How Does Yahoo Determine it's "Webrank"

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.

 

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

 

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

 

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!

 

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.

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

 

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!

 

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

 

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."

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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

 

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.

 

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.

 

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