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Last night Yahoo shocked the world by introducing something that looks cool, useful and unique - Yahoo Axis.
Yahoo Axis is a browser/extension/search tool that changes the way people explore and search the web. The best way to describe it is to show you some videos.
How It Works:
Here are some commercials:
Pretty cool, don't you think?
Will you use it? That is another question.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
We know Google Images deploys framebuster busting techniques to prevent sites that use framebusters from sending the user directly to the site.
Yahoo does something similar.
For example, this picture of a flower on Yahoo Images is from flowershopsflowers.com/nature-flowers, which has framebusting JavaScript on the site.
Yahoo breaks the framebuster and places in the window below the image a message that reads:
Loading the page might take you away from Yahoo! Image Search (Not recommended). Continue Anyway
This message really upsets those who use the framebusting script. These are webmasters who specifically dislike that the search engine is showing a higher resolution version of their image on the search engine as opposed to sending the user to the site to view and download the image.
Here is a picture:
A WebmasterWorld thread has some users calling this out right stealing:
I can't believe that Yahoo image search is stealing my images
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Today is the last day you will be able to use Yahoo Site Explorer.
Yahoo announced late on Friday that they are closing it down today, November 21st. They said:
With the completion of algorithmic transition to Bing, Yahoo! Search has merged Site Explorer into Bing Webmaster Tools. Webmasters should now be using the Bing Webmaster Tools to ensure that their websites continue to get high quality organic search traffic from Bing and Yahoo!. Site Explorer services will not be available from November 21, 2011.
This comes with no surprise. Yahoo notified everyone that it would happen this year but since today is the day, it is some what of a shocker that it has finally happened. It is basically the last nail in the coffin for Yahoo Search.
Site Explorer was launched in 2005 as one of Tim Mayer's babys at Yahoo. I personally am very sad to see it go, but I am sure it upsets Tim a bit more.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.
Update: As of Tuesday, November 22nd, it is now closed and here is what the closure page looks like:
Well, it is done - Yahoo, everywhere you go with the exception of Korea, even on mobile or desktop, will be fully powered by a different search engine - Microsoft Bing.
Yahoo Search is not providing their own algorithmic search results anymore, like they haven't being doing so in the U.S. in Canada since August 2010. Country after country, Yahoo has been handing over their search technology and search engine to Microsoft.
The other day, Yahoo declared the process is now complete, with the exception of Korea. Why not Korea? Because of "a three-way integration between Yahoo, Microsoft and Daum, remains, and is expected to complete by the end of the year."
That being said, this was the plan and the plan has been implemented.
Paid search is still not fully transitioned over. It is in the U.S., Canada and many other countries, but not every where, not yet.
For some reason, I remain sad about all of this.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Note: This story was written earlier this week and scheduled to be published today.
Yahoo announced they have made the transition from Yahoo powered search results to Bing powered results in the Asian markets.
These markets include Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam but exclude Korea.
Yahoo also said the transition for the organic results in Greece, Poland, Romania, Switzerland (German, French and Italian languages) and Turkey are complete.
I am not sure when the paid search side will be transitions, there have been issues on that front - from what I understand.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread reports that Yahoo may not be fully listening to the robots.txt directive to block their spider, Yahoo Slurp.
The thing is, Yahoo spider isn't all that active these days - because Bing is now powering much of Yahoo and thus BingBot is most active.
The webmaster said:
Depending on the Host and UA, the official Yahoo! Slurp apparently does whatever it wants to. Note the subtle differences in the subdomains and UAs...
This morning, the only Host to read/heed robots.txt was:
b3091154.crawl.yahoo.net [67.195.112.189] Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)
These retrieved graphics by the pageful, over 60 total:
b5101137.yst.yahoo.net [98.137.72.218] b5101139.yst.yahoo.net [98.137.72.228] Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp/3.0; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)
I am not sure if this is a widespread issue or something that is just a smaller bug.
The main question is, should you care of Yahoo is crawling your site when Bing is? That discussion is also taking place in the forum thread. The answer is, it depends.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
No one is really surprised by last night's news that Yahoo announced "leadership change" including firing Carol Bartz over the phone. I mean, she had only 33% approval rating and the stock rose 6% on the news of the firing.
Yahoo said:
Yahoo! Inc. under which the Board of Directors has appointed Timothy Morse interim Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately, replacing Carol Bartz, who has been removed by the Board from her role as Chief Executive Officer.
The Board has also named key senior Yahoo! executives to a newly formed Executive Leadership Council tasked with supporting Morse in managing the Company's day-to-day operations until a permanent chief executive is appointed, as well as supporting a comprehensive strategic review that the Board has initiated to position the Company for future growth.
Bartz emailed everyone via her iPad saying:
I am very sad to tell you that Iâve just been fired over the phone by Yahooâs Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.
Carol took over as the CEO of Yahoo in January 2009 after Jerry Yang replaced Terry Semel as CEO in 2007. It has been a rough road for Yahoo, very rough.
I am still so sad about Yahoo, so sad. But will I ever forgive Bartz for pulling Yahoo out of the search space, at least in terms of building backend search technology? I doubt it.
It is hard to see what future Yahoo has but I do hope the next CEO, not the interim, has a clear future for Yahoo.
If Carol did anything well, it was fire a lot of people and cut a tremendous amount of costs.
Do you think Yahoo will have a solid future from here on out?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
It is official, Yahoo's european properties are now powered by Bing for organic search.
As of this morning, August 3rd, Yahoo France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the UK are powered by Bing.
A year ago, Yahoo US and Canada switched over to Bing and now Yahoo US, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, UK, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, New Zealand, Peru and Venezuela are now all powered by Bing.
This is just the organic results, not the paid results. Yahoo US, Canada and others are powered by adCenter for ads, but not the European properties. That comes later. Microsoft said:
With regards to the paid search transition of Yahoo! traffic into Microsoft Advertising adCenter outside North America, both companies continue to focus on meeting marketplace and product performance benchmarks we have agreed. We are making good progress, as echoed by independent third parties such as Efficient Frontier and Marin Software. We have recently extended our testing efforts to gain the learnings necessary to provide international advertisers and partners with a quality transition experience.
Once these tests completed, we will be able to provide an update on our global rollout plans for search marketing. We remain more than ever committed to providing advertisers and partners with ample notice prior to the transition of their market, and working with them to plan and prepare for a smooth transition.
I first reported this at Search Engine Land as coming on Monday.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Yahoo Site Explorer, which went live in September 2005 is now going to be shut down by the end of this year.
Yahoo said:
In an August 2010 blog post, we said we would continue Site Explorer with a focus on new features for webmaster community, even after the transition to Microsoft platforms is complete. We listened to your feedback, and along with the team from Bing Webmaster Center looked jointly at the roadmap for the webmaster tools. Having two webmaster portals for a single source for organic results does not add enough value. Once organic results are transitioned to Bing in all the markets, we plan to shut down Yahoo! Site Explorer and Microsoftâs Webmaster Tools will be the source for Bing and Yahoo! webmaster site and analytics data.
Horrible news for many SEOs who have come to rely on Yahoo Site Explorer as a free, comprehensive and search engine backed competitive analysis link tool.
Sad news for me, being that Yahoo keeps failing on search. But we know. Tim Mayer, the equivalent to Yahoo's Matt Cutts back int he day, was personally responsible for setting up this beloved tool. So it is so sad to see it being shut down.
Microsoft Webmaster Tools, which isn't bad, is suppose to pick up where Yahoo left off. But I doubt Microsoft will offer a competitive link analysis tool within their webmaster tools. Google doesn't, Yahoo did, I doubt Microsoft will.
Yahoo has posted a detailed FAQ on this on their blog. Here are some of them:
When will Site Explorer shutdown?
We are working with Microsoft to transition organic results in all markets to the Microsoft Search platform. Site Explorer will shut down once all markets are transitioned. This is expected later this year. We will keep updating you with progress of the transition at our Search Blog.
Will the Site Explorer APIs be shut down?
The APIs were scheduled to be shut down at the end of last year, but the timeframe has been extended for the YDN Site Explorer API up until September 15, 2011. Note: For BOSS Site Explorer APIs shut down information, scheduled for July 20, 2011, please see this April 2011 blog post.
Will Yahoo! continue to crawl my website?
Although the organic results will be powered by Microsoft Search platforms, Yahoo! will continue to innovate on the search experience beyond the services delivered by Microsoft. In order to provide Yahoo! users with an amazing search experience, our slurp crawlers may continue to selectively crawl websites to help support these efforts.
Goodbye Yahoo Site Explorer!
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
In 2009 Yahoo made a big splash in the industry by saying they will only hold on to search data for 90 days. It was a very short amount of time to retain search queries but Yahoo did it.
Now Yahoo is reversing that decision and upping it from 3 months to 18 months.
The LA Times first reported this saying:
Yahoo Inc. said it would begin keeping records of its usersâ search engine queries for at least 18 months, abandoning an earlier policy under which it kept data for only three months.
"Over the past several years itâs clear that the Internet has changed, our business has changed, and the competitive landscape has changed," Anne Toth, a policy executive at Yahoo, wrote in a blog post. "We have gone back to the drawing board to ensure that our policies will support the innovative products we want to deliver for our consumers."
This is interesting because Microsoft has a 6 month policy. So here, Microsoft will only have 6 months of search history whereas Yahoo will hold onto it for a year or so longer. Microsoft and Yahoo are search partners.
I guess Yahoo has little to lose and a lot to gain from this policy change. At least that is the way I see it.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Let me start off by saying I am not sure if this is new, in fact, I have a feeling it is not - so please let me know when this first came out.
If you search for teavana, staples, turbotax and so on, Yahoo will label the ads by the brand holder, with an "official site" label on the ad.
Here is a picture:
Keep in mind, Yahoo's search ads in the U.S. are powered by Bing, so this is something extra Yahoo is placing on the ads - above Bing.
Personally, I like this little touch.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
I remember back when Yahoo bought AlltheWeb. Most Webmasters and SEOs were a bit upset, because AlltheWeb was one of those upcoming search engines who really could compete with Google back in the day.
So Yahoo acquired it back in 2004 when Overture, which acquired AlltheWeb in 2003, was acquired by Yahoo. Very early 2004, Yahoo was shopping for search engines to buy, so they no longer have to be dependent on Google's search engine. They were expected to use Inktomi which they acquired earlier, but then they bought AllTheWeb and Alta Vista. They made changed to both engines and released their own flavor of Yahoo Search soon after, surprising some webmasters.
