Yeah I too think Yahoo must have done something a few weeks ago that improved the results. I have alot of honestly great content and well-linked sites that ranked very well in Google and *should* rank that well. Fortunately none of them are in intensely competitive markets otherwise I'd have zero time on my hands. Anyhow they've just recently started ranking well in Yahoo. I think Yahoo just takes a little longer to rank good sites well than does Google - which is almost counter-intuitive given Google's preference for links and such. Maybe Yahoo also has some sort of time filters or benefits that take the elapsing of time to realize...
The article says that MSN and Google have taken "Some" mind share but doesn't offer any percentages. For all we know they might have gone from "squat" to "squat-and-a-half".
All of these pro-Yahoo posts basically say "Yahoo is better because I can manipulate their results more easily". Does that make a search engine better?
Agreed, Yahoo IS lame at the moment. Perhaps they can rank the page they have in their index well enough, but they simply don't have enough pages indexed.. and my referrals from them reflect that. Yesterday's stats: Google: 9,378 visits Yahoo: 343 visits MSN: 144 visits And it is mainly down to the fact that Yahoo hasn't managed to index the bulk of our site's pages. Basically, if a search engine can't even find all the relevant results, how can it possibly decide which page is MOST relevant? It's lame, I agree 100%
daamsie, it is not the number of pages indexed, but the amount of users that use the search engine, you could have everything on earth scanned and indexed but if no one is using the search engine what good is it? Google has a lot of stuff indexed and is faster in spidering, but are the results relevant past the first page? Yahoo needs more users and they have screwed up by not promoting Alta Vista and All the Web as separate brands.
No, it is definitely the amount of pages indexed.. on terms that rank equally, we get about a fifth from yahoo compared to google. And for the pages indexed, we seem to rank just as well on either engine. But compare this: Google: 122,000 pages indexed Yahoo: 2590 pages indexed You must admit, that's a pretty large difference!! Back when Yahoo! was using Google results we were getting about a fifth of the traffic from them.. And as for the results. I really don't see the problem with Google results. More often than not, I find exactly what I want without much trouble on there at all.
So you are saying the more pages indexed the more hits you are getting because much more content is available. But what I am saying is, even if a billion pages are scanned and indexed, if no users search on the engine what good is it? Alta Vista has a lot of stuff indexed but no one uses it anymore. If I print a million newspapers and sell ten of them what good are those million papers when only 10 of them are being used? Do you get my drift? Yahoo just does not have enough users is my point. PS: I am going to get VS back one day for saying Yahoo is lame, you too Daamsie...........
yahoo! has been lame for a year ... I like to think they re laying low and are ready to surprise us with something great
Yahoo is King! Every KW I optimise for, I'm on the first page ... unfortunately though they don't give me much traffic lol
Yahoo has different demographics than Google. IMO, the Yahoo & MSN searcher base is mostly a B2C audience. Google drives ~90% of the B2B searches that I see for my sites that are comparably ranked across all 3 engines.
daamsie mentions that more users search on Google because of more indexed pages, this could be true as I have found that Google is the fastest gun in the west as far as spidering and indexing current and new pages. You can sometimes post here on DP and see that post indexed the next day on Google, where on Yahoo it may not appear for weeks. That does not mean that results past the first 30 or 40 are relevant, G can do as they wish with those results to benefit the bottom line. I still believe that Yahoo will catch up with Google in the speed and indexing game and that the main issue is amount of users using an engine and referrals delivered to webmasters. The size of the index may contribute to more loyal users in addition to quick indexing of new content and Google still is beating the hell out of Yahoo on this, but I think Yahoo will close this gap and this will help get them more users searching on Yahoo and that I say is their major problem.
No, you're not understanding my point really. I'm trying to say that a) Yahoo doesn't have as many indexed page and therefore can't possibly be making a complete comparison of possible results. It's like trying to tell people what the best hotel is in town, and only to have stayed in one of them. b) I'm getting less hits, because I'm competing on about 100,000 less search terms in Yahoo. For the terms that I rank well in both Yahoo and Google, I get about a fifth as many from Yahoo, which I think is a pretty reasonable amount of traffic. Of course, you're quite right in saying that if Yahoo had more users it would get more hits. That goes without saying really. My problem is that Yahoo simply doesn't let us compete for the breadth of search terms that Google does. I don't think they are doing it on purpose (the pages they choose to index are pretty random) - it simply has to be because they are currently not powerful enough to handle a larger database. And so, I agree, they are lame!
So Google is able to hold more inventory and give you larger sales, they have a bigger warehouse, right?
Sorry to double post, but I had to warn VS that Yahoo is on to her. See below cut and pasted from "who's online" Yahoo! Spider Viewing Thread Yahoo Is Lame... VS, please leave me in your will