Yahoo SEO vs Google SEO...Help!

kincaidesigns · 10-28-2006, 02:38 PM

Hi, I'm new to this forum. For the past few weeks I've been learning how to optimize my website. I just came across this forum and I thought I would finally ask for help. I'm sure someone knows the answer, but I feel like I have a set of tough questions. I created my website myself, design and optimization....and considering I wasn't even indexed in Google a few weeks ago and I couldn't even find myself in Yahoo (but I was and am indexed), I think I've done pretty well. I'm #75 in Google (it varies) for keyword "handmade jewelry", but in Yahoo, I was all the way up to #220, then I started to plumit in the rankings during the last week. I'm now at #813 in Yahoo for "handmade jewelry"! So, I have a few questions:

My website: http://www.kincaidesigns.com

1. I didn't know that submitting your site to a Search engine frequently was considered spamming. I just thought that I was supposed to submit my site whenever I make significant changes. So, I submitted my site 3 times in 2 weeks of major optomization changes. Oops...I learned the hard way. So, I'm not blacklisted, but...was I skipped or punished? Will I recover during the next crawl? Or is this the "no one really knows" answer?

2. I made changed to all the file names and titles to all my pages, but the new names aren't showing up in the Yahoo index...only the old ones. I've submitted my new site maps. Actually, I didn't have site maps until a few weeks ago, so the site maps are ONLY for the new pages. Why aren't my old pages disappearing and the new pages being indexed?

3. Links- What is considered a "relevant" link. You can see my link page at:
http://www.kincaidesigns.com/Links.html
As you can see I cover a wide range of topics, all of which one of my customers might be interested in. Are my topic considered "relevant" or are only "jewelry" sites considered relevant?

4. Links continued: Should I try and exchange links with the #1 ranked site for keywork "handmade jewelry"? Do I need to bother with "linking to as many sites as possible" or will 1 highly ranked site boost me significantly. At first I didn't want to exchanwas being original, but it turns out I'm not the only one. I'll try and makge with competitors, but I'm starting to think about letting the customer choose who they want to buy from.

5. I have a blog, http://unique-handmade-jewelry.blogspot.com
The only problem at this point is- It isn't indexed yet. I just started this blog and I'm hoping it helps me out. I'm just stating that I have a blog becuase I don't want anyone to suggest for me to get a blog to help me. I have one, I'm just waiting for it to be indexed.

6. As you can see from my scripts (if you've taken a look), I've named my image files, alt names, page titles (unique and different), meta tags, I've named rules and tables, etc. I feel like I've done all that I can....I've even studied my competition and as far as optomization goes, I've blown them away. (Except they have a huge number of incoming links and link exchanges...which I'm working on.)

Any suggestions or encouragement? What is the difference between Google and Yahoo crawlers? Why I am I 813 in Yahoo and staying at 75 in Google. Google obviously likes what I've done...how can I make both crawlers happy?
I'm not breaking the rules (that I know of), I'm not trying to be sneaky, and I've worked hard on optimizing my site. I'm made a lot of design compromises...which is hard for me because I'm a graphic designer (during the day, jewelry designer at night).....help!

Thanks! I can use any help you all can give me!

parusa619 · 10-30-2006, 11:29 AM

Quote:

My website: http://www.kincaidesigns.com

1. I didn't know that submitting your site to a Search engine frequently was considered spamming. I just thought that I was supposed to submit my site whenever I make significant changes. So, I submitted my site 3 times in 2 weeks of major optomization changes. Oops...I learned the hard way. So, I'm not blacklisted, but...was I skipped or punished? Will I recover during the next crawl? Or is this the "no one really knows" answer?

2. I made changed to all the file names and titles to all my pages, but the new names aren't showing up in the Yahoo index...only the old ones. I've submitted my new site maps. Actually, I didn't have site maps until a few weeks ago, so the site maps are ONLY for the new pages. Why aren't my old pages disappearing and the new pages being indexed?

3. Links- What is considered a "relevant" link. You can see my link page at:
http://www.kincaidesigns.com/Links.html
As you can see I cover a wide range of topics, all of which one of my customers might be interested in. Are my topic considered "relevant" or are only "jewelry" sites considered relevant?

4. Links continued: Should I try and exchange links with the #1 ranked site for keywork "handmade jewelry"? Do I need to bother with "linking to as many sites as possible" or will 1 highly ranked site boost me significantly. At first I didn't want to exchanwas being original, but it turns out I'm not the only one. I'll try and makge with competitors, but I'm starting to think about letting the customer choose who they want to buy from.

5. I have a blog, http://unique-handmade-jewelry.blogspot.com
The only problem at this point is- It isn't indexed yet. I just started this blog and I'm hoping it helps me out. I'm just stating that I have a blog becuase I don't want anyone to suggest for me to get a blog to help me. I have one, I'm just waiting for it to be indexed.

6. As you can see from my scripts (if you've taken a look), I've named my image files, alt names, page titles (unique and different), meta tags, I've named rules and tables, etc. I feel like I've done all that I can....I've even studied my competition and as far as optomization goes, I've blown them away. (Except they have a huge number of incoming links and link exchanges...which I'm working on.)