AlltheWeb had one of the largest web indexes back then and was loved by Webmasters.
Now, well, those investments are gone. They outsource their search technology to Microsoft and will redirect the technologies they acquired in 2004 to Yahoo Search, which is powered by Microsoft.
The funny thing, they are doing this on Microsoft's birthday - April 4th!
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo made big news in search yesterday by announcing the launch of Yahoo Search Direct. It is like Google Instant but within the search suggestions box.
Now saying Yahoo is copying Google here is not fair. Why? Because Yahoo had Yahoo Instant Search back in 2005, about five years prior to Google launching Google Instant.
That being said, Search Engine Land has a nice number of articles on it that sum up what it does. Before I do that, here is a brief feature list:
Search Engine Land Stories:
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorldand Google Blogoscoped Forums.
Currently Yahoo Search in the UK is still running off the original Yahoo index and algorithm.
As you know, Bing is powering Yahoo's organic and paid results in the US and Canada. Last week, Yahoo and Bing announced they migrated over the organic results in Australia, Brazil and Mexico to Bing.
So what is next?
A WebmasterWorld has some speculation that Yahoo UK is next. Some webmasters and SEOs are noticing that the Yahoo UK results have "two different indexes" on refreshes. By that, if a person searches once and then again, they are seeing two completely different set of results. In addition, when they compare one of those sets, it seems to match up with the Bing results. This shows me that Bing and Yahoo are heavily testing the UK migration and it might be next up on the list.
Are you ready for Bing to power Yahoo in the UK? I assume so, at least by now.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yesterday, Yahoo announced a very cool new search keyword tool named Yahoo Clues. I did a pretty detailed write up on it at Search Engine Land, so I will try not to repeat much of that here.
In short, this is a keyword tool that shows you data for only the most popular queries. Yahoo said the tool is also updated about every hour. The tool shows you demographic data, such as gender and age, income levels, geographic location and related keywords.
The somewhat unique part of this tool is the "search flow." It shows you the most likely preview query and next query on Yahoo after searching for that term. So for those iPhone normally search for these searches prior to search for iPhone:
And this is what they search for next:
The chain here is important.
For more on how this works, see the help documents and the video below.
Forum discussion at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld.
So Yahoo web search, the organic results, are now powered by Bing, Microsoft search. The next to fall is the paid search side of things.
Yahoo announced yesterday that the beginning of the end for Panama, Yahoo's Search Marketing platform. It is the beginning end of Yahoo powering their own search ads on their own search interface.
Folks at WebmasterWorld are calling it a "merge." The big paid search merge? Well, not really, more like the "big dig" for Yahoo. Yahoo isn't necessarily merging their technology with Microsoft, they are telling their advertisers to get their campaigns set up in Microsoft adCenter because Yahoo is burying their software likely by the end of October (in the US and Canada).
Yahoo laid out the three stages to this transition:
There are three stages to completing your transition:
1) Prepare your account for transition to adCenter
When you log into your Yahoo! Search Marketing account, you’ll automatically be taken to a new tab labeled “adCenter.” We recommend that you review your Compatibility Report, and fix incompatibilities between your current Yahoo! campaigns and the adCenter platform before starting the transition to adCenter.
2) Transition your account to adCenter
When you begin your transition, you’ll be able to create a new adCenter account, or indicate that you have an existing adCenter account that you want to continue to use. If you choose, you can use the transition tool to copy your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns over to adCenter. Please note that your campaigns will retain the same status (active or paused) as they have within your Yahoo! account, so you may start incurring click charges for Bing traffic right away.
3) Continue to manage your Yahoo! Search Marketing account
The last stage in the transition process will occur when Yahoo! Search ad serving moves to adCenter, which we expect to begin in mid-October and be completed by the end of October. During this period, you should expect traffic from your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to decrease, and increase in your adCenter account. But until this process is complete, you’ll still need to actively manage your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to have your ads displayed on Yahoo! and our partner sites.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
I really don't know why I am so upset, but I am. Probably not as upset as all those Yahoo Search engineers who are out of a job or as upset as Jerry Yang but I am really upset.
Yahoo has been testing letting Bing power their search results then ramped it up last week. Then yesterday, officially flipped the switch in the U.S. and Canada. Yahoo no longer powers the underlying organic search results on Yahoo Search, it is now Bing who powers it.
Shashi Seth of Yahoo said, " I am proud to announce that the transition of organic search between Yahoo! and Microsoft is complete." Bing's Satya Nadella said, "Today I am happy to share that Bing is powering Yahoo!’s search results in the US and Canada." Yea, I am sure he is happy.
The paid results are next and that will likely be done in the next month or so, in my opinion. We are still waiting to hear on Site Explorer, BOSS, Search Monkey dates for transition or future plans.
I am sad. Yahoo was powering their own results. They dropped Google, bought several search companies (AllTheWeb, AltaVista Inktomi +) and launched their own Yahoo Search. That is done, no more, gone!
To make things worse, they are embarrassed that Bing is powering them. Why? point font at the bottom of the page? Heck, with Google, they had a fancy Google logo on the bottom or top of the results.
I am just sad!
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums.
Update: So Yahoo responded to this blog post, without linking to it, saying they will always be a search engine. I tweeted it and got this response back from an SEO that I found to be dead on:
.bbpBox22093206978 {background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/4877276/back5.jpg) #339933;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
@rustybrick Funny - when Yahoo uses someone else's data, they're evolving. When I do it, I'm a thin affiliate.less than a minute ago via TweetDeckDr. Peter J. Meyers
dr_pete
Two more quotes, these from Danny Sullivan, who I am glad agrees with me:
.bbpBox22097768415 {background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/1636162/flag-flickr.jpg) #9ae4e8;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
i'm among the "irresponsible" with "innuendo" that yahoo's not search engine. it's not. it offer search made by others [bit.ly]less than a minute ago via Seesmic twhirlDanny Sullivan
dannysullivan
.bbpBox22097866969 {background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/1636162/flag-flickr.jpg) #9ae4e8;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
at least i'm not the one who said yahoo was never a search company. that was yahoo CEO carol bartz [selnd.com]less than a minute ago via Seesmic twhirlDanny Sullivan
dannysullivan
As you know by now, Yahoo promised to complete the transition to being fully powered by Bing in the U.S. and Canada within a week of time. But what does that mean for the beloved Yahoo Site Explorer or BOSS or Search Monkey?
Site Explorer will stick around until all of the migration is complete. But when the Bing transition in the U.S. and Canada are complete, within a week or so, Yahoo hopes to announce when Bing will have the Site Explorer features in Bing Webmaster Tools.
When Bing released their new Bing Webmaster Center it was missing a critical feature, linkage data. Many speculated that Yahoo Site Explorer would replace it and that is kind of true. Bing Webmaster Center will get linkage tools via Site Explorers framework, some how. We should know exactly when that will happen in a week or so.
BOSS is sticking around too, but there will be some ways to monetize that so it makes sense for Yahoo to keep it around. I believe Bing will power some of Yahoo BOSS and Yahoo will power parts of it as well. But there are not many details exactly what will happen with BOSS going forward at this point.
SearchMonkey is kind of dead. The developer tools are going away but they markup techniques will remain on Yahoo Search. Bing may or may not use some of the markup techniques, but Yahoo will continue to use it to make the search results richer there.
You can learn a lot more about the specifics at the Yahoo Developer blog and on the Yahoo Search blog.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo announced that Bing will be powering Yahoo Search on the organic side later this week. Right now and for the past month, Yahoo has been testing Bing powered search results on Yahoo. Yahoo said, the full transition is happening later this week and they will let us know when it is complete.
You will also know the transition is complete when you see the "Powered by Bing" logo on the bottom of the Yahoo Search results.
This is only for the United States and Canada Yahoo Search results, the other results won't change over until 2012. This is also only for the organic side of things.
Also, you should know the organic results between Yahoo and Bing, the ranking order, will be exactly the same when this transition is complete. Yahoo may add some makeup to the results, but the ranking order will be exactly the same.
On the paid side, Yahoo is testing the account migration tool now and hopes to release it to everyone in the upcoming weeks.
I'll follow up this post on the webmaster side of the things. Specifically, Yahoo Site Explorer, BOSS and SearchMonkey.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yesterday, Tim Mayer of Yahoo tweeted that he is no longer at Yahoo.
.bbpBox20261684895 {background:url(http://s.twimg.com/a/1280874693/images/themes/theme1/bg.png) #9AE4E8;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
Finishing up my first day post-Yahoo: Was very busy today- need to make time for a long bike ride tomorrowless than a minute ago via webTim Mayer
timmayer
Tim Mayer, if you don't know him, was like the Matt Cutts of Google but to Yahoo. I first sat down to chat with him one on one at a PubCon in 2004. He is a great guy, well respected in the industry and as Danny described he practically worked at every search engine out there.
Tim was responsible for launching Site Explorer, the No Yahoo Directory tag, spoke at many conferences, hosted a radio show on WebmasterRadio.FM and so much more.
I guess since Yahoo is out of the search game, there is no purpose for him to be there now. But it is sad to see him not with a search engine. Well, he may be at a search engine, but he didn't say which yet.
We asked the question, what if Matt Cutts left Google? Well, what if Tim Mayer left Yahoo? Well, there is no Yahoo Search anymore - so I guess there is the answer.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread asks if Yahoo's crawler, Yahoo Slurp is still active. As we know, Yahoo has begun testing Bing powered Yahoo search results and may transition completely over as soon as this month.
But what will happen with Yahoo's crawler? Ultimately, I believe it will go away. But right now it is active. I see it in my logs and so do other webmasters.
So what will happen with Yahoo Site Explorer? Will it continue to exist? If so, will the data go stale? Will it be migrated over to Bing? Bing's new webmaster tools currently has no link reporting tool.
As you can imagine, this leaves some SEOs a bit concerned. There are alternatives, but many loved Yahoo Site Explorer. Yahoo Site Explorer was really a revolutionary tool in the industry, launching in September 2005 under Tim Mayer's leadership (who we will talk about a bit later today).
