The Search Engine Insider

Editor's Note - 3/30/2004

Hello {!name},

Competition lives on! Thank you Yahoo! Search.

This month's newsletter, written by your Editor, explores some the thoughts about the meaning of the launching of this valuable new search engine. And a Tip on how to use Ranking Manager to view a comparison of positioning between search engines.

If you have any questions about your subscription, please see the side bar note to the right.

Terry G. Plank
Editor
editor@websitemanagementtools.com

Yahoo! is finally back in the game!

Launching their own crawler-based search engine couldn't have come at a better time. As of November 2003 Google results have had very mixed effectiveness. They changed to such a degree that in many areas the Google results are not helpful to searchers for finding the best sites to meet their needs.

The surprise, of course, was that Yahoo! decided not to just use the Inktomi engine they own, but to create a new crawler-based search engine algorithm based on the technology of all their companies; Inktomi, AltaVista, FAST, and Overture.

Ok, so what does this mean for your search engine marketing strategy?

There are two giants to deal with for driving traffic to our sites. Look for a third when MSN eventually launches their own engine. Until then, Yahoo! Search is supplying results for MSN.

Before February 18th, the majority of search results were from Google who supplied AOL and Yahoo!. Now, you need a search engine marketing strategy that includes making sure your site is relevant to two search engines if you want to get the same traffic.

So, where do you start with revamping your search engine marketing strategy?

First, view the different positioning for your pages between Google and Yahoo! in Ranking-Manager. There are lots of ways to do that. We'll explain one of them in the Tips section on the right of the Newsletter. Ranking Manager is even more of an essential tool now since you need to compare the results of ranking for all your keyword phrases for both engines. Putting them side by side in Ranking-Manger results is a clear way to stay up to date.

Now, unless you’re a miracle worker or very lucky, these two engines will rank your pages differently for your targeted keywords, they use different rules (algorithms) to evaluate the relevancy of your pages. So you must decide how to be relevant to both search engines.

No problem if both rank different pages of your site for one of your keyword phrases. You’re fine if Google ranks www.mydomain.com/myfile1.html #5 for the keyword phrase [homes for sale] and Inktomi ranks www.mydomain.com/myfile2.html #5 for the same keyword phrase.

But, what do you do if each search engine ranks the same file targeting [homes for sale] in a much different manner. Let’s say your home page, www.mydomain.com/index.html is #5 for Google and #21 for Yahoo? Now you have a challenge!

Here’s what you don’t want to do:

• Change index.html to try to improve for Yahoo!
• Spam the search engine by mirroring the same page information, but changing it enough for Yahoo! to rank it better.
• Create a new spam page that isn’t relevant to a user of your site but is there just for Yahoo! to find.

What you want to do is either find a page on your site that you can make more relevant for Yahoo! for your targeted keyword [homes for sale] or add a new page to your site that will be valuable to your site users and be found relevant to for [homes for sale].

In other words, forget the idea of trying to "get my site ranked well". Shift to a strategy like the following:

• Find a good set of keyword phrases that will drive traffic and convert to sales.
• Decide which page to target for each of these keyword phrases.
• After an initial trial period, evaluate your positioning with Ranking-Manager for each of your keywords.
• Find the actual pages that have enough ranking that you can work on them to improve positioning even if that was not the one you targeted. You may need to reset your strategy to different pages than you originally intended!
• Determine which keywords and which pages are doing well for Google and Yahoo!. Then improve your findability for each keyword phrase on each search engine like stated above.

For details on how to work with the two engines different rules (algorithms) to improve their relevancy to each engine there are several options for you.

• Group or individual training and coaching: Search Engine Workshops, Search Engine Marketing Consultation, Online Web Training.
• Optimization software: Search Engine Optimizer.
• Informational Newsletters: Planet Ocean Communications, Web Pro News, Site Pro News, and Search Engine Watch.