Any suggestions or encouragement? What is the difference between Google and Yahoo crawlers? Why I am I 813 in Yahoo and staying at 75 in Google. Google obviously likes what I've done...how can I make both crawlers happy?
I'm not breaking the rules (that I know of), I'm not trying to be sneaky, and I've worked hard on optimizing my site. I'm made a lot of design compromises...which is hard for me because I'm a graphic designer (during the day, jewelry designer at night).....help!

Thanks! I can use any help you all can give me!

All I can say is that if you want to optimize for search engines, base on Google because in terms of quality, Google is the search engine for that. Yahoo SEs is one of the pioneer SEs but Google is better than Yahoo in terms of quality so be happy if your website is ranked in top 100 SERPs.

Anyway, about the site, it is good so just continue optimizing it but do not over-optimize. Maintain its rank in Google's SERPs and other SE's SERP.

googlesuccess · 11-01-2006, 08:16 AM

Yes, Yahoo and Google have different algorithms for ranking websites. Please check my blog in the signature for a recent post I added about the same topic.

bermuda · 11-02-2006, 03:23 AM

Some webmasters believe that MSN has been gradually overtaking Yahoo as the second search engine. But Google still rules and that's why having top ranking there is more difficult.

Manish Pandey · 11-02-2006, 06:28 AM

Well Yahoo gives weight to backlinks and on-page optimization... whereas google is more of... good quality links to your website...

gannik · 11-02-2006, 06:49 AM

Surely having high PR in Google is more important than anywhere else.

googlesuccess · 11-02-2006, 07:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gannik

Surely having high PR in Google is more important than anywhere else.

But Good PR alone can not get you traffic !

Web Gazelle · 11-02-2006, 08:43 AM

Google still has about 60% of the market share compared to Yahoo at about 20% and MSN is at about 10%. Google is the one to focus your efforts on and just consider the others a bonus.

googlesuccess · 11-02-2006, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Web Gazelle

Google still has about 60% of the market share compared to Yahoo at about 20% and MSN is at about 10%. Google is the one to focus your efforts on and just consider the others a bonus.

Recent figures published by Comscore put Google at 43.7% and Yahoo at 28.8%. You can see the reference in my blog - post dated Oct 31.

Web Gazelle · 11-03-2006, 12:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by googlesuccess

Recent figures published by Comscore put Google at 43.7% and Yahoo at 28.8%. You can see the reference in my blog - post dated Oct 31.

Got a link to that?

StupidScript · 11-03-2006, 01:29 PM

As an aside, I recently learned that Google only uses ALT text when the image is linked. But don't let that keep you from continuing to include ALT text in every image for accessibility/validation reasons.

googlesuccess · 11-03-2006, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Web Gazelle

Got a link to that?

Hi Web Gazelle, The link was in my post in my blog.
Anyway here it is

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2156431

webfinity · 11-04-2006, 08:30 PM

I have personally found that Google is harder than Yahoo to optimize for. To get your ranking up don't make any drastic changes to your site, and focus in on links coming to your site with the keyword phrases you want to focus on.

Web Gazelle · 11-05-2006, 10:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by googlesuccess

Hi Web Gazelle, The link was in my post in my blog.
Anyway here it is

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2156431

Interesting, thanks for posting that. I was thinking that Yahoo was going down hill but I guess not.

ninjashoes · 11-06-2006, 03:24 PM

I would concentrate on google unless your Yahoo traffic is much better.

StupidScript · 11-06-2006, 05:34 PM

Remember the rest of the world? ComScore just published the U.S. figures in that report. Check out these U.K. figures from Hitwise (Sept. 2006):

Quote:

Google.uk 65.76%
Google.com 11.72%
Yahoo UK 6.24%
MSN UK 5.66%
(Google total: 77.48%!)

Hitwise's U.S. stats (Sept. 2006):

Quote:

Google 60.93%
Yahoo 22.29%
MSN 10.84%
ASK 4.28%

Note that they don't use the same methodology as ComScore, but it goes to show that a lot of this type of reporting is in how you interpret/filter the numbers.

Quote:

"Hitwise has developed proprietary software that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) use to analyze website usage logs created on their network. The anonymous data sent to Hitwise from the ISPs include a range of industry standard metrics relating to the viewing of websites including page requests, visits and average visit length."

Lastly, use your own logs to balance these very broad metrics. In the company I work for's logs, for instance, we received 684 clicks from Google and 3 from Yahoo, yesterday. We have around 5,000 terms up on Google and over 150,000 on Yahoo. Find where your customers are coming from ... and spend more ad dollars there.

mazter · 11-08-2006, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by googlesuccess

Recent figures published by Comscore put Google at 43.7% and Yahoo at 28.8%. You can see the reference in my blog - post dated Oct 31.

I have over 10 websites and I check their statistics regularly. Google is more then %80, most of the time. So, from my side, these figures do not reflect reality.

Web Gazelle · 11-09-2006, 10:12 AM

If your sites show up better and for more search terms in Google then those numbers are going to seem to be off.

manageyourlinks · 11-09-2006, 11:00 AM

from my exp yahoo likes fresh content as well as meta description tags.

google doesnt even look at meta description tags and google isnt as keen to increase your rank from fresh content.

Web Gazelle · 11-09-2006, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by manageyourlinks

from my exp yahoo likes fresh content as well as meta description tags.

google doesnt even look at meta description tags and google isnt as keen to increase your rank from fresh content.

Actually Google uses the meta description for the desciption to the link in the SERPs