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
We see stats on image search usage, comparing Google to Yahoo to Bing to even sites like Facebook or Flickr. But which sends webmasters the most traffic? Google Analytics doesn't make it very easy to filter search referrers but image search engine, but those that rely on image search as a traffic source keep close tabs to that metric.
Zeus, a forum personality that I have come to respect in terms of any image search topic he posts, wrote a post at WebmasterWorld.
Google recently redesigned image search leading to webmasters complaining that they may receive less traffic. Zeus said that is happening and due to that, Yahoo is sending him more traffic via Image Search than Google. Zeus said:
We all know that google images has made some unnecessary changes to there layout and here the last weeks time Yahoo images has taken the first spot in my stats for the first time ever, in just a week.
Has anyone else seen the same?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
There are several complaints at both WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums that the Yahoo Search Marketing campaigns are missing all their data.
One person received a response from Yahoo, where Yahoo presumingly said:
Upon researching your account we found there is a known issue causing frustration among many clients. Our reporting systems went down at approximately 8pm on Monday evening. However we have created a case for you within your account and are currently working to get this resolved as soon as possible. Please be patient while we work to resolve your concerns.
So since Monday night, some advertisers are still without accurate reporting data for their search ad campaigns.
I am not sure if this is related to Yahoo testing Bing powered ads or not, but it is around the same time.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.
As announced but as expected and seen already, Bing is, on occasion, powering Yahoo results - so they can test Bing powered Yahoo results in the live results.
You have a pretty good chance of seeing Bing powered Yahoo results. As I mentioned at Search Engine Land, up to a 25% chance of seeing Bing organic results on Yahoo. And for the first time, I personally see them matching. Here is a screen shot, side by side, showing them matching exactly, even the images:
The red portion is the only portion of the "organic" section that is not the same. Why, well those are not really "organic" results, they are news injected results.
The Bing Search Blog also posted this morning, emphasizing:
For webmasters, it’s important to be familiar with how the Bing crawler interacts with your site. After the full algorithmic transition is complete, you only need to optimize for one crawler (Bing), as we will provide Yahoo! with results from our index.
Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo said they will be testing Bing powered search results this month.
Since then, I haven't really seen anyone say they see it. How will you know if you are in a test group that is seeing the Bing powered Yahoo search results? Simple. The organic results should match Bing exactly.
Now, a senior member at WebmasterWorld said he saw the exact same results on Yahoo that he sees on Bing. He then eventually cleared his cookies and the results no longer matched. I trust him, he was 100% in the test group seeing Bing powered Yahoo results.
Textex, the person who saw it said:
I was seeing it for all queries. I then cleared my cookies and it was gone.
I personally tried it on several browsers and operating systems and did not see it myself. But who knows how likely I am to see these results.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yesterday, I received an email from Yahoo that discussed the migration plan for the organic side of Yahoo Search. As I wrote at Search Engine Land, in that email, Yahoo officially confirmed that they will (if not already) that they are testing Bing powered Yahoo Search results this month.
The email said:
Though much of our testing is already happening offline, this month we’ll also test the delivery of organic and paid search results provided by Microsoft on live Yahoo! traffic.
You can read the full email over here.
Key points:
Have you seen any Yahoo and Bing search results matching? If so, email me screen shots.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Search Engine Roundtable Forums.
WebmasterWorld's moderator, incrediBill, posted a thread at WebmasterWorld noting that Yahoo's URL Ping server seems to have gone offline recently. As he explains, when he tries to access the documented Ping URLs, he gets a dead response.
Try it yourself, try sending a ping via the documented example URLs:
The API URLs are dead as well, see [api.my.yahoo.com].
Is this the beginning of the end to Yahoo Search?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
There are two large threads that started over the weekend at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums with discussion around the Yahoo Search results.
The thing is, I have never seen such a large influx of buzz around Yahoo Search results, at least not for the past 3 years or so. People are reporting huge, I mean huge, shifts with Yahoo's search results.
At first, the folks at WebmasterWorld have called it a bug but some are now suspecting this has to do with Yahoo testing Bing results. Yes, as expected, Yahoo should begin testing the Bing powered results on Yahoo Search any time now. Maybe this is the first signs of it?
Why would Yahoo spend the time drastically revamping their algorithm? Either this is a huge bug or Yahoo has let some people into a bucket testing of the Bing search results.
The thing that kind of makes me feel this is more of a bug than a Bing powered Yahoo is the results. I tried to personally match up Bing and Yahoo results and they are different. Some said in the forum that the results "looks like a mix of bing and google." But honestly, when Yahoo begins Bing powered results, the results of the organic listings, the ranking and order, will be exactly the same as you see them on Bing. Yahoo may throw more visual results at the top, middle and so on, but the organic result should be exactly the same.
Maybe I am not in this bucket test and maybe this is Bing on Yahoo?
What do you see?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.
A WebmasterWorld thread has several webmasters complaining about how Yahoo Search handles 404s.
There is a really good analysis by Frank Rizzo, a senior member from 2002 at WebmasterWorld, who shows how Yahoo is doing three weird things on his site, in regards to 404s. He said Yahoo is showing:
Others are reporting similar issues as of this month and some are even thinking about blocking Yahoo's spiders over the issue.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread has limited discussion on Yahoo. In the old days, when Yahoo made changes or if there were issues, there would have been a lot more activity, which makes my job hard to figure out if this is a bigger issue than it is. So I start with that, because I do not know if this impact a small number of sites or a nice amount of sites.
The thread has complaints from two different webmasters that Yahoo Search is going to the dogs. A long time senior member at WebmasterWorld said:
12 year old site authority in nitch went poof yesterday at about 4:30 pm. How I know looking at referrals from yahoo on a big term last one was that time. Site is gone still indexed but for all the main terms went poof.
And then a member since 2002 wrote:
On one site :
1. after a revamp of the site and 5 months of constant crawling all Y has to show for is 3 pages indexed, two of which are irrelevant to searchers
2. after several years of crawling the site Y stepped twice in my honeypot in the space of two weeks, go figureIt looks like Y has all but given up.
Clearly, these are two members who know their SEO and have been around for a long time.
We know Bing will ultimately take over Yahoo, so I probably shouldn't be covering this but I miss the old Yahoo.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
On Friday we reported that Yahoo Site Explorer links went missing and literally about a 100,000 of the links were lost to this site. Well, I guess it was a bug, because our links are back and so are everyone else's.
Here is a screen shot from today:
Here it was from Friday:
As you can see, I acquired 100,000 or so links over the weekend - not bad.
Clearly there was some sort of bug and now it is fixed. Yahoo has not confirmed the issue.
Forum discussion continued at Search Engine Watch Forums.
Several webmasters and SEOs are reporting that the link reports in Yahoo Site Explorer is reporting drastically less links than ever before. I assume this is not being discussed as much as it would have been a year or two ago, simply cause Yahoo is out of search but some webmasters and SEOs are concerned over the major link drop.
I personally checked my January 2009 screen shot and compared it to today and I noticed a drop of over 100,000 links! Here is a before and after screen shot.
Today:
In January 2009:
A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a post about this drop, as well as some tweets.
.bbpBox14263109799 {background:url(http://s.twimg.com/a/1274144130/images/themes/theme1/bg.png) #9ae4e8;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
@rustybrick Do u have any theories on why people are seeing lots of link loss in Yahoo SiteExplorer? I saw you covered this topic...less than a minute ago via HootSuiteSusan Urban
UrbanSeattle
.bbpBox14300877012 {background:url(http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/76396131/matrix-1280x1024.jpg) #1A1B1F;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
Noticing a significant drop in link counts in Yahoo's Site Explorer for the "link:" - "except from this domain" option. Anyone?less than a minute ago via EchofonG-Rod
grod69
.bbpBox14231514509 {background:url(http://a3.twimg.com/profile_background_images/37858893/BanksyBalloonGirl.jpg) #c2c2c2;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
Seeing a big drop in number of backlinks reported by Yahoo Site Explorer. Anyone else?less than a minute ago via EchofonDan Sharp
screamingfrog
Did you notice a major drop?
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
Update May 23, 2010: Seems like most of the links lost are now back.
This doesn't change my opinion about Yahoo's not being in search but I do love Yahoo as a portal and a home page. Yahoo, to me, was always that perfect home page and it seems like although they gave up on search, they are going back to their pre-search days, as a destination portal.
From the Yahoo Corporate Blog, Yahoo shows off their new marketing message. Take a couple minutes to watch their message in a TV commercial format and tell me, do you like it? I do.
Yahoo! Tile Video @ Yahoo! Video
Forum discussion at Google Blogoscoped Forums.
Yesterday, Yahoo announced that they are doing a search index and algorithm update. They said, like they do almost every month:
The Yahoo! Search engineering teams are rolling out updates to crawling, indexing, and ranking algorithms. Similar to previous updates, you may notice some ranking changes and page shuffling during the process, which we expect to complete over the next few days.
But like last month, no one really noticed anything when the announcement went live. Back in the old days, we normally saw forum discussion before the announcement - with SEOs and webmasters noticing changes before Yahoo was ready to admit it. But the past few times, no one was talking about changes even a day or so after Yahoo announced it.
Why aren't people talking about it like they use to?
(1) Webmasters don't care about Yahoo anymore?
(2) Traffic from Yahoo may be insignificant to most webmasters for them to notice
(3) Yahoo is more proactive about letting us know before any changes are made
(4) Yahoo is not really doing a serious update
I don't see any discussions on this currently at WebmasterWorld (this may change soon, since I posted a thread). I do see one webmaster at DigitalPoint Forums complaining about his link count in Yahoo, but people suspect this is unrelated to the update and more related to his site being considered web spam.
So what is up Yahoo? Really? Why invest in search backend when Microsoft will soon take that over?
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Yahoo announced a new search update, or what they call a "weather report" for their index. Yahoo said you may notice ranking changes in the Yahoo Search results. They said:
The Yahoo! Search engineering teams are rolling out updates to crawling, indexing, and ranking algorithms. Similar to previous updates, you may notice some ranking changes and page shuffling during the process, which we expect to complete over the next few days.
I have not seen any discussion around this but there may be an issue with the Yahoo Search WebmasterWorld forum, so I am not sure.
I did spot two threads discussing an update with Yahoo Site Explorer. One thread was at the Site Explorer Suggestion Board and the other at DigitalPoint Forums.
