|
Learn the difference between |
SEO & Yahoo Search Newswith Sharon & Roy
Montero, SEO Specialists
|
|||
MU:
When did you become involved with the Internet
and, more specifically, SEO (search engine optimization)?
S/R: When we came
online in 1996 there were only a few thousand web pages available.
We soon designed a few pages of our own and while we were immediately
fascinated by the prospect of being able to obtain high rankings
for our own pages in the search engines, the prospect of being able
to obtain high rankings for other people's pages was even more fascinating.
We began reading everything we could get our hands on (which wasn't
very much at all) and within a few days we were studying the results
pages and getting good insight as to why this page outranked that
page and so on. As a result, SEO has been a passion ever since and
mainly because it was (and still is) the absolute best and most
cost effective way to market on the web and in our humble opinion,
always will be.
MU: Are you accepting
new clients now or is your slate too full?
S/R: Actually Mark,
we have made provision that our slate will never be too full and
therefore we are always more than happy to welcome prospective clients.
In fact, not everyone who is interested in SEO is actually a good
fit as a client for us mainly due to unrealistic expectations of
what SEO can and cannot do for their business. This is why we offer
everyone a free one hour no obligation consultation where a prospect
can quickly learn what they can realistically expect from an SEO
campaign for their particular situation.
MU: That's a very
generous offer guys. Why don't you tell our audience how they can
get in touch with you so they can take advantage of this.
S/R: Thank you, Mark.
For those wishing to call us directly, our telephone number is...
760-378-2538
Please call between the hours of 12:00 PM and 9:00 PM Pacific Time.
If you wish to contact us by eMail, please visit our web form at...
http://www.iwon.net/seo/quote/
or eMail us direct at...
seo[AT]iwon[DOT]net
MU: You teach a course
in SEO online don't you?
S/R: Yes, Mark, we
do. It's a six week course where students access a private web site
where they can interact via an online forum as well as via eMail.
Students will learn one or more lessons per week.
Immediately applying these lessons to their web pages, will then
eventually provide them with high rankings and of course all without
using any tricks (AKA spam) that will get their pages penalized
or banned.
Our next online SEO course begins soon so now is a great time to
sign up. You can see the class description and sign up at ...
http://www.securemarketingsolutions.com/seoclass.htm
MU: Okay, great.
Thanks for that information Sharon and Roy. Let's talk about Yahoo,
Google and the "search wars" unraveling before
us.
S/R: Yes, let's do
just that!
We're sure there are a lot of curious and, perhaps somewhat confused,
web business owners out there that would like to hear some insight
as to what this all means to their bottom line.
MU: Oh yeah. I've
gotten a lot of interest on this topic and that's exactly why I
wanted to interview you.
As you know, and as I reported to my newsletter subscribers last
week, after several years of displaying Google search results
Yahoo has decided to go it alone. Tell us how they're able
to do this.
S/R: Yahoo rolled
out a brand new search engine algorithm along with a brand new spider
named Yahoo Slurp. Speculation had been centered
on the possibility that Yahoo would simply replace Google with Inktomi
which they bought in December 2002 for $235 million, but that wasn't
the case. As such, many marketers with high rankings in Inktomi
also expected to have the same (or similar) high rankings when Yahoo
launched their search engine, and for most, that is the case, but
a few marketers saw drastic drops in their rankings.
MU: Ouch! Is that
because they were NOT "Google Optimized?"
S/R: Well, no, not
at all. In fact, many pages that are Google optimized may
not do near as well in Yahoo.
Case in point, we know that the #1 page for the keyword "health"
has been the government's National Institutes of Health page for
well over the last two years, but according to Yahoo's algorithm
it ranks #11.
Then the page that Yahoo has at #1 for that term, the My WebMD page,
Google has ranked at #125. So you see, just because a page is not
Google optimized, doesn't mean that it can't be ranked high on Yahoo.
Mark, the simple answer that some pages rank well in Google but
rank poorly in Yahoo and that some pages rank poorly in Google but
rank well in Yahoo is because they have different algorithms.
Well, duh, that's obvious, but what may not be so obvious is that
when it comes to ranking millions of pages, even a small shift in
the way one algorithm calculates a particular factor can mean a
ranking difference of well over 100 positions or more.
Then there are those pages that will do well in both engines. Take
the keyword pizza for example. Both rank Pizza Hut, Domino's Pizza
and Papa John's Pizza, At #1, #2, and #3 respectively.
Go figure, huh?
Well, that's the fun of it, and those who do figure it out, will
end up doing quite well for their bottom lines.
MU: Even though everyone
knew it was coming this seems like a bad thing for Google. In reality,
is it?
S/R: While it is
true that Google may see a slight drop in market share and in revenue,
overall we wouldn't call it a bad thing for Google.
