The title says it all. Is there any basic thing that anyone knows of that would cause a site to rank extremely well in Google, pretty good in MSN, but horribly in Yahoo? And the site is indexed in Yahoo, that was the first thing I checked. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Anyone else have this problem ever? Did you figure out why and then fix it successfully? If yes, then how'd you do it?
I have the same problem as yours. I rank #1 in google but no where in msn n yahoo.. the main reason i think is i have keywords in URL which helps to boost rankings in google listing... but not sure about yahoo n MSN i think Yahoo has aging factor that can cause this problem..
I've read that Yahoo penalize sites which have affiliate links. They are prepared probably for some types of affiliate links and if they spot it - you got penalties. I haven't heard of Google and MSN doing it.
Thanks for the replies - although neither are the case for this client's particluar situation - it's an old site (and keywords in the url would not make or break entire rankings), and it doesn't have affiliates. Any other ideas?
I have the same problem, good Yahoo and MSN rankings, bad Yahoo rankings. I have been wondering if it was caused by my lowering my keyword density in an attempt to make the pages more Google friendly. It's also not across the board with Yahoo, I do well with some really important keywords, but have been slipping with others.
That is the same thing that is happening withe the site I am talking about. Yahoo DOES rank about 5 big keyword phrases decent (as opposed to hundreds for Google). If 3 of us here have this problem, then there must be a solution . . .
I get that alot too, some people boast that Y! likes their new sites... but I've found that Yahoo seems to be even more biased to old domains than Google is.
Thinking about his more, I rank okay with phrases that have been used in external links to my site, in Yahoo. Also, the site I am talking about has no affiliate links or adsense ads, it is an ecommerce site. I'm beginning to wonder if it is hard to rank highly on more than a few phrases with Yahoo anymore.
I don't think Y likes good page structure. What I mean by this is having an <h1> that matches the page's <title>. I think a page is hit even harder if the url contains the same term in it, and this is comppunded further if the anchor text matches. Thus a menu item California Oranges Pointing to a url: examplesite.com/oranges/california.htm (or worse, examplesite.com/california-oranges.htm) with a title tag and h1 reading: California Oranges will simply not rank well. Organizationally (from the perspective of the designer) and structurally, it makes perfect sense, but Y seems to think it is too spammy.
That is very intersting willybfriendly - that is exactly how this site is structured. Just as a test, I am going to create a oage that would be liked by Y based on your response above. I'll let you know how it goes - thanks for the response.
Yes. If you actually search for California Oranges on Y you will see www.californiaoranges.com as #1. I don't see any "California Oranges" internal anchor text. There is anchor text for "California Pistachios", but the same site is nowhere in the top 20 for that term. California Oranges returns 1,440,000 results. California Pistachios returns 180,000 results. One might suspect that it would be easier to rank for the pistachio query.
Does this imply that Yahoo cares what other people say your site contains as opposed to what YOU say your site contains? If so, then that is easy to abuse, err, umm, I mean take appropriate advantage of as well!
Perhaps easier to take advantage of in many ways... FWIW I lost several top 3 rankings in Y 6 months or so ago. It never had a noticable effect on my traffic. So, I don't particlularly worry about Y anymore. If I rank, great, if I don't, oh well...
I believe Yahoo does rank websites according to it's criteria. I would suggest buying a link from one of these sites. I saw once a yahoo rank tool somewhere.
Same has been happening to me for the first year our site was live- great Google, not a bean from Yahoo. It is now getting a few Yahoo refferals but nowhere near Google, I wish I new why too :-(
I wouldn't say that's necessarily true. All my pages are structured that way, yet my Y! rankings always fall behind MSN. I think MSN looks at this more.
Yes, there are always exceptions, aren't there. We probably need to look at things like age of page/site, IBL's, off-site anchor text, etc. That however does not negate the above observations.
Google is usually a bit more link-biased than the other two search engines it seems. MSN is very much keywords in the title, url, and header tags. Yahoo likes the keyword closer to the front of your title, url, and header tags. Putting a title as "California Orages - ACME Orange Shop" would probably rank better for California Oranges than a title with "ACME Orange Shop - California Oranges" would. If you are ever wondering why your site isn't ranking as well as other sites, just check out your competition and see what they are doing that you aren't. The odds are that they might have more backlinks, better onsite SEO, and possibly more relevant content.
I have the opposite problem. I am no1 in yahoo for "define work measurement in work study yet not even in first 3 pages for that keyword in Google or MSN. Any one know the reason why?
I am ranked high on google, and can get a site ranked high very quickly on msn, but with yahoo, it seems total # of links (regardless of relevance) wins the cake. I dont do link farms, 3 way linking games etc, so my competition is winning with yahoo. He who has the most links on yahoo, for at least my keyword sets and phrases, wins..