Update: I was able to post a thread at WebmasterWorld (maybe there was a bug on my side) and now we have a nice amount of feedback on how significant this update is. Here are some posts from the thread:
I'm seeing a small but statistically insignificant increase from Yahoo!
We had been showing a steady increase in traffic until yesterday (March 10th). Today, we've lost about 20% of our traffic from Y!.
This is a pattern that seems to repeat with each update. After the update we drop in ranking but slowly climb back before the next update.
They are showing lots of love for Wikipedia.
I'm seeing huge differences not in the results but the output...5 natural results for some queries instead of the usual 10 and quite frankly I like it shortened like this. Top 5 or go home.......
Yahoo announced they have removed the BETA from the Yahoo Search Marketing Desktop client.
Yahoo Pete, Yahoo's search ad representative, said in both a WebmasterWorld & Search Engine Watch Forums thread:
Just wanted to make you aware that our desktop editing tool, Search Marketing Desktop, is now available to most of our advertisers (eligibility is based on minimum monthly spend and a few other factors). Using SMD, it takes just a few clicks to modify multiple campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads at the same time.
For more details, please visit our blog [ysmblog.com] or the SMD sign-up page [advertising.yahoo.com]. We're also hosting a free webinar about SMD this coming Thursday--you can sign up through the link in the blog post.
Obviously, towards the end of this year or early next year, this tool will be terminated due to the Microsoft Yahoo deal - but hey, remove the beta label, why not.
For more information about the tool, please see here and for Thursday's webminar click here.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Search Engine Watch Forums.
March 1, 2010 was Yahoo's 15th birthday. 15 years - wow! Yahoo has a special doodle up for the day, a birthday cake. Here it is:
Yahoo has several blog posts about the birthday. One from Jerry & David, the founders, plus they posted a Twitter challenge for the birthday.
Happy Birthday Yahoo!
Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.
Hat tip to Michel.
Yes, I know Yahoo and Microsoft got approval to move forward with their search deal (I'll link to my post on that, when I write it, in about 10 minutes from this post), but Yahoo Search Marketing has been a failure for many in the past few months. And since Yahoo Search Ads will likely continue to be powered by Yahoo until December of this year, this is still important.
A WebmasterWorld thread has posts from several disgruntled Yahoo Search advertisers. They are all pretty much complaining about the same thing - search volume. Yes, the number of people seeing and clicking on their search ads, compared to the previous years, has dropped significantly. Let me pull out some quotes:
This year we notice Yahoo PPC struggling to generate decent volume for us. Its getting worse and worse, and all the new measures they are taking to ensure good quality traffic are infact killing our traffic.
I think part of your PPC woes are exemplified in that YPN payouts completely died for me, removed it, which I'm sure many others have done, thus eliminating millions of page impressions previously available.
For the last two months we underspent our budget, so I have noticed this too.
Yahoo has been fully aware of the Microsoft deal - so why invest? Yes, Yahoo has added features recently, but those features should have been added over a year ago. In any event, by years end - this likely won't matter anyway. More on that shortly.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo is trying to convince everyone that they are still a search company. Honestly, if you do not power your own search results, if you do not crawl the web and own the ranking algorithms, you are not in search. Ask.com is more in search than Yahoo, in my opinion. Well, let me step back just a second.
When the Microsoft & Yahoo deal goes through, Yahoo will not power the search results on Yahoo Search anymore. They will power the look and display of those results, as far as I know. But in my opinion, if you do not crawl the web and index content and then power those ranking algorithms - you are not in search - you are a aggregator of some sorts.
If I said Ask.com isn't in search because they use structured data, for the most part, then the same applies to Yahoo.
Do you agree? Here is a poll:
Will Yahoo Really Continue in Search?(online surveys)
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Earlier this month, we reported on a rumored Yahoo Search update. Although it appeared to be an update, the consensus was that what people were seeing was the paid inclusion being weeded out of the organic search results.
But the thread at WebmasterWorld has been updated by BillyS, who often tracks Yahoo. Billy thinks that Yahoo is now updating, for real, this time. He said:
Yahoo tweaked something today around 1:30 until 3:00 Eastern time. We had a huge spike in traffic. Anyone else see this?
Yahoo updates typically don't get as much reaction as a Google update. And over the past year or so, Yahoo updates have received a lot less attention then they have in the past. This is likely due to them losing search market share and giving up to Bing.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Ever since Yahoo launched their new search marketing platform in 2006, advertisers wanted more control of where their ads were showing.
Yesterday, Yahoo launched a feature named Network Distribution that gives advertisers that control. I wrote up a detailed analysis of the new feature about a week ago at Search Engine Land. Here is a copy of that:
The network distribution settings can be found in a couple places, such as under campaign settings. When you go to those settings, you will see the “Network Distribution” settings above the targeting settings. When you click on that it breaks out the options by content and search networks, in addition to breaking it out by the entire network versus Yahoo Search or Yahoo Partners only. It will also show you the past 30 days of campaign activity based on those sections, to see how many clicks, impressions and costs were associated to those areas. From that screen you can adjust your bid, plus or minus, a specific percentage for each area.
Here is a video from the YSM Blog explaining it a bit more visually:
New Year, New Search Enhancements @ Yahoo! Video
Threads at DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld seem to be very happy with this addition. One person said:
This really makes my day.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums & WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo quietly announced they are discontinuing their Yahoo Shopping API, because they are going to be outsourcing the Yahoo Shopping component of their site to PriceGrabber.com. Greg Sterling has excellent questions and observations about this decision. The main question is why isn't Bing going to power this search feature?
On a webmaster note, just look at the first comment in the Yahoo announcement:
This is very disappointing to me. Several of my web apps depend on the API it for their real-time data needs. Pricegrabber is not a replacement. I suppose this means I'm collaterally going to shut down my own services as well. A big sarcastic "thanks" goes out to the Yahoo team for this.
A WebmasterWorld thread both sympathizes with those in this trap and also somewhat mocks them. For example one said, "This is yet another lesson for lazy or naive webmasters that build their sites around the services provided by third parties (mostly by Google in these days)."
incrediBILL adds, "The most amusing part is it probably requires no maintenance to leave the API function as-is." httpwebwitch explained the other value in this API:
The Yahoo! Shopping API is/was a really good product, too. Well designed, with massive amounts of excellent data. One of the best data API's out there, IMHO - I've often used it as an example when teaching others about APIs and XML.
I have several apps out there that depend on it, and projects in development that also rely on it. All those projects will be scrapped.
This is not the first time some webmasters were 'burned' by using a free and open API.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
There is a single report at a WebmasterWorld thread of a possible Yahoo Search update. Senior member, textex, is noticing changes in the Yahoo Search results, but clearly, the Yahoo Search Blog has not posted anything since December 15th.
Typically, when it comes to Yahoo Search updates - we normally see it being reported in the forums before Yahoo posts anything on their blog about it. Also, we typically see Yahoo Search update every quarter or so and the last update was in September 2009, so we are do an update.
Do you notice any ranking changes in Yahoo or a shift in your Yahoo referrals?
Note: As Yahoo loses market share, less and less webmasters and SEOs are concerned about Yahoo. So it doesn't surprise me to see such little activity in the thread at this point. I do hope the thread picks up.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo's paid inclusion program was suppose to end on December 31st. But some are reporting in a WebmasterWorld thread that the paid inclusion results are still in the Yahoo Search index.
I have not looked myself, but this person is saying the paid inclusion (search submit) URLs are still in the index. He said:
I still see all the paid spots working.
This can be for two reasons:
(1) Yahoo's Search Submit product is still indeed active.
or
(2) Yahoo indexed the special search submit URLs and they show up in the free listings as free?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread reports that Yahoo Search Marketing is down for some. When some advertisers are trying to use Yahoo's pay per click ad system, they get an error.
The error reads:
We are currently experiencing a technical issue that is causing the ads of some advertisers to not be displayed properly to users. This may cause your account to receive a lower volume of clicks than normal. We are aware of this issue, and are working diligently to resolve it as soon as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.
So far, we have two confirmed reports of this bug in the WebmasterWorld thread.
I am not sure how widespread the issue is or if it is resolved yet.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo updated the thread, saying:
I can confirm that this issue was resolved at approximately 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time on December 15, and ads should be displaying normally since then. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Not to be outdone by Google, Yahoo also added real-time Twitter results for "buzzing" keyword phrases. I tried to replicate any results on Yahoo, but I was not yet able to see them. Maybe it is still rolling out.
The industry is discussing the Yahoo roll out at WebmasterWorld.
Meanwhile, sometime mid-afternoon yesterday, the real time results Google previewed a couple days ago, went live in the main Google search results. SEOs and Webmasters are now playing with it, looking for ways to exploit take advantage of it. There is discussion on it going live at WebmasterWorld.
Both Rae at OutSpokenMedia.com and Danny at Search Engine Land covered how the results can be exploited and get a be "mad."
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld (Yahoo) and WebmasterWorld (Google).
Is it possible that Yahoo is unbanning web sites from Yahoo Search after years of being in the penalty box? A single post by an old time member at WebmasterWorld claims that two of his sites are now back in the Yahoo index after years.
He said:
Just noticed today two of our sites that were previously banned in Yahoo for 2+ years are now receiving traffic once again from Yahoo and are being reindexed. Anybode else noticing their sites being reindexed? Traffic was first noticed on the 25th of November.
Did anyone else notice that their sites that were banned from Yahoo is now back?
Again, this is a single post from one webmaster - so I am trying to see if this is a single incident or a larger one. Please join the thread or comment here.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo announced they have added a developing news box that includes news articles, pictures, videos and also tweets.
Starting today, you can see relevant photos, videos, and tweets about a breaking news story on the Yahoo! News Shortcut. Many of you are already familiar with the existing Yahoo! News Shortcut, which displays headlines on our Web search results page when you look for news stories. The enhanced shortcut with these new tabs will now display for many breaking or major news searches.
Here are some screen captures:
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
It is true, Yahoo is dropping paid inclusion by years end, as I reported at Search Engine Land. Yahoo issued a statement, I'll cut out the part where they say they are committed to search and show you the relevant part:
Yahoo! will exit Search Submit at the end of 2009. Yahoo! is providing those advertisers affected by the decision a sufficient lead time to assist in the transition. In addition, Yahoo! has recently announced a series of important enhancements to its Search advertising business and will work closely with many Search Submit advertisers to provide them with search solutions that will benefit their businesses.
