Changes
at Yahoo!
by Jerry West
Updated June 19, 2007
As many of your
are aware, there were two major announcements
from Yahoo! on October 9, 2002. The
first was to announce that they had
renewed their relationship with Google
as their "third party" provider
for search results. The second was
that they changed their search result
criteria - drastically.
Yahoo! made
public these
changes on their site, but for reasons unknown, they have removed the page on their site. Could this be because their
press release seems to raise more
questions than it answers? We have
spent many hours researching the changes,
sifting through the rumors and finally
coming to conclusions based on our
findings. While our recommendations
may change in the future as new information
becomes available, this will help
you get a jump on your competition.
The change can
be summed up by the following:
Yahoo! is now returning their Web
Site Matches from Google directly
- not from their directory.
What this means
for you: If you paid the $299.00
fee, your site was accepted into Yahoo!
and you had a top ranking - that ranking
is gone. Unless, of course, your site
ranks well in Google.
Yahoo! is claiming
that they are "mixing" Google
results with their directory results.
This isn't the case in 93% of the
searches we have performed over the
last 24 hours. For example, the search
term "water filters", compare
the results of Yahoo!
to the results of Google.
They are exact.
The only difference
is, if the site is in the Yahoo! directory,
a red arrow with the category name
appears. Sorry, but paying $299.00
per year to have a red arrow isn't
a worthy investment in our book, but
more on that later.
Benefits of
a $299.00 listing with Yahoo!
Our Recommendations
- If your site is currently
NOT listed with Yahoo! and you do not
have an online advertising budget of $1,000+
per month, we recommend that you NOT
list your site with Yahoo! Your money and
efforts are better spent on increasing your
ranking with Google.
- If you paid the Business
Express fee with Yahoo!, track your traffic
from Yahoo! carefully. If the traffic drops
dramatically and you are up for renewal at
the first of the year, you may not want to
renew your listing. If you are currently Sponsoring
a Category, you will want to track your traffic
as well. Since the Sponsors are listed first
in the category listings, this may be a great
investment to those already listed in Yahoo!
It could bring more traffic to your site than
you were getting before with your sponsored
listing.
- Increase your PPC model
by at least 20%. If you are currently not
using Overture as part of your marketing strategy,
you need to do so immediately. Yahoo! is now
displaying the Top Four results from Overture
instead of the Top Three. This will result
in your site being seen at the top of Yahoo!
for 22% less on average.
- Review our article last
month on Google's
PageRank system.
- If your site currently
ranks 5/10 in PageRank, the $299.00 fee with
Yahoo! could be a worthy investment if it
pushes your site to a 6/10 PageRank. That
could skyrocket your ranking in both Yahoo!
and Google - which combine for over 60% of
the current market.
What This Means For You
If your corporate web site
was relying heavily on traffic from Yahoo! and
you have seen that traffic come to a halt, contact
us and let us show you how we can solve
your problems with an effective strategy that
is based on results.
Additional Notes
It may not make sense why
Google would "throw" away essentially
$100 million in annual revenue to turn around
and pay more to Google for their search results.
There are many rumors floating around attempting
to explain this - including pointing to Yahoo's
equity stake in privately held Google. But none
of the rumors have been confirmed - so they
remain just that: rumors.
The deal that Yahoo! has
with Google is non-exclusive, meaning that Yahoo!
could, if it so chooses, to bring in a second
"third-party" provider like Inktomi
to provide additional results.
In fact, back on July 17,
2002, it was reported by f---edcompany.com that
Yahoo! would be acquired by Microsoft by the
end of the year. The rumor stated that Inktomi
would be brought back on board as their revenue
model exceeds that of Google and plus, since
Google has launched "Google News"
which competes directly with Yahoo! News and
MSN.
Quotes
"We are very open to
working with multiple vendors. We don't want
to be dependent on any one vendor." - Jeff
Weiner, senior vice-president, Yahoo!
"We still continue to
talk with them (Yahoo!), and we've made a lot
of progress." - Vishal Makhijani, vice-president
of web search, Inktomi.
"One way or another,
paid inclusion in crawler-based results seems
likely at Yahoo!" - Danny Sullivan, editor,
Search
Engine Watch.
"We're back to the golden
age of optimizing pages." - Jeff Greenfield,
President.
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© 2002-2007, WebMarketingNow.com
Jerry West is the Director of Internet Marketing.
He has been consulting on the web since 1996
and has assisted hundreds of companies gain
an upper-hand over their competition. Visit
http://www.webmarketingnow.com/
for the latest in marketing tips that are tested
and proven.
