What are the differences in characteristics Yahoo looks for as opposed to Google when ranking sites? Title ? Descriptions? Links? Content? Etc.
I think the biggest differences are (from what i notice in my niche) google focuses more on links and trust, yahoo focuses more on content ex. keywords In my niche websites that have been around since 1994 and have virtually no content, are always in first place on google usually and in yahoo those same websites are no where to be found. In the websites spot are websites with content + links. In my niche google does not give too cares for content.
If you can make your website, one of the best for some keywords with huge competitions (xx.xxx.xxx.xxx) you will be also in the first pages of all the other search engines. And my first role, for any SEO, content content content. You can be at the first page and with only 2 page rank, don't target only for links, focus to content.
I think yahoo is more on on-page optimization more on density while Google is on link building and content of the page.
both google and yahoo like age, google likes backlinks with keywords in where as yahoo tends to prefer keyword rich content
There are a lot threads talking about differences between Yahoo and Google. In a nutshell, Yahoo focus more on onpage than Google does, and when it comes to backlinks, Yahoo does value the quantity as opposed to quality, which is something you should optimize for Google. In my SEO blog, i talked about SEO for Yahoo and for Google, you can refer to my sig
Like already mentioned above, Yahoo cares about domain age. A new site won't receive much traffic from Yahoo in the beginning.
I have a 6 year old domain with a page rank 6 and yahoo give me no traffic. They are so slow when it comes to update metadata. Anyone know how to get a fresh yahoo index?
I don't think anybody knows for sure. Title, content and backlinks are very important for SEO purposes for all search engines. Google takes a lot at the website description. Not sure that Yahoo does.
I doubt anyone knows exactly how Yahoo works, and very few people really care since Google's the search engine to succeed in. I'm sure that Yahoo is more primitive though. I'm sure it relies on the website's content, titles, and meta tags.
Here is here you fail as a webmaster. You do not understand search engines at all if you think this. Google is NOT the number 1 engine in the world. If it is Number 1 where you are from, do not extrapolate this to the rest of Earth. Millions of people use Yahoo around the world. It would be idiotic not to try and get them onto your website. Due to the Google Sandbox and subsequent getting out of it for a few site, I have come to the conclusion that Yahoo visitors click on Ads much more than the Google visitors do. This is based on Volume traffic vs income throughout a years time period. I am not the only one who has this opinion of Yahoo users clicking on ads more than Google visitors - do a search on DP. As a webmaster, the last thing you want is for one search engine to be so dominant that you only need to cater for it. Basically put, it would be you vs the rest of the webmasters and probability would be against you getting visitors SERPs-wise. Stop thinking like a web user and more like a webmaster.
These are my thumb rules for the three mighty ones! 1. Google likes relevancy with the Title, meta description, and the opening text on the homepage or whatever page, link power and loves social bookmarks and press release type stuff on your site. 2. Yahoo likes domain age, quality content, and pages indexed, and a full meta set up, and TONS of links from other sites. 3. MSN likes the Title, POWER PR Links, and social bookmarks, and of course, tons of links! Go ahead everybody and chew me up but thats what I see in my EVERYDAY SEO travels!!
If google keeps going on the way it has, I can see things shifting more in Yahoo's favor (Yahoo is already rated the top site in the world...) It would be foolish not to notice how 80% of the hits my websites get are from Google, and a small fraction of the rest of the pie is from Yahoo. I'm sure I'm not the only one, and I think that's why some people here have said that about Google. I just don't see that staying this way for many more years.
I agree. Google is very link orientated. Yahoo is very content orientated and places a lot of weight on your title tag. However if you can rank well in google you will be doing pretty good in yahoo and msn but it doesnt nessasarily work the other way.