There has always been confusion over the paid inclusion program at Yahoo. In fact, it changed names a few times. There were reports that banned sites were able to be included in Yahoo via this program. Like I said at Search Engine Land, accepting money to be included in a free/unbiased search engine, just seems wrong.
I for one think this is a good move, although I know many SEOs who love this program.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.
Last week, I reported that Yahoo dropped the meta keywords tag and stopped using it completely. Remember, I told you that I wasn't convinced when I heard that and I asked the Senior Director of Search at Yahoo if he was sure? Well, he said he was, but in reality, he was mistaken.
Danny and others have confirmed that Yahoo is still using the meta keywords tag when ranking. People have set up test sites that show this to be the case. Danny received an official statement from Yahoo on how they use this meta keywords tag, which they do use:
What changed with Yahoo’s ranking algorithms is that while we still index the meta keyword tag, the ranking importance given to meta keyword tags receives the lowest ranking signal in our system.
Words that appear in any other part of documents, including the body, title, description, anchor text etc., will take priority in ranking the document – the re-occurrence of these words in the meta keyword tag will not help in boosting the signal for these words. Therefore, keyword stuffing in the keyword tag will not help a page’s recall or ranking, it will actually have less effect than introducing those same words in the body of the document, or any other section.
However, when no other ranking signal is present, unique words that only appear in the meta keyword tag section of documents can still be used to recall these documents.
I am not sure why I didn't originally believe it. It was not like I had proof at the time. In any event, we are all human and we make mistakes. Search representatives are often seen as the single authority on SEO related questions, but in reality, they cannot know everything and are human, like you and me.
Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.
Greg Sterling always does a great job with the financials, and he did so with the Yahoo (YHOO) earnings details. Yahoo Q2 Revs: $1.57B, Down 13 Percent But Profit Up 8 Percent from Search Engine Land has those details.
In short, revenue was down 13% but profit was up about 8%. Some thought Yahoo would layoff an additional 5%, but those reports were wrong.
We are all anticipating some Microsoft/Yahoo deal happening sooner then later, so time will tell. The Yahoo home page news failed to excite and the earnings report was not too positive. No wonder 60% feel Yahoo won't make a come back.
Microsoft (MSFT) is to announce earnings tonight, while Google (GOOG) already announced higher earnings. The real impressive company, to me, is AAPL.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
The other day, I spilled my guts out about missing the old days of Yahoo. I honestly wish Yahoo was on their way to a full recovery and become a strong competitor to Google or even not compete with Google, but just become stronger then it was a year ago. But it doesn't seem to be happening and it is sad.
I decided to feel out our readers, and ask them if they feel Yahoo has a shot and making a come back? Here are the results:
Question: HowWill Yahoo Turn Things Around?
:: No said 45 respondents or 60%
:: Yes said 25 respondents or 33%
:: Other said 5 respondents or 7%
Most of the "other" answers were "I doubt it" type of responses. Yahoo, prove us wrong, please!
Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo is reportedly releasing SearchPad today. We covered the preview of this earlier, where webmasters called it a big scraper tool - what search engine isn't. ;-)
What is it?
Search Pad is a note taking application built into Yahoo! Search that automatically assists you in saving websites you visit and taking notes as you search. Search Pad helps you collect, edit, organize, save, print, and email your notes for immediate or future use.
Search Pad is helpful in completing tasks and making decisions that require collecting information over multiple search sessions such as making a large purchase, planning a vacation or gathering information on a health issue.
You can learn all about it and see additional screen shots at [help.yahoo.com].
This can be a very useful tool for searchers, so I am looking forward to trying it out once and never using it again.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.
A few weeks ago, we asked our readers if they like the new Yahoo home page? With 127 responses in, I wanted to share the results.
Most of our readers do like the new home page. 73% said they like the new home page, while 25% said they do not like it. That is a pretty good distribution. Here is the pie chart:
The "other" responses were pretty much in the nature of "I don't care, either way."
Are you surprised by these results?
Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.
Several days ago Yahoo announced support for something called the common tag. In short, it basically gives developers a way to tag their content in a more unified way.
Vanessa Fox has the most detailed explanation of how this all works. In fact, Yahoo's post on the topic is almost unusable.
So please go skim her article and then come back here and let me know if you plan on giving this common tag a try. Personally, I doubt I will.
Here is the poll:
Will You Use Yahoo's Common Tag?(survey)
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
Several days ago Yahoo announced support for something called the common tag. In short, it basically gives developers a way to tag their content in a more unified way.
Vanessa Fox has the most detailed explanation of how this all works. In fact, Yahoo's post on the topic is almost unusable.
So please go skim her article and then come back here and let me know if you plan on giving this common tag a try. Personally, I doubt I will.
Here is the poll:
Will You Use Yahoo's Common Tag?(survey)
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
Several days ago Yahoo announced support for something called the common tag. In short, it basically gives developers a way to tag their content in a more unified way.
Vanessa Fox has the most detailed explanation of how this all works. In fact, Yahoo's post on the topic is almost unusable.
So please go skim her article and then come back here and let me know if you plan on giving this common tag a try. Personally, I doubt I will.
Here is the poll:
Will You Use Yahoo's Common Tag?(survey)
Forum discussion at Sphinn.
Yahoo is frequently testing new home pages. The most recent test was announced a few days ago. The new look looks like this:
Why do I bring it up now? Well, it appears some users are finally noticing the new home page in their daily browsing activities.
A WebmasterWorld thread has several people who said they now see the new home page. Personally, I don't see it. I am not sure if I like it over the current one. What about you?
Take our poll:
Do You Like The New Yahoo Home Page?(polls)
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
The Yahoo Search Japan blog announced they are updating their index now. Perhaps this is a sign that Yahoo in the US will update soon as well. I am pretty sure that both indexes are mostly separate for the most part, I am not sure if it works the same way at Google, but I think it does at Yahoo.
A WebmasterWorld thread has a single post about the update. One person who tracks Yahoo Search Japan said "we're experiencing big move on SERP."
The translated announcement reads:
Yahoo! In search, Yahoo! Inc. UEBUSACHIENJIN has developed the "Yahoo! Search Technology (YST)" has upgraded the search algorithm.
Recently we reported Index Update, unlike a significant upgrade and will affect the behavior of search engine algorithms.
The last US Yahoo Search update we reported was a while ago in March 2009.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo announced their first quarter earnings for 2009 and it was pretty bad. Here are the highlights:
Yahoo! Inc. today reported revenues of $1,580 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2009, a decrease of 13 percent from the first quarter of 2008. Excluding the impact of currency rate fluctuations, revenues for the first quarter of 2009 would have declined 8 percent from the first quarter of 2008. The Company’s non-GAAP operating cash flow for the first quarter of 2009 of $409 million exceeded the midpoint of the outlook range provided by the Company last quarter.
Plus, Yahoo will be cutting 5% of the staff, that is an additional 600-700 employees from the layoffs they had earlier this year and last year. Sounds like Yahoo is bleeding to me.
But the thing is, Yahoo beat Wall Street Estimates and the stock is up a bit in pre-market conditions.
In any event, you can read more about this at Search Engine Land or on Techmeme.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A month ago, Yahoo made some serious enhancements to the search marketing platform, improving the local targeting capabilities amongst other features.
WebmasterWorld moderator, werty, has been gathering local data since the feature has been released and has posted the somewhat disappointing results. werty said in a WebmasterWorld thread:
Currently we are using "North American YSM" and should only be getting North American traffic, but if I look through our logs I can see that 29% of the traffic is coming from foreign countries.
I could see how maybe 2-3% could come from proxies or things like that, but this traffic is highly suspect.
Werty goes on to share:
Of those 2061 that we received we were billed for 1894. This is roughly 8% of "bad traffic" that is being caught or screened by Yahoo!
There is another 21% that is not being caught, screened or refunded.
The scariest/funniest part of this is; Of the 2061 clicks, only 43 came from Yahoo! or ca.search.yahoo.com. That is 2.1% of traffic we received or 2.3% of traffic we paid for.
These are some serious insights and hopefully this is only a bug that is impacting this individual advertiser. I do highly doubt it though and I wonder if Yahoo will respond to this.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Update: Yahoo responded in the thread asking:
werty, are you using the Blocked Continents tool? It allows you to select the continents from which you do not wish to receive traffic. (Our lawyers make me say this next part: The accuracy of the Blocked Continents feature is not guaranteed, and may vary depending on a number of factors, such as the quality and type of data in the traffic stream that we receive. For example, if a searcher is using a product or service that makes the IP address "anonymous," our systems will be unable to determine his/her location, and therefore will be unable to apply continent blocking.)
Follow these steps to turn on or modify Blocked Continents:
- Click on the “Administration” tab.
- Click on the “Account General Information” link
- In the Blocked Continents field, select the checkbox for each continent to block. You cannot block your own continent, meaning the continent included in the market of your account.
- Click “Save Changes”.
There seems to be a Yahoo Search update taking place now. A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around the update. We do not have official confirmation from the Yahoo Search Blog yet, but we didn't have confirmation the last update either.
The first report came in early yesterday morning and since then, many others confirmed seeing an update as well. Let me pull out the key findings from the thread:
Why did Yahoo not announce this update? Well, maybe they will today or tomorrow. But the Yahoo Search Japan blog announced it the other day. It translates to:
Yahoo! In search, Yahoo! Inc. UEBUSACHIENJIN has developed the "Yahoo! Search Technology (YST)" has started a full update of the index.
The Index Update?
YST, every day to make a more user-friendly search engine, such as Japan's own and respond to the world stage and improve the work of Akira Osamu develop new features and functions. To reflect the results of this search engine, built-in indexer will update the entire index.
Position changes are expected to be improved with the results of this search. The full completion of the update takes a few days.Yahoo! Search Project
The last update was a small hiccup on February 9th but a larger update was on or around January 19th.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Many Yahoo Search advertisers are reporting that Yahoo has decreased the minimum bid requirements on some keywords in their campaigns over the past couple days. A WebmasterWorld thread has several advertisers confirming this activity.
In fact, I received a message from Yahoo with the exact same notification on February 24th at 8:37 PM. The Yahoo Search Marketing "alert" said:
Minimum bid requirements have decreased for 'Company Name' [account #]. Some of your inactive Sponsored Search keywords are now active. Review bids now.
