Some Yahoo Ranking Tips

[Mel]

Hi all:

We have all seen quite a bit written about how to get listed with Yahoo. but less about how Yahoo site ranking works.

Here are a couple of tips from Yahoo on how they rank:

Search term matches are also organized by "relevancy," depending on a couple of factors, such as:

Multiple Search Term Matches --
Sites, categories, or documents with more search term matches are ranked higher than those with fewer search term matches.

Document Section Weighting --
Sites and categories with search term matches found in the title are ranked higher than those found in the comment, body, or URL.

Generality of Category --
Matching categories that are listed higher up in the Yahoo! hierarchy are ranked higher than specific categories listed deeper within the hierarchy.

Does anyone else have more information on how Yahoo ranks?

[ihelpyou]

Sites and categories with search term matches found in the title are ranked higher than those found in the comment, body, or URL.

That is exactly where they are completely wrong! This opened the door for all to simply buy a separate domain whose only purpose is to get a spammy business name that is fake, to rank high in Yahoo for that search term.

This makes a legitimate business name that is REAL and is the title in Yahoo completely worthless for ranks. Of course, a listing always helps with link pop.

Bunch of bull.

[ihelpyou]

They also rank according to "click-thru ratio" although how they do this is up in the air, and how much they put on this is up in the air as well.

[ihelpyou]

In the face of what other places say and preach, I think it may be safe to say that Yahoo is the most spam infested directory out there. They have a very hard time keeping up with it and are slow to fix and delete, etc. Are also very easily spammed.

[Mel]

Hi Doug:

Given the context ( discussing ranking and mentioning title, body, comments and URL) it seems to me that they are discussing the page title rather than the Yahoo title.

[ihelpyou]

Well, I guess what I am saying is that Yahoo is King other places. I simply disagree.

The business name of the page is always the title, and the title is given the greatest weight in Yahoo. If this was not the case, the spamming of the directory would stop.

Look at the other two major directories. Strict rules on this, with the title not given as much weight. The way it should be done.

[MazY]

As I understand it with Yahoo....

When you first submit you are placed at the bottom of your category. Why? Because you have no click credentials at that time.

When a user enters a search phrase that matches your title and description to a degree then you will be presented within the returns. If the user clicks on your site then you stand a very good chance of having your rank increased. However, they also measure the amount of time that a user spends on the site.

Example: Your site is returned within the search phrase "chocolate biscuits" and you are currently at the bottom of the rankings for that phrase.

The user clicks on your site and spends ten minutes there. Yahoo will interpret this as you finding the site useful for that search criteria.

If the user clicked on it then instantly returned then Yahoo will interpet this as not being a useful source for that phrase.

The good news is that bottom ranking sites can climb quicker than those at the top.

Once again, it is evident that content will win the day. The longer your site is being read then the better your rankings on Yahoo, ultimately.

All of the above is a simplified version but is pretty much as I understand the Yahoo ranking to work.

[ihelpyou]

Yep. Good points MazY!

[websnail]

Originally posted by MazY
As I understand it with Yahoo....

When you first submit you are placed at the bottom of your category. Why? Because you have no click credentials at that time.

When a user enters a search phrase that matches your title and description to a degree then you will be presented within the returns. If the user clicks on your site then you stand a very good chance of having your rank increased. However, they also measure the amount of time that a user spends on the site.
Ok this may well be something of a newbie-esque type question but given that web pages are stateless and Yahoo have as far as I can tell no way of adapting your pages/site(s) so that they get an exit notification when a visitor leaves... How exactly do Yahoo time someone's staying time on a site?

From what I know of the web and it's limitations this seems like a real hit and miss type affair especially if what is actually happening is Yahoo records a cookie on your server that notes when you stopped looking for, or clicking on, additional links from their site. Hardly accurate and not really timing at all.

Just a thought... I'd be a mite interested to see what the answer is though.

[ihelpyou]

IMO, the only way they could track are if you click a link on Yahoo, and then sometime later go back to Yahoo directly from the site you clicked to. No other way it seems would be possible.

[Mel]

It seems to me that they are not tracking the pages they are tracking the IP that is logged into their site and where that IP is logged onto. Look at you own stats for this type of information on your own site.

