believe. Even though Yahoo's inline sponsored results are pretty well disguised.

Interesting...

[SportsOutlaw]

I am finding myself in the same boat now.

After the jagger update, my google rankings crashed and burned. They are all now in the process of climbing back up to where they were ( still not all there yet), but during that time, I was getting loads of traffic still from yahoo, as I always had been. In the past week or two though, my rankings have dropped to non existance for all but one keyword phrase in yahoo.

Not sure what is up with yahoo, but it concerns me.

[Test-ok]

I think Yahoo is after the $. PPC
then you'll get some hits.

[mnemtsas]

I think Yahoo is after the $. PPC
then you'll get some hits.
Conspiracy theory idiocy.:mad:


My traffic from Yahoo has dropped from 50-100 referrals per day to <10. Most of my rankings have tanked. On the back of jagger wiping me out on Google this just takes the cake. Someone kill me now.

[rmccarley]

I think someone is getting a great laugh out of all of this. I mean, where is all of that traffic going? It does have to go *somewhere* right?

[SendBlast]

For hits, you really need to be in Google, yahoo is losing its search niche

[Kerry]

- No one is using Yahoo anymore
I lean toward this theory.

[gary99]

Yeah I'm wondering if that's it. Anyone know what the latest figures are on Yahoo's search traffic? I haven't used Yahoo to search for anything since maybe 1999 or so. :)

[Test-ok]

you really need to be in Google, yahoo is losing its search niche
I agree :)

[Olney]

Something change recently but the question is what?
A lot of sites suddenly dropped out. Maybe they are rotating results because when my site went #2 for a prime keyword other sites were gone now a few of them are back & my site is gone.

I sort of think someone is taking cash to wipe out competitors. I know it sounds like a conspiracy...

[jfontestad]

I'm starting to see a lot of traffic from MSn and some from google.... Yahoo used to be my #1 source as i was number 1 there for my keyword... but now within the past week they've completely booted me from the top 100 for that keyword...

[mnemtsas]

Of you who are being dropped by Yahoo, what % of incoming links would you estimate come from the DP Coop if you use it?

[gary99]

Just another stat to throw into the mix. Here are my crawler hits in the last two days on one of my sites:

GoogleBot: 71
MSNBot: 37
Slurp (yahoo): 6

Seems even a month ago Yahoo was slurping my sites much more frequently than this.

[DarrenC]

My ranking in Yahoo is awesome, but I get VERY little traffic. I used to get 15% of traffic referred from them, now it's 8% - no change in rankings. I get more traffic from Alta Vista than I do Yahoo!

[Web Gazelle]

I agree Yahooo is losing ground and MSN is sure to pass them up. Right now they do give decent traffic.

[catwomaseven]

I am trying hard to get crawled on yahoo, but what is the ISP? or what do they call it there yahoobot? crawl.yahoo?
I have MSN, and google down but yahoo has me stumped....

Thank you.. I would start my own post on this but unsure how to so this... This is my first time here.

Thank you!!

[catwomaseven]

I'm starting to see a lot of traffic from MSn and some from google.... Yahoo used to be my #1 source as i was number 1 there for my keyword... but now within the past week they've completely booted me from the top 100 for that keyword...

Me tooo I dont get it! I was # 1 in yahoo now, I cant been seen in yahoo but am #1 in google for my keywords... not complaining on the google side but I need and miss my yahoo traffic!!

[rmccarley]

I am trying hard to get crawled on yahoo, but what is the ISP? or what do they call it there yahoobot? crawl.yahoo?
I have MSN, and google down but yahoo has me stumped....Y!'s bot is Inktomi Slurp. And this may help you get crawled/indexed faster: http://www.14thc.com/get-indexed-fast.html ;)

[catwomaseven]

Y!'s bot is Inktomi Slurp. And this may help you get crawled/indexed faster: [ ;)

So I dont get it, why is Yahoo being so odd...

Years ago, it was hard to understand googles way, not it yahoo...

anyother adive for me?

[rmccarley]

Y! has been all over the map since they expanded their DB. Suddenly they had tons of irrelevant pages in the index - including pages that had been deleted years prior. Trying to balance this influx with relevant sites seems to be more than Y! was prepared to do. Since then they have done a few minor updates and one that actually caused a blip on my screen - but it was right in the middle of G's Jagger mess so it went largely unnoticed. But since that one I've noticed significant drops in traffic and seen many posts describing the same.

The problem here is two-fold: 1.) A loss of position. With the influx of pages Y! needed to prove theirs was bigger (which it wasn't and it didn't last long anyway) many quality sites got sqeezed out. 2.) A loss of traffic. Somehoe even sites that have maintained their positions (like mine) still aren't seeing the traffic they used to. I have "top 10" KWs that used to send me lots of visits. Now it's barely a trickle.

So the question is, where is that traffic going?