Why has Yahoo reduced the bids for some keywords? Don't they want to make more money?
Well, it seems that some keywords were "inactive" and were making Yahoo no money at all. Possibly by decreasing the minimum bids, Yahoo has reactivated these keywords and is now capable of making some money on these keywords. Thus activating hundreds, if not thousands of new ads into the search marketplace automatically, but with giving notification.
In January, Yahoo had the nerve to make changes to advertiser campaigns after there was an outcry already. So clearly this is still going on, but Yahoo is at least sending "alerts" now.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo's new CEO, Bartz, is rumored to be pushing out a major reorganization for the troubled search engine in the upcoming weeks. Kara Swisher at AllThingsD, I believe, broke the news about this coming down. You can see some additional coverage on the news at Techmeme.
Greg Sterling summarizes this new management style as "top down" approach, something Yahoo might not be use to. But Yahoo needs change and maybe this will be it.
Supposedly, Bartz is very tight lipped about who she tells her plans. So I suspect both executives and the normal workers at Yahoo are both a bit antsy on what will take place this week.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Textex at WebmasterWorld is reporting that he is seeing both an Ask.com update and a Yahoo Search update.
He first noticed Yahoo Search changes yesterday afternoon, saying "Seeing movement." He was then backed up by full member, Vimes, who said, "I'm seeing something not sure if I'd call it an update just yet, the sectors i look at there is a shuffle." So this may be the beginning of a Yahoo update or it might be some sector tweaks. We are due a Yahoo update, the last one we noticed was back in November 2008, since then, there have been no confirmed Yahoo Search updates. So having an update now, would not surprise me.
On the Ask.com front, there is a bit more discussion going on, being that the update was reported at WebmasterWorld a bit earlier. Textex called this update "a complete overhaul." Full member, robzilla, confirmed but cautioned that this update doesn't seem to be "an improvement" to their index. Soon later, they both noticed that clearing their cookies reset the "results reverted back" to their previous state. This implies that the results might be a test on some users. I did some of my own testing and the results do seem a bit better. Still not what I consider "fresh" results, but a bit better on the few dozen results I check to see quality. This cannot have anything to do with Ask.com's recent announcement on NASCAR, so I wonder what exactly is going on here?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld on both Ask.com update and Yahoo Search update.
The past week has been a rough one for Yahoo, in terms of advertiser relations. First they emailed notifications of the terms and conditions, which got them in major hot water. Then even after the hot water, they had the nerve to make changes to advertiser's campaigns and keywords without permission or notification.
But it doesn't end there. Over the weekend, we are getting reports from WebmasterWorld from at least two different advertisers that Yahoo has turned on the advertiser's content network, even though the content network has been explicitly turned off by the advertiser in the master account settings. The interesting point is, that YahooPete, an official Yahoo representative said this should not be the case. Let me quote you:
I checked with the folks here who are managing the Account Optimization program, and they told me that turning Content Match on or off is not part of the program. So while I can’t say for sure why your settings might have changed, it wasn’t due to the optimization program.
As Zamboni pointed out, the “master setting” under the Administration tab in your account has the ultimate control over your account: If that account-level setting is set to “Off,” you should not receive any Content Match traffic in your entire account, no matter what the settings are at the campaign or ad group levels. We designed it this way to give advertisers more control of their tactic settings, so that certain campaigns could be set up solely for Content Match traffic, and others solely for Sponsored Search traffic.
But soon later, an advertiser claimed that this is not true. He said, "just a week or so back, I noticed that content was turned on for one of my campaigns even though content was set to off in "master setting"."
Now, it is hard to tell who is telling the truth and who is not. The bottom line, as we have been stressing throughout the week, is to make sure to check your accounts and make sure your ad dollars are being well spent.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that folks are noticing that Yahoo Site Explorer has updated the link counts for the tool.
I do not typically track these numbers, but many do. So if you do, definitely take a look and see if you are doing any better.
Here is a screen capture of our most recent Yahoo Site Explorer link count:
The 250,000 value shows all links to seroundtable.com, excluding internal links, but to the entire domain. In contrast to Google Webmaster Tools, which only reports 175,408 links for this domain.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
This week I reported how Yahoo notified advertisers of a change to their terms and conditions, which explicitly gave Yahoo legal rights to change advertisers campaigns and keywords without permission from the advertiser. In fact, this has been the case since June of last year, but it wasn't noticed by the masses until now.
This caused a major outcry by SEMs this week. Andy Beal felt embarrassed for Yahoo, that they would do this. Loren Baker kind of implied this a way for Yahoo to sneak money from advertisers, without them noticing. And back in June, I was really not happy with this change - who would be.
All in all, we did not hear a peep from Yahoo on the matter. I did not see a Yahoo representative come into a forum to respond. I did not receive a phone call or email from a Yahoo representative on the matter. Nothing from Yahoo, and I am a bit surprised by that.
To make things worse, Yahoo has the nerve to go into a Search Engine Watch moderator's advertiser's account and make changes without telling them. A Search Engine Watch Forums thread reports that Mel, a moderator who knows a heck of a lot on PPC, noticed that after all these reports, Yahoo changed his campaigns. Let me quote you:
I never received ANY communication that this had happened - no email, no call, no nothing. I found out about it when I logged in to YSM and saw a note in the YSM Dashboard saying that "new campaigns had been uploaded."
To make things worse, they made horrid changes to the account, including maxing up the bids to $1! Here are those changes:
Back to the WebmasterWorld thread, one advertiser had to plead with Yahoo to promise not to make changes to his account. He described the process as very frustrating, here it is:
I called my rep and asked them to ensure that we would not have any changes made. At first, I was told that accounts could not be excluded. I raised a fuss and was told to submit an email request, to which I received a confirmation that no changes would be made to my account with my permission. Haven't seen any, so I guess they're following the rules.
The good news is that Mel, the moderator, said when she argued with his rep, the rep was very good about "opting" him out of this. She called his "Yahoo rep and she assured me we would be opted out of auto-optimization in the future." So get on the phone and call your rep as soon as possible.
Yahoo, seriously, how can you do this. It is one thing to change the terms and conditions for legal reasons, but to actually go in and make these changes?
No, this is not the first time we have heard rumors of Yahoo representatives "auto-optimizing" accounts, but to "auto-optimize" after the outcry, that just makes things a hundred times worse.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.
Yesterday, the blogsophere was abuzz with news that Yahoo will be retaining data for 90 days. At Search Engine Land, Barry explains that "[t]he data policy is not just inclusive of their search data but also their page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks."
The industry has been pretty quiet about anonymizing data since June 2007. But this new announcement, which shortens the length of data retention by more than a year compared to other engines, is a bit eye-opening. It's also perceived as a great move on behalf of Yahoo and one that will put pressure on Google to do the same thing.
Well, it's a great move on behalf of Yahoo if they actually remove all query information after 3 months (and not just IP information). After all, I can't help but think about Thelma Arnold who was identified by her search behavior and not her actual IP location.
What, then, is Yahoo retaining after 90 days and what is Yahoo scrapping? We don't know. Do you?
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld. More blog discussion is on Techmeme.
The Yahoo Search Marketing blog has announced that those utilizing the Sponsored Search account functionality can now block 500 domains instead of the standard 250.
While this is helpful--after all, the number of blocked domains has now doubled--there's a concern that Yahoo is still sending "garbage traffic" to YSM users (from Yahoo search partners). One mentions that 500 blocked domains is not nearly enough. One mentions that he wants to block all non Yahoo domains.
On the other hand, one forum member says that he hopes that Google sees this as a challenge and also ups the number of domains that can be blocked.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums, and Search Engine Watch Forums
YahooPete has written on three of his usual forums to let us know that Yahoo Search Marketing has come out with many desired features. They include:
* Country-level targeting
* City and zip-level targeting
* Targeting English-speaking US and Canada Internet users
The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog goes into these changes in more detail.
As forum members are writing, these are changes that they really appreciate.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Watch Forums and DigitalPoint Forums.
Yahoo Site Explorer seems to have pushed out their beta design to everyone now. The new look, is not just visual, it also contains these new data points:
+ Site URL
+ Number of pages known
+ Number of pages crawled
+ Number of host on this domain
+ Number of inlinks
+ Number of inlink domains
+ Number of outlinks
+ Number of outlink domains
Patrick at BlogStorm took notice to this update early this morning. Yes, it is now available to everyone to see by default, without having to go to the beta URL. Nice catch Patrick.
A DigitalPoint Forums thread has a poll on if you like the new design or not. I am not sure if the poll is fair, because the new design not only gives you a slightly new look, but also gives you new data - which everyone likes.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
A couple days ago, Tamar reported that Yahoo Search Marketing raised the minimum credit card amount to $250 for the Yahoo Product Submit program. Yahoo then sent us a statement, calling this change "in line with the industry's competitive norm." Now, after being offline for two days, I come back to several threads complaining about Yahoo charging more but offering less services.
Besides for the spike in the minimum charges for Product Submit customers, their fees are going up as well. A WebmasterWorld thread and Search Engine Watch Forums thread has an email from Yahoo showing that Yahoo will spike up the cost per click (CPC) by 25% in all categories in the Product Submit category. Let me quote you the email:
From November 3, 2008, until December 31, 2008, Yahoo! will be making a seasonal rate adjustment by increasing the cost per click (CPC) by 25% in all categories. This means that during this period your actual billed CPC will be 25% higher. This adjustment reflects the increased consumer buying activity during the holiday shopping season, which is typified by increased leads, better conversion to sale, and increased revenue for our merchant partners. The 25% adjustment to your billed CPC will be reflected on your Click Report and in your invoice.
No wonder Yahoo increased the minimum credit card charges to $250, it will be required with a 25% CPC increase.
To make things worse, on the Yahoo Search Marketing side, I saw a WebmasterWorld thread reporting an email being sent to Yahoo advertisers. The email says that for some advertisers, telephone support will be discontinued and they will step up the email support. Here is part of that email:
We wanted to let you know of some important news regarding your servicing options:
* Phone service - Starting September 29th, telephone support will no longer be available for some of our advertisers.
* 24-hour email support - Because we know some questions require personal help, our Customer Solutions team is always accessible, now through extended hours. Use the following steps:
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums and the second WebmasterWorld.
The Yodel Anecdotal Blog talks about the launch of APT from Yahoo, a new digital advertising platform that advertises "quality inventory" and "drive[n] results."