[Advisor]

Mazy,

What you are saying is exactly how Direct Hit works. But how do you know this is how Yahoo! works? Did you get that information from some place? It does make sense because they do have that "most popular" section for many queries, it's just that I've never actually heard that this is how Yahoo! does it. Do you have a link somewhere that verifies this?

Thanks!

Jill

[Farhan]

When you first submit you are placed at the bottom of your category. Why? Because you have no click credentials at that time.


Well i may not agree with this to an extent, as i have seen and experinced new sites ranking even at the first positions when they are added in Yahoo. I think maybe Yahoo IS concentrating more on relevance now. The ranking of site depends on its relevency and after getting a position, if it doesnt get enough click thru's then only it is thrown back or vice verca. Well this is all my personal experinces many of you might disagree

[Lee]

When you first submit you are placed at the bottom of your category. Why? Because you have no click credentials at that time.

I have to disagree with this too....at least in some cases.
I just got listed with Yahoo and I was listed in their number #1 position. My site is very relevent to the catagory and it does have lots of copy so maybe that's what they are looking for more than anything else.

[ihelpyou]

And I think you have a very good title, if I recall, as well? :thebomb:

[Lee]

HA!!!

And I wonder who I can thank for that!!!!:cheers:

You came up with a winner Doug! Both for Yahoo and For Looksmart....they both used the same one.

[ihelpyou]

You mean Yahoo did not change it either? I am shocked about that. Great!

[Lee]

Nope, they left it exactly the way you wrote it...and their description makes much more sense than Looksmarts. I just can't get over the immediate increase in traffic! What a difference this has made!

[pushpendra]

:cheers:
For Yahoo do following things:
1. Choose a good title and description containing your keywords. Use the plural form of keywords.
2. Choose a sub category which contain your keywords.
3. Give ur webpage a good look.

check more at www.indiainternetmarketing.com

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums pushpendra! :hi:

Yes. Just know how to Spam Yahoo and all is fine. Nothing to it.

Actually, anyone can learn how to do anything by simply reading these forums.

BTW, since there are only a handfull of true search engines and directories that are worth anything, you should only submit to the major ones and forget all the hundreds of spam search engines. You only need to submit one time also and not every month. Actually, I rarely submit to any of them and only submit to the directories... 2 of them.

[Glyn]

If you want to get listed realyl well in Yahoo here is the route I take.

I take the clients domain and whack it on a new IP. I then register a keyword rich domain name and change all the context of the site to reflect that keyword rich domain.

I make the links to contact details show on the page as the keyword rich domain but when clicked actually give the path to the domain the client used. This can also be covertly hidden by encoding emails to Unicode (see fantomaster.com)

I always make sure the KWRich domain name is a .com and then submit away.

I've taken 15 top positions in yahoo and took a clients site from taking 500 hits a month - 7,000 hits in 15 days because of it.

Yahoo might be full of spam but you can still work the magic.

[Advisor]

Thanks for explaining how to spam Yahoo.

Jill

[ihelpyou]

LOL. Yes, and thanks for justifying my reasons why I think Yahoo is a secondary directory..... Full of spam, as you point out clearly. :)

[SubmissoR]

Is discussion of ranking well in Yahoo a catch 22? Dammed if you do(spamming), dammed if you don't(no traffic!).

If it is impossible to do ethically, does that mean it should be ignored alltogether? It pretty hard considering the potential traffic.

[Glyn]

Don't think Yahoo is a secondary directory if you are taking 15 positions in the top three for a client. Also spammers know how to spam directories whether you post instructions or not. It's a spammers job to spam and if you've got time you can pretty much learn anything from scratch.

On ignoring Yahoo because of the ethics I'd like to be philosophical about good optimisation but at the same time I'm conscious of the fact that while I'm being a thinker, someone is taking my traffic. So I prefer to learn, get even & take some money.

You can do submitting to Yahoo ethically all you need to do is either create 2 sites and submit the keyword rich domain to Yahoo's paid inclusion or have two domains pointing to the same IP and so long as your site is not branded with graphics from the non KWR domain you should be fine.

On a retrospective note, I remember when Goto came out and there were some big SEO's saying "oohh no we will not use that engine because it's not right, it goes against the grain of the internet". Well, while those SEO's sat and chewed the ethics over, the others stole their traffic.

