Site's ranking just jumped WAY up

[The Wiz]

My companies site was first put into the Yahoo directory on May 23. A few weeks ago, I posted a complaint about Yahoo and how this site was ranked last for almost every keyword - Yahoo doesn't like my site (http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/t269/s.html). I was shocked because it seemed that everyone was staying at my companies site www.domainhostinginc.com for a long time. However, just yesturday, our site's rank has become in the top couple for all of the keywords we were targeting.

For example, our site used to be ranked 903/920 sites for the keyword 'domain hosting'. Now, we are ranked 10th (6th for "Ranked by relevance"). We noticed this large jump in rankings for EVERY keyword that we could be listed on. And this was not a gradual jump - it was overnight.

Has something similar to this happened to others? Does it usually take a while until Yahoo gets a good idea of how long people visit your site?

Thank you Yahoo!

[ihelpyou]

That's great news The Wiz! :thebomb:

hmmmm, I do not hear the overnight thing very often. That is unusual. Makes me think an editor might have viewed your post and then visited your site. He liked it and did something about it. :bouncy:

Of course, not sure I even believe the above but your rank jumping all the way up overnight is certainly a mystery of which I have no answer.

[The Wiz]

There is no doubt - it was overnight. I've been checking a couple of times per week for any changes since the site was listed ... Yahoo updates their database 2 or 3 times per week. I would just click the next button for the keyword 'domain hosting' and then change the start value in the URL to be around 900 and the site was always there (dropping every week because new sites constantly being added). Then, one day, it wasn't there. It was in the top 10.

[Mel]

Hey Wiz - Thats really great! I have not heard of such a big single jump on Yahoo before, but what interests me is if there was any change in your Yahoo title and description when you ranking jumped up.

Assuming your title and description did not change the only way I could see that your rank might increase was through a lot of click throughs to your site.

[ihelpyou]

Yes. The click-thrus are logical but to go from last to first is unheard of. besides, how can a site get that many if it is last?

[The Wiz]

how can a site get that many if it is last?

Well, I made sure that I would be getting hits no matter where I was. Such as the keyword "Coldfusion hosting". I used to be 7 of 7 and get several hits per day from this. The keyword "Frontpage 2000" or "Frontpage 2000 hosting" also have very few competting sites. Also, the keyword "control panel", "windows 2000", etc. I did a lot of research for finding the best description. I highly recommend others to use the same program I did for the majority of my research - http://www.wordtracker.com/ . Also, several hits came from the directory listing ... mainly the canadian directory listing.

One reason for the jump may be this. Whe had changed the name of our website - for the sole purpose of getting better rankings on Yahoo. Therefore, noone was linking to our site when our name was changed. Now, there are several sites linking to it so maybe once Yahoo notice that at least 1 site linking to mine, they started to treat the domain like the others in the database. I think Google does this. If no other sites are linking to the site in the Google database, they will actually take it off of the directory in less than 2 weeks.

Edit : Mel, there was one change around the beginning of June (using the Yahoo appeal for a fast change). However, there was NO change after adding to my description in June.

[ihelpyou]

hey The Wiz, now I am confused.

Are you talking about your Yahoo directory listing or are you talking about your Yahoo/Google ranks?

[ihelpyou]

Okay. I did a search on "domain hosting", so you are talking about the directory.

Google has nothing to do with your ranks in the directory. Link pop has nothing to do with Yahoo directory ranks either. THis is why we are amazed you moved up over night.

[The Wiz]

ok, now I am REALLY confused aswell. Link pop was the only suggestion that I could think of that may have made sence.

Interesting note that I just noticed about Yahoo searching (you may already know this, not sure)

my domain name is www.domainhostinginc.com. However, Yahoo only recognizes the keyword domain and not the keyword hosting. Looking at other URLs (using 'Ranked by relevance'), yahoo does not see the keyword domain in the URL http://www.yourdomainhost.com/. However, for URLs such as http://www.1st-free-domain-hosting.com/ , Yahooo has both domain and hosting as keywords in the URL. I thought having all of the words together with no dashs would not make a difference. Hmmm.

[ihelpyou]

The way the directory is ranked is tee totally up in the air with many different opinions only. It is something that just cannot be figured out in a way that makes some sense.

This is why I simply quit trying to think about the directory. Click-thus, keywords in Url, keywords in description, category site is in,..etc, etc. Nothing makes sense as for the ways ranks are formulated.