Here are some features of APT for Yahoo, according to YahooPete:
Will you get APT immediately? No -- it's currently being rolled out slowly to Yahoo users and this will probably continue though 2009.
Now guys, what exactly does APT stand for?
Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums, WebmasterWorld, and DigitalPoint Forums.
About a week ago we reported about the news that Yahoo is testing a new home page design. Since then, we have really not heard any chatter about people actually seeing the design in place. I personally see the old design and that is expected because Yahoo is testing out the new design on a test group.
Last night, a DigitalPoint Forums thread started, telling members that he saw the new design. This user was using Internet Explorer and was automatically redirected from www.yahoo.com to m.www.yahoo.com. Clicking on m.www.yahoo.com will not load the new design for everyone, because most users who tried it, including myself, do not see the new design.
Aurora Brown, the individual who saw this new design, posted a screen capture at AuthorityDomains.com:
It is a simpler design, but will Yahoo users like it?
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
A WebmasterWorld thread reports that several webmasters have noticed that even though they are redirecting their non www to the www version, Yahoo is still listing their non-www as the main result.
This comes even after months of redirecting the non www using a 301 redirect, permanent redirect, to the www version. Here are some comments from the thread:
www.example.com redirects to example.com and has done so for quite some time now. Yet when I do a search for a two word primary key phrase, Yahoo shows www.example.com. A search for my domain name returns example.com.
I was at #1 for a few years but lost some ranking in August for this search phrase. I'm not sure if the ranking loss is related.
Is it a backlink issue? Doesn't appear so:
I looked, and can't find any backlinks at all to non-www but the homepage shows up both with and without for different searches.
So what is going on with the latest Yahoo update? Good question.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Reuters reports that Yahoo is doing an overhaul of its homepage, but that not all users can see it yet (like me. I never get the good stuff early). According to the Reuters article, this change is intended to "give users a personalized view of the wider Web."
Here's their screenshot:
I'm not entirely sure who is seeing the new redesign, as Yahoo says less than 15% of users have been exposed to it. Thus far, there's been no forum discussion on the impact of the redesign.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
Google has an AdWords Editor, Microsoft is testing adCenter Editor (beta), but there is no word from Yahoo on a desktop editor for their Search Marketing platform.
An old WebmasterWorld thread was recently refreshed with the question, when is it coming?
One member recently received a survey from Yahoo's Lori Love Vice President of Customer Solutions. The survey mentioned the editor, but had no hint as to when of if it will ever come. One advertiser was told by his platinum specialist that Yahoo advertisers may see something in the first quarter of 2009. He did add that the editor will be lacking many features that you currently find in AdWords Editor.
Yahoo has been under a lot of stress recently, primarily over their search ads division. I wonder if the editor is a priority right now for them.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A DigitalPoint Forums thread reports that Yahoo Site Explorer has done a major update to their linkage data reports. Most webmasters are reporting huge drops in the number of links reported today versus the days before.
The linkage drops are reported as high as losing over 5,000 links. Others saw a drop of about 1,000 links and so on.
It is possible it is a temporary reporting glitch, but some are actually speculating that Yahoo is no longer showing links that are not counted, either nofollowed or simply not counted, in the linkage reports anymore. Right now, it is too soon to know for sure. But if anything changes or if more reports come in, I will do a follow up post.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Update: Just wanted to add that we reported similar issues in March, where my link count then was 271,196 inlinks, but in October I had 216,880 inlinks, and now I have 247,183.
Go to Yahoo Search and use their search suggestions. All I want you to do is enter in "G" into the search box and obtain the search suggestions.
Yea, Google comes up as a suggestion. This is really a common thing. People go to search engines to find other search engines. In fact, I have seen several clients go to Google.com and type in "google" to get back to Google.com. I am not joking.
The search suggestions typically try to show you the most common searches for your partial search phrase. It is not surprising to me that Google is a popular search at Yahoo. In fact, try typing in "Y" into Google, you will see Google puts YouTube first, but in fact, Yahoo is search more often, according to the numbers:
Again, not surprising.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Yahoo conducted an update to their search engine over the weekend. We reported on the early discussion around the update and it then became official when the Yahoo Search Blog confirmed the update later in the day.
But since then, I have been hearing and reading discussion that the new Yahoo Search results are more like Google. And since Google tends to be the barometer of what is "relevant" and what is not, maybe Yahoo's search results are becoming more "relevant."
Yahoo Search moderator, travelin cat, at WebmasterWorld said:
We have never ranked in the top 100 results in Yahoo since their split with Google. Starting a couple of days ago, our site started showing up in Yahoo serps. Most of our kw phrases are now on either the first or second page.
Plus, we have a whole new DigitalPoint Forums thread on the topic of the Yahoo results being incredibly similar to Google results. Here is a select comment from that thread:
Did anyone noticed changes in Yahoo!' SERP today. Yahoo is following the same way as Google. Frequent change in Google SERP is kind of common now but it's new for Yahoo!. Yahoo! is changing search results very frequently now.
Not only are the results looking a bit similar, in some cases, the frequency of updates seems to be getting similar and the discussion has grown a bit around this update.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.
Let me take you back a few steps before getting into this update. On June 30th, Yahoo announced an update that did not update any of the search results around that date. Several days later, around July 7th, webmasters began to notice a July Yahoo update. Now, I am seeing early reports of an additional Yahoo update.
The reports come from WebmasterWorld yesterday, saying that in the real estate niche, "80% of the sites" are no longer in the same position they were the day before. They have been replaced by "gov and org or small old sites," said WebmasterWorld member Garya.
Member, supafresh supported Garya's post by saying:
Yahoo changed today in my sector, we moved from the 3rd page to the first page. From my analysis a few days prior I think they tweaked the algorithm on template recognition.
Did you notice a change in Yahoo in the past twenty-four hours?
On the Google front, we continue to see yo-yoing, even today.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
I am not sure if this is new but it seems if you search in Yahoo for www.domain.com, Yahoo will return results as if you submitted a site command to Yahoo. For example, a search on www.seroundtable.com returns about 18,800, only from seroundtable.com.
If you conduct a true site command at Yahoo Search, i.e. site:www.seroundtable.com, Yahoo will automatically redirect you to Yahoo Site Explorer. Yahoo actually started redirecting these types of queries to Site Explorer almost exactly two years ago, today.
Has Yahoo decided using a simple www.domain.com syntax should stay on Yahoo Search and not be redirected to Site Explorer? Has Yahoo always returned a site command like result set for www.domain.com searches? I know Google does not return site command like results for a www.domain.com search.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Yahoo made small, but significant changes, to the layout of the top search ads. It seems like Yahoo is now showing a maximum of three ads at the top of the page, when they use to show four ads. Plus, they have moved the display URL under the ad description.
Here is a sample of the old layout:
Notice the display URL is on the same line as the description. Plus, there are four ads for this particular search result. This picture was taken from James Omdahl and seems to be as recent as January 2008.
The new/current layout:
Notice, the display URL is now under the ad description and there are only three ads.
Spratjac, notified us of this change in Search Engine Roundtable Forums just a couple hours ago. He said, "On some of the keywords that I follow that normally show 4 ads above the organic results, it's now only three - very consistently." "Also, the ads look simultaneously more compact (closer together), and yet bigger (the URLs are now on a line by themselves)," he added.
Is Yahoo taking the Google route of reducing the number of ads to improve search quality and click-through rate?
Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.
An interesting phenomenon is occurring within Yahoo Search Marketing that has been expressed pretty intensely by affected advertisers at WebmasterWorld. According to the impacted advertisers, the quality of their campaigns have gone down because of false impressions that have been generated for long tail keywords that were often never searched upon. In the case of one advertiser, his ad campaign served nearly 120,000 new impressions (triple what it was before) because of these obscure keywords in the campaign. After digging into his statistics, he disabled these low-performing keywords, but the damage had already been done, and the overall campaign effectiveness was reduced.
In other words, "a competitor found a low traffic keyword that [was being] advertise[d] on and searched tens of thousands of times to skew your CTR, thus lowering the quality of [the] entire campaign."
Only two Yahoo PPC users have been impacted by this shift thus far. According to one Yahoo rep, it is probably due to "market fluctuations," but typically, those who run the campaigns themselves would be most abreast of any market fluctuations (am I right?) It seems, to both affected individuals that there may be something else going on here, perhaps in the sense of fraud.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
David Eaves reports that UK based users who go to yahoo.com are now being redirected from the .com version to the Yahoo UK domain.
David said this is brand new behavior from Yahoo. 24 hours earlier, if a UK internet user went to Yahoo.com, it would keep them on Yahoo.com. Now, Yahoo is sending UK users off to Yahoo UK.
I honestly have a feeling this has to do with Yahoo Now Showing Geo-Location Under Search Ads from two days ago. Yahoo told me that they rolled out that feature last "week with the roll out of a new “geo labels” feature." I would not be surprised if the same geo-technology was applied to this.
I am going to post screen captures of this at Search Engine Land, with the behavior of how Yahoo, Google and Live handle UK users.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting a possible bug with the Yahoo Site Explorer tool.
The webmaster reports that when trying to delete the https URLs of his site from the Yahoo index via Yahoo Site Explorer, it tries to delete the http version as well.
As many SEOs and Webmasters know, having both the https and http version of the same content in the search results can hurt you a bit in terms of link equity. SEOs and Webmasters want to ensure that the links they obtain go specifically to one URL and not two, and since https is a different url then http, search engines may consider them as two different pages with exactly the same content.
So when some webmasters see that Yahoo indexed both pages, they may want to force the removal of one of those pages in Site Explorer. But according to this webmaster, if you try removing https, it will remove the http versions as well.
That brings up an interesting logical observation. If removing an https version, will remove the http version, then maybe Yahoo considers https urls to be the same as http. Maybe https://www.mysite.com/abc.html is the same as http://www.mysite.com/abc.html in the eyes of Yahoo. Maybe all links pointing to the https version are automatically moved over to the http version, in terms of the link popularity component used in Yahoo? Maybe... Or Maybe not?
Maybe, it is a bug in Site Explorer as one member suggests.
I've pointed out to Yahoo that http and https are just different protocols. They suggested that this was a bug in SiteExplorer.
I would think it is a bug and Yahoo doesn't treat https URLs as http.
