Yahoo Optimization - How to Optimize for the New Yahoo

Update 4/4/04 - Yahoo Now Using DMOZ!

About The New Yahoo & Yahoo Site Match

On 2/18/04 Yahoo stopped using Google search results and switched over to Inktomi results.. well almost. A company as large as Yahoo wouldn't merely just "flip the switch" and default to different search engine results, what emerged is an entirely new Yahoo.

You can think of the New Yahoo, YAHINK or any of the other catch phrases floating around as a layered search engine. And if you want to rank well in Yahoo you'll be sure to achieve the necessary goals. It looks as if Yahoo has taken Inktomi's basis for ranking web pages and created a foundation to improve upon it.

Yahoo WebRank Check
Use this great tool from Digital Point to check your websites rank within Yahoo. This tools is great because it does not require the Yahoo toolbar to be installed and you can simply check the various web ranks of sites throughout Yahoo.

New information will be added as it is made available considering Yahoo will be tuning their new engine over the next few weeks.

New Yahoo Optimization Techniques

Title Tags, Meta Tags and Keywords Oh My!
Keywords and keyword density is more popular than ever, and with the new Yahoo your going to want to take advantage of this. Make sure your keywords are listed in your title tag as well as in your description and keywords tags. Since Yahoo is definitely reading your meta tags it is strongly recommended that you utilize them. But wait, there is more!

With Yahoo returning a vast amount of sub pages in the SERP's it is important to vary your title, description and meta tag on each individual page. If each of your web pages is based on a different topic of a specific theme, make sure your tags are optimized for that specific term. Don't feel the pressure to max out your keywords on the homepage (as with Google). Target the homepage for 2-3 of your keywords and take advantage of those sub pages.

Example: This web site is about Web Page Optimization, this individual page is specifically about Yahoo Optimization. So.. we've included our keyword (Yahoo Optimization) in the title tag, meta and description tags as well as throughout the page.

Side Note: Jill Whalen just published a great article called "Title Tags, Meta Descriptions and Keywords" over at Search Engine Guide. It's a great read and even a valued refresher on the topic.

We could have simply make one large page about how to optimize for all the engines but aside from being too long and redundant, we end up killing two birds with one stone.

1. Optimize your individual pages for individual keywords
2. Make your site useful and user friendlier

Yahoo Slurp is also indexing the full text of web pages, up to a 500,000 characters limit. Compared to Googlebots indexing limit of 101k this means you can add more content per page to maximize your efforts and not compromising your pages information integrity. The new Yahoo search also supports many file types, including HTML, PDF, and Microsoft Office documents.

Pay to be Listed
Regardless of the fact that Yahoo is not primarily using Inktomi results it is taking them into consideration. First off, you want to be listed in Inktomi! Now, how you go about it is up to you. Paid inclusions gets you all the benefits that come along with the subscription such as guaranteed inclusion and frequent visits by Yahoo Slurp. Or you can let your site get spidered on it's own, with no guarantees. Also be sure to get listed in the Yahoo Directory (read "Submit to Yahoo Tips"). Keep in mind that these are all contributing factors for optimal Yahoo optimization.

Yahoo Slurp
Yahoo Slurp is the new Yahoo search engine spider that crawls your web pages. Similar to other engines (Googlebot) Yahoo Slurp follows all HREF links on every page it crawls. Unfortunately it does not follow SRC links such as frames or images. Keep your optimization techniques clean with a functional navigation structure and a site map.

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