Side note/speculation: I really think Y! is seeing the writing on the wall. A lot of their PR moves seem desperate (like expanding the DB and doing an update in the midst of a G update). There's a "me too!" mentality about them. I'm also hearing of them pushing ad sales more, including calling web masters about their programs! This is almost shocking behaviour for an Internet company. It really makes me think they are positioning themselves for a buyout. MSN would be wise to snatch them up. It would put MSN within real competitive distance of G. On the other hand, if G grabbed up Y!, MSN would be that much further behind. Either way, the execs at Y! would make a mint. I think we'll have to wait and see until after the AOL sale goes through to find out if this is what they are up to. I'm sure someone at Y! is watching this process with great interest.

[frenchmen77]

I thought it was just me, I'v seen a drop in Y! traffic lately, I was going to post a new topic - for one of my keywords I'm #5 on google, #4 on msn, and not even in the top 100 in yahoo. Its like that for most of my keywords but wasn't a few months ago. If you look at the alexa rank Y! is still #1 but looks like its starting to drop...

[ketanshah]

Hi

The ratio of Google Vs Yahoo leads to your site should be usualy 4:1

Your's is too low and it has to do with the way both rank pages.

[hdpt00]

I was #1 for a huge keyword, very money, and brought in less than 100 per day. If I hadn't been banned from google right before my time to come out of the sandbox I imagine the same ranking would bring in 2,000 per day.

I've slipped to #6 in yahoo for that money term, barely brining in anything now.

[texisman]

I've been getting most of my traffic through google although I can type a keyword in there search and can't find my site untill page 4 or 5. I usually get 1,2, or 3 in MSN and I don't know what's up with yahoo. I get some results from them but can't ever find my site in the top pages at yahoo.

[PlanetAndrea]

yeah same here, 95% of my searches come from msn, and maybe 2% from google....sucks butt

[apblake]

I agree that something is going on with Yahoo, but people are definitely still using Yahoo. For the month of October Yahoo officially received more than 30% of search traffic (according to reports generated for the investment community). They weren't far behind Google, but I find these stats a little hard to believe. Anyway, clearly the number of searches in Yahoo did not drop in a matter of a month, so the reason for the drop in traffic must be explained some other way.

[DevilfruiT]

I agree that plenty of people still use Yahoo. My Yahoo traffic is still higher than MSN's (most days anyways), and I have #1 spots for both. This is despite Yahoo using their directory title for my site.

[hans]

in my experience G vs Y - Y has very different SERPS for particular tops or industries

a recent site i cared for - in hotel industry - has permanently more traffic from Y than from G
while my own site is in the range of

0.22% Yahoo!
4.87% Google

in addition
these past few weeks slurp drastically reduced its activity to a fraction what it used to be for long
early year until few weeks back slurp was equal or more actively indexing my site than G
while now since a few weeks slurp is back to what it was before spring this year

while in most search terms the SERPS between G and Y are almost identical
Y seems to have certain topics or industrial groups of sites/topics where keywords ranking 1 or top 10 in G simply are nowhere in Y

which lets me assume that Y may have different algos or may be filters for different industries
which of course may make sense
remembering the years of Y charging substantial amounts for directory entries to certain topic categories
may be they still "protect" those who paid the 199 or 299 annual fee for directory entries and keep the free market out of such SERPS ??

otherwise Y certainly has its unique power
in RSS for example it takes but minutes or less than an hour for a feed to appear in Y NEWS search results - beta blog box on the right of the news search result page on Y

Yahoo's power in RSS and Blog technology (http://www.kriyayoga.com/love_blog/post.php/564)

that above example was exceeded a day ago when I saw a new RSS post within less than an hour after sending the RSS-ping to Y

hence i assume Y and G can only partially compare - both have unique users that give totally different results depending on the market a site is

[Web Gazelle]

I noticed a drop in Slurp activity. Is it going into hibernation? :D

[gary99]

I've got a tech blog I started maybe 3 weeks ago. This month, I've had the following search engine hits:

Google: 326
MSN: 41
Yahoo: 0

I've been "slurped" 62 times this month (427 hits from GoogleBot, however). Guess they just don't like me. Yahoo must be doing something majorly different.

[hans]

Yahoo LOVES your blog - all blogs and RSS feeds
but may be you did never loved Yahoo
OR
do you PING Yahoo whenever you have new posts in your blog ??
or a new RSS post

PING Yahoo

after a ping for blog or RSS - it usually takes less than a minute for the yahoo bot "YahooFeedSeeker" to be on your site ...

see Yahoo for more information for publishers

http://publisher.yahoo.com/rssguide

the ping API URL for the blog is the same at Yahoo as for your RSS feed
just replace the RSS URL with your blog-URL

[rmccarley]

I don't know...

Yahoo is on my site 2-3 times per day. But I get almost no traffic from them, even on terms that I have "top 10" SERPs in.

It's strange behaviour.

[Web Gazelle]

It is a sign that Yahoo is losing market share. :p

[escante]

It depends on your on the topic of your website.

[cooper99]

I have a good rankings on some competitive keywords in Yahoo yet very little traffic as well. Less than 10% of my traffic is coming from Yahoo.