This is why your sudden jump has no explanation. Link pop or Google definitely has NO bearing with the directory.

[MakeMeTop]

I have seen this sort of thing before and (despite many people disagreeing) do think that Google's PageRank has some influence on Yahoo's directory listings in addition to click-throughs. Some time ago I had a site banned from Google and the site fell in Yahoo to the bottom of the pile in the web site area (it obviously didn't exist at all in web pages). After a few months I got unbanned, my PageRank was restored and within a few days my rankings in Yahoo web sites zotted back up to the top 10.

Other sites also seem to have climbed into first page listings as PageRank improved. While I certainly don't feel that this is the sole method of Yahoo determing rank - my experience with the Google ban and ban-lifting and the subsequent changes to my Yahoo listings lead me to believe that this was more than just a coincidence.

[JuniorHarris]

Great to see your post MakeMeTop and interesting indeed!

I suppose the real answer lies within how the Google partnership is arranged. As with DMOZ we know the entire raw repository is made available for use (all or in part), with each website applying their own (or none) algorithm and rankings. However, Google may not supply a raw repository, and if a service feed as such were utilized it would be very possible for pagerank to have influence. Maybe some research with other Google partners could reveal additional insight.

[yanko]

I suppose the real answer lies within how the Google partnership is arranged. As with DMOZ we know the entire raw repository is made available for use (all or in part), with each website applying their own (or none) algorithm and rankings. However, Google may not supply a raw repository, and if a service feed as such were utilized it would be very possible for pagerank to have influence. Maybe some research with other Google partners could reveal additional insight.

This would make sense only if Yahoo used Google's results in with their own directory results. However, this is not the case. Directory results and webpage (google) are separate. I doubt Yahoo would check the Google results to find the google ranking for a directory based listing.

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums yanko! :hi:

Very true but no one knows the true relationship Yahoo has with Google and so if the Yahoo algo with the directory listings has anything at all to do with the Google listings, no one would know this. We can only speculate.

[MakeMeTop]

Update on my last post in this thread. My PageRank is again 0 - my ranking on Yahoo is again last. Not a coincidence! Happened overnight.

[MsSearch]

Very interesting MMT and good observation...seems to be some relation between Yahoo and Google or at least Yahoo and PR...

I'll be keeping my :eyes: on this...

[Hasenfefer]

Very interesting,,,could Yahoo be borrowing Google's Link Pop Algo now to spider their sites?

Everyone's been speculating since Yahoo's change from directory based results to their seemingly spidered results that KW's in the title, desc and url were the most important factors in their SERPs but no ones (until now) even suggested that they could be using Google's Link Pop Algo as well.

Based on MakeMeTop's post, "Update on my last post in this thread. My PageRank is again 0 - my ranking on Yahoo is again last. Not a coincidence! Happened overnight." we have to assume the relationship between the two giants is probably a lot closer than anyone had assumed.

[ihelpyou]

Sorry for you MMT, but a darn good find! Makes us scratch our heads and say hmmm some more.

[buckworks.com]

Hi everyone. I've been lurking for a while, invited here by markymark.

I experienced a similar mystery with Yahoo, only from the other end of the scale. I submitted my site to the Business Express in early November. One of the scariest things I've done for a while was to hit that Submit button!

Anyway, my site first appeared in the listings on Nov. 14, sporting a "new" icon. They used the title I submitted and only made one small change to the description (added a hypen to "on-line"). The week following, my listing no longer had the "new" icon, but I was ranking as #1 for "shopping", "online shopping", "shopping directory", "online directory", and "online shopping directory", and of course "buckworks". There's no way a new site should have rankings like that in normal times, at least not the way I understood things!

That puzzling but delightful situation lasted about a day. I'm still on the first page for some searches, though.

My Yahoo listing didn't happen quite soon enough to make a difference in Google's last update, but I'm hoping for positive effects next time round.

Regards from Canada,

Elisabeth Archambault

[OptWizard]

I have noticed the same thing with Google and Yahoo...I have been sepculating this since the whole GOTO (Oveture) thing happened. I have noticed since the top 3 lisitngs are now paid seems like to make google happy they are using some sort of also from google...Now the queston is we need to find out what it is. From what I can see I think it is link pop theme based and PR from google.