:hi:

[Kal]

Originally posted by SubmissoR
Is discussion of ranking well in Yahoo a catch 22? Dammed if you do(spamming), dammed if you don't(no traffic!).

If it is impossible to do ethically, does that mean it should be ignored alltogether?

SubmissoR, there is no need to resort to questionable tactics suggested by Glyn, there's also no need to use extra domains, in my opinion. It is certainly possible to ethically achieve a good ranking in Yahoo via one site with relevant content. See this thread: http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/t1193/s.html

[Glyn]

Mel,

I don't think my tactics are unethical, I'm not a spammer I work with clients and try and understand how the engines works to take hits for them. I'm not a 1000 domain name registerer or an email spammer. But I do know that had I used the company domain and submitted that to Yahoo there is no way they would have got the same description.

I've only been doing SEO for 2 years so I'm still a relative newbie, I guess.

My descriptions going into Yahoo's Paid Business Express have never been chopped & I have always got the keywords that I have targeted. I followed your link to the page which gave the reasons why I did not have to resort to this tactic, but there was nothing there that convinved me to change my mind. Was the link correct? I have an open mind and would like to take any new ideas onboard.

Thanks.

[Mel]

Glyn:

Not sure which link it was you followed as my last post in this thread was three or four months ago. Can you give me clue?

In general there is really nothing wrong with what you are doing since the website stands on its own, but why not use the new domain for business instead of the old, assuming of course that the focus of each site is the same?

[ihelpyou]

Also spammers know how to spam directories whether you post instructions or not. It's a spammers job to spam and if you've got time you can pretty much learn anything from scratch.
hmmm. Personally, I prefer to learn as much as I can about how to optimize a site to achieve good ranks the totally ethical way. I go for long term success with my sites AND with my clients sites. No one has to constantly look over their shoulder and worry about when or if a competitor will rat you out or if a search engine will change up filters and catch you red handed.

I like the peace of mind a whole bunch and truly enjoy the pride I feel when I can get to the top using absolutely No tricks. My clients feel the very same way, with many sticking with me for almost 2 years now. I do not believe many SEO's can say this as those who use questionable tactics usually get caught somewhere down the line and then the client will leave them. Believe me, I hear the crying all the time.

If one chooses to be a spammer, that is a choice they make, and a choice that will lead to GREAT short term success. "short term" is the key phrase here.

I prefer long term and always, always will.

[Glyn]

Doug, I agree with you 100% and its exactly these methods I have been using from the start. ;)

Mel, a keyword rich domain might sound great for marketing on the web but it has not always been greeted with such enthusiasm by people who have been used to having their company name as their domain. As a result the selling of the KWrichdomain is not always such a simple procedure. Therefore I limit this strategy only in areas where I feel a KWrich domain warrants. Be it Google, Dmoz, or Yahoo. :thebomb:

[traveller]

Hi;
after reading thru this thread I though I would add my .05 wroth since I think it will help.

Yahoo does play a lot of importance to your name/title and keyword weight. I have seen this happen.

Yahoo does not place you at the bottom of the list when you are new. No idea how they do it but I see many sites come in on the first page or second. Later they adjust according to your site.

AND yahoo checks the clicks on your site and they do track how long they stay at your site and wheither they come back (which would mean the customer did not find what he wanted). or if they do not come back ( which means they found what they wanted and will give you more relevance)

I have seen this and have been in touch with others and they verify this also

I have also seen that Yahoo does not play strickly by their OWN rules.
IE I have seen many sites put in Yahoo that DID not contain uniques content YET Yahoo still placed them in.
I have sent yahoo letters on this given them examples of new sites put in that are exactly the same site with a differnet url ( Domain name) and yahoo have agreed with me and I have seen the site dropped ( not from yahoo but way down in rank)

Good luck with them

[Kal]

Hey Glyn - I think you have Mel and I confused with each other. I was the one posting about potentially questionable tactics to get a Yahoo listing. And I still maintain there is no need to buy a domain just to ensure a good listing in Yahoo - you can use your real domain, real title and a good relevant description. But glad to hear you're not a spammer!

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums New Kid on the block! :hi: