SEO Consult Blog

Yahoo is the second most popular English language search engine, in terms of worldwide searches and UK searches. While this only accounts for around 5% of UK searches conducted that’s still a 5% share of 4 billion searches conducted every single month, representing a huge potential market that shouldn’t be ignored. All search engines use different algorithms and while Yahoo and Google do bear some similarity in their preferences and ranking methods, there are also distinct and obvious differences. While Google concentrates very heavily on your link profile, Yahoo is more willing to rank a page based on page content.

On Page Optimisation For Yahoo

On page optimisation is widely accepted as the name of the game for Yahoo SEO. This includes everything from W3C compliance to relevant and lengthy content that incorporates a number of semantically related keywords. Adding keywords to HTML, image, Meta tags, and titles also helps a page’s SEO efforts for Yahoo results. However, while they do give more weight to on page optimisation than Google does, they still place a lot of relevance on your link profile so getting the right mix is vital.

Page Length

Longer pages are viewed by Yahoo as being a sign that they are authoritative, informative, and generally useful. As such, page content can be extremely lengthy. As this won’t see the page penalised by other search engines it can prove beneficial to offer six or seven hundred words or more for each of your pages. Yahoo will still rank blogs and regularly updated websites well, as long as they are optimised well.

Semantic Search

Yahoo, like Google, has implemented semantic search to a degree. This means that rather than having to include a rigid density of one or two keywords into a page, it pays to include topically related keywords. The inclusion of naturally written and well constructed page content should lead happily towards this end; that being the point of semantic indexing after all.

Clean Coding

Clean and W3C compliant code is vital to a Yahoo SEO campaign; even more so than to Google and MSN. This should be considered best practice when designing and developing any web page or website anyway, and it will also help to garner a web page with a good level of traffic from the Yahoo search engine.

Link Anchor Text

Yahoo considers the anchor text used on inbound links to be identification of a keyword for that page. As such, gaining links that use relevant keywords for your page is an important aspect of SEO for Yahoo. A good link profile, generally, should be built around the practice of gaining keyword relevant links.

SEO For Yahoo

Yahoo is an important search engine and while they only account for around 5% of UK searches, it’s important to remember that we conduct up to 4 billion searches every single month so that’s still a significant number of potential visitors to any website. It is possible to rank well in all of the major search engines, and provide visitors with a beneficial experience that will help convert them to fully fledged, paying customers.

Microsoft buying Yahoo! is a story that has been told a million times, but should Google be quaking in their substantially proportioned boots? Or will it be the beginning of the end of search competition as we know it if the $44billion purchase goes ahead?

Negative effects for Google

Microsoft Live Search has always been a sleeping giant when it comes to Search Engine competition, being one of the largest money making corporations in the world means that funding has never been a problem, but skill and experience has. If Microsoft acquires Yahoo! It will not only remove a direct competitor, it will attain a large number of highly skilled workers that know what needs to be done to catch the Google steam train.

With Yahoo! recently laying off staff, spells out to me a cut in resources, if Microsoft gives the Yahoo! developers a free reign, they could really give Google a run for their money within the next 3 years. I see Yahoo! as a sinking ship, losing ground in all their trusted, historically successful areas; email, search, news etc. This is surely their only shot at being numero uno.

Another benefit from a Microhoo search engine perspective is the sales of Microsoft applications, operating systems and software, all of which could contain a Yahoo search function and thus promote the brand.

Positive effects for Google

As with Microsoft, Google is essentially losing a competitor if they join forces. Yahoo! still takes around 12% of all search queries, with Microsoft taking 5%, so combined 17% is still comparatively falling short of Google’s massive 77% in the UK.

This could be the last act of a dying beast, Yahoo! and Microsoft teaming up in a David and Goliath style duel, but this could spell desperation from both parties. There is also a good chance there will be conflict between parties, in which case Google will be sitting pretty if Gates and co start throwing their weight in camp Yahoo!

Microsoft also have not got a great reputation in investment, the consequences of failure are unthinkable for Yahoo! and Microsoft as brands, but could lead to a potentially massive 90%+ share of search traffic.