The quick and easy fix, 301 the https version to http, if possible. But that is not always possible.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Barry at Search Engine Land points out that Yahoo India has glue pages, which some people are comparing to Universal Search, because of classic search results on the left hand column, visual information in the center column and bottom right hand corner (in addition to articles), and sponsored results.
Here's a screenshot for a search for trees. Click to enlarge.
The idea is pretty cool and sticky (pun intended) and the results page is definitely more aesthetically pleasing than the standard 10 blue links. It kind of reminds me of the current Ask.com format:
Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.
A WebmasterWorld thread has a copy of an email a Yahoo Product Submit advertiser received. The email basically says that Yahoo will be switching from a flat category price structure to a bidding marketplace type of structure, like we have at Yahoo Search Marketing or Google AdWords.
Why would Yahoo be switching the Product Submit pricing structure from a flat tier structure to a bidding structure? Possibly to earn more money? Possibly to consolidate the search marketing systems into one pricing mechanism?
Here is a copy of the email as posted at WebmasterWorld:
Dear Product Submit advertiser,
We are pleased to announce the upcoming launch of a bidded marketplace. With this change, there will be modifications to your Master Terms & Conditions and Program Terms, which will be detailed in a future email notice that you'll receive in the next 30 days.
We expect the bidded marketplace to have an impact on your day-to-day business. Therefore, we advise you and your team to begin planning for the transition to a bidded model.
As part of this launch, we are expanding the number of product categories and improving reporting within your Product Submit account.
These changes are designed to help you to:
- Better influence the level of traffic you receive from Yahoo! Shopping
- Gain more control over optimizing your product listings
- Gain better visibility into your category performance
Stay tuned!The Yahoo Product Submit team
If you visit the Product Submit pricing page, you will notice that there have been no changes to the current pricing structure. At least not yet.
This is a major change for those who use Yahoo Product Submit and will require a higher level of daily management, something that many advertisers most likely won't like to spend their time on. I guess this is good news for search marketers.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Last night, the big news was again Microsoft/Yahoo/Google business dealings. You can see all the headlines at Techmeme, including (1) Microsoft might start the hostile takeover today (tomorrow) and (2) Yahoo might announce they will continue to carry Google ads on the Yahoo search network. Greg Sterling has a post on that news at Search Engine Land.
I know that many advertisers would be delighted if Yahoo used Google's AdWords network as their ad base. We have positive feedback from when Google powered Yahoo's ads just a couple weeks ago. So, if Yahoo continued this test and made it a full deal, I know many advertisers who would be delighted.
I am sure there would be many who would be upset, but I think more would be happy. Out of curiosity, let's poll our readers on this. Would you be happy if Google powered Yahoo's search ads in the future?
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Last week Yahoo added a nifty feature to Yahoo Local Search. For example, let's say you are looking for the nearest ATM machine. You can type in ATM, and then your zip code. But you won't be shown the nearest ATM within an X mile radius always.
Yahoo let's you plot the diameter of the circle and drop the center of that circle anywhere you want. Yahoo will then refine the local results based on the radius you selected and the center of the circle. Here is a quick video demo:
It doesn't seem like this tool is without bugs. A WebmasterWorld thread reports a blackhole issue.
I went looking for pizza places in Manhattan and noticed certain places disappeared even if you move the circle a hundred yards or so. You'd suddenly find black holes in the middle of Manhattan where there were, according to yahoo, no pizza places. Budge the circle over an eighth of an inch and the same pizza-free streets would suddenly fill with pizza joints, so there's still some work for them to do.
In any event, a unique and interactive solution to searching locally.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo's new minimum bids are now official live, and several advertisers have posted their new minimum bid increases at both WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.
Each advertiser who noticed a change in their minimum bid said they noticed an increase by two to four times of their original minimum bid price. Here is a quote from the thread:
yahoo just raised my minimum bids by 3 -4 times on many keywords.. they must be out of their minds..
Some advertisers feel stranded, having to now deal with Google Slaps and now the Yahoo Slap.
Google was impossible. And now Yahoo. Where to go?
But this is the reality of the game now. If your quality does not meet the definition of quality at Yahoo or Google, you will pay for it.
Let's poll our audience... Did your minimum bid increase in Yahoo?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.
Yesterday I reported that Google stopped running the Yahoo ads test that they started a week earlier and then asked why. I asked why would they stop the test early?
Well, the answer is that they did not. The individual we are tracking to see if the Google ads are live or not on Yahoo, saw that they went down. But now he is reported at Search Engine Watch Forums that the ads are currently showing again.
So I was premature in reporting that Google stopped testing the ads. They have continued the test and outlooks are continuing to look positive for advertisers and Yahoo, with this test.
Forum discussion continued at Search Engine Watch Forums.
Yahoo told us they were testing Google ads on Yahoo Search for a two week period within the US market only. Again, a two-week period, so why am I receiving reports that the test is now complete, after just a week?
A new thread at Search Engine Watch Forums by abbottsys states that his Google ads are now no longer showing up in the Yahoo Search ad slots. He also helped us break the news on when Yahoo started showing Google ads back on April 11th. But, as of April 16th, the Google ads no longer show on Yahoo.
That test was only one week. Did the test go really bad quickly? Was Yahoo not happy with the Google ads? Was Google not happy with Yahoo? Or is it simply that they both have enough data to make a decision going forward?
Maybe Yahoo decided to pull the Google ads in anticipation of earning more money through their new minimum bid prices that are suppose to go into effect any time now?
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
Update: There is related news at the WSJ on this:
Yahoo Inc. moved closer to outsourcing its search advertising to Google Inc. after an initial test of the system yielded what the two firms deemed positive results, people familiar with the matter said. — A partnership could give Yahoo some needed leverage …
Something is up, for sure. More coverage can be found at Techmeme.
Update: Yahoo Ad Test on Google Continues...
Yesterday I inaccurately reported that Yahoo's new minimum bid prices were live. That was wrong. What is live is the new user interface that shows one's minimum bid. In fact, I showed a screen shot of the location of where Yahoo will show you your new minimum bid:
But, an official Yahoo representative, YahooPete, came to WebmasterWorld to notify us that only the user interface has changes and the new prices have not yet gone live. That honestly surprises me, because I was told the new prices were coming early this week and being Thursday, we are not late this week.
In any event, YahooPete clarified saying:
Since we're close to launching minimum bid changes, some advertisers may notice user interface changes. We expect the actual bid changes to go live soon.
I will keep watching the space and let you know as soon as I see an update.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
WebmasterWorld members report that Yahoo has announced its new crawler, Slurp 3.0. Now, when you analyze your weblogs, you'll be seeing Slurp 3.0, though it recognizes the same user-agent and robots.txt as before.
More importantly, they are invalidating all other Yahoo Slurp IP addresses and using brand new ones for this update. IP-based rules will need to be changed.
Search Engine Land provides more information, where Barry writes that the new IP addresses will still reverse DNS lookup to crawl.yahoo.net.
On WebmasterWorld, your work is getting more complicated, according to Wilderness. There are still 11 different spiders and 5 user agents to keep track of. But Barry explains this clearly: "If you set directives for "Slurp" or "Yahoo! Slurp," those will remain working, but if you specified "Slurp/2.0," then you may have an issue."
It is kind of funny, in that Yahoo's spiders are having the same old problems that Yahoo's business unit is having. Remember the Peanut Butter Memo, where Yahoo talks about their lack of clarity between all their business units and properties. It's all too familiar once again.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.
Note: "Me" in this case refers to Barry. I'm only here to report about Slurp 3.0. ;)
A HighRankings Forum thread asks when did Yahoo stop grouping search results from the same domain together? We reported on an issue with Google not grouping certain results a few weeks ago, but it is rare to see Google not group results in many cases. But Yahoo doesn't seem to be grouping any results from the same domain together, at least not today.
For example, a search on george bush at Yahoo shows three results from the White House web site, and two right next to each other, but none of them are grouped together:
A search at Google on george bush groups a few of the results together, when the domain is the same, including the White House results:
So where did the indenting go Yahoo Search?
The thread also talks about missing how Yahoo used to number the results, but that is an older topic.
Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.
Yesterday I reported that one of the many Yahoo announcements were that Yahoo was going to test running Google ads on Yahoo Search USA.
According to a Search Engine Watch Forums thread, the Google ads are now live on Yahoo. Note, if you don't want your Google ads to show on Yahoo, you need to opt your ads out on showing on third party search providers. In any event, some advertisers are noticing that their Google ads are showing up in Yahoo sponsored results.
As expected, the ads don't appear as AdSense ads - they simply look like Yahoo ads. SEW moderator explains, "Yahoo seems to be configured as a Google Search Partner, not as an AdSense publisher." In addition, he adds, "Initially (i.e. earlier today) I was only seeing my ad a small percent of the time (i.e. Yahoo was only including it on a fraction of the SRPs for a given search), but now I'm seeing my ad 100% of the time." But the ad is only showing when he stopped showing his native Yahoo ad, i.e. the Google ad won't show for him until he tells Yahoo to stop showing his Yahoo ad.
His conclusion so far?
The net effect is like a pooled ad resource, where Google and Yahoo have pooled ads to run on Yahoo (and maybe soon on both engines?)
Note, this is supposedly only suppose to impact 3% of Yahoo's search ads in the US. It is also suppose to run only for about two weeks.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
YahooPete has visited the forums over the weekend and has announced that Yahoo! Search Marketing's customer support hours have changed. The new hours are:
Monday – Friday: 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Saturday: 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Sunday: Closed
The number for the support team is (866) 924-6676.
Forum discussion continues at DigitalPoint Forums, Search Engine Watch Forums, and WebmasterWorld.
A DigitalPoint Forums thread has dozens of reports that Yahoo Search's crawler, Yahoo Slurp, took some bad medicine recently. Many are reporting that they see the crawler spidering their sites like never before. Some times they have seen the spider multiple to over a 1,000 crawls at one time.
The first report claimed about 500 Yahoo spiders:
I have a forum and I get 500+ (sometimes 800+) Yahoo spiders daily. Why is there so many? I only get 1 or 2 Google spiders.
Others reported similar cases with much more Yahoo spider activity then Google spider activity. These reports seemed to have died down recently.
The initial report came at Friday afternoon and then died out Saturday afternoon. So maybe it was just a temporary Yahoo glitch?
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