MU: What do you see
as the immediate impact for Internet marketers now with
Yahoo's search engine as a major player?
S/R: Of course, the
answer to this question would depend on just how optimized one's
pages are.
Those who have well optimized pages for competitive terms should
continue to do well in the Yahoo SERP (Search Engine Results Pages).
MU: You mean currently
optimized for Google?
S/R: That's right
Mark. We compared a few dozen keywords phrases and can report that
in some cases 9 out of the top 20 results on both Yahoo
and Google were the same pages. The average for the terms
we analyzed was that they both shared around 40 pages out of the
top 100, which seems to be about right when you think about it.
After all you don't want both search engines to return the same
exact SERP now do you?
MU: Well, it doesn't
seem as though that would be in Yahoo's best interest at this point
in time.
S/R: No, it wouldn't
be, since that's why they dropped Yahoo in the first place. They
obviously believe that their algorithm can and will produce the
best results based upon relevancy.
Beyond that, marketers with less than optimal pages will more than
likely see a drop in their rankings and consequently a drop in the
number of referrals from Yahoo.
That may not be as bad as one might initially suspect when they
learn that some companies, like Nielsen//NetRatings are reporting
that Yahoo has a US audience reach of 30%.
MU: What do you mean
by "audience reach?"
S/R: Audience
reach is the percentage of US home and work Internet users
estimated to have searched on each site at least once during the
month through a web browser or some other "online" means.
MU: So Yahoo has
30% -- what about the audience reach for Google and MSN?
S/R: According to
Search Engine Watch, Google's audience reach is
39.4% and MSN has 29.6%.
Since Nielsen//NetRatings doesn't release figures to reflect "search
share," which is the volume of searches that each search engine
handles, we turn to comScore Media Metrix.
According to comScore, the percentage of searches done by US web
surfers in November 2003 that were performed at a particular web
site or a network of web sites, shows Google had 35%, Yahoo 28%
and MSN 15%.
MU: But aren't these
statistics somewhat skewed? I mean, doesn't Google also provide
search results for other sites, like Go.com and EarthLink.com?
S/R: That's right
Mark. It's important to be aware that some companies either own
more than one web site or they provide search results for other
web sites and while these figures are search-specific they may not
necessarily be Web-search specific.
For example, a search performed at Yahoo Sports would count towards
Yahoo's overall total. That's important to understand, because "channel"
driven searches (or searches within the same site) were reported
by comScore as making up 58 percent of Yahoo's total searches in
January 2003. The same could be true of other non-pure search sites,
such as MSN and AOL.
MU: Okay, this is
all very interesting but how does this translate to the web
business owners out there? My web logs reflect far more
referrals from Google than any other engine, it's not even close.
S/R: Good point Mark.
We were just about to relate that very information. Let us tie all
this together for your audience.
It is extremely important that web business owners understand what
we said about "channel" driven searches. Many mainstream writers
for such publications as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times
or USA Today have and may continue to use those numbers to write
statements similar to this...
"Google took a huge hit when Yahoo dumped it and created its own search engine. Google had 79% (Google=35% + Yahoo=28% + AOL=16%) of Internet searches, according to comScore Networks. Subtract Yahoo, and it falls to 51% (Google=35% + AOL=16%)."
Such
a statement will not be helpful to those who have no clue what is
meant by "Internet searches" because that can easily be misinterpreted
by business owners into believing that if they lose their rankings
on Yahoo that it translates to 28% less referrals and/or to 28%
less revenue.
The truth of the matter, the "Naked Truth," if you will (chuckle),
is that the 28% is NOT the number of search referrals at all. In
fact, depending on the type of industry, the actual percentage of
total search referrals from Yahoo for the last few YEARS is 19%,
while Google has a whopping 64%. MSN and AOL are a distant third
and fourth at 8% and 7% respectively.
These numbers actually define "search referrals" (AKA click-throughs).
In other words, a person may perform several actual searches BEFORE
they ever click-through to visit a web site. Therefore, the bottom
line numbers web business owners should be concerned with is the
search referrals or total click-through numbers as reported by their
log file statistics and not the numbers used in the media, per se,
as they can be quite easily misinterpreted.
MU: I do that myself
all the time. Sometimes I'll look at several search pages for something
before "clicking-through" to an actual web page.
S/R: Of course, we
all can relate to what you're describing. It's easy to see how statistics
can be so deceiving.
We do think there could be some good news for web business owners
found in these very statistics. Taking a look at the daily search
statistics from Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch, you'll see
Google has 35%, AOL 29% and Yahoo only 13% of ALL daily searches.
In fact, we've seen SEOS reporting that in some industries the actual
referrals from Yahoo are as low as 5%.
We believe that Google generates about 60-70% of all the organic
(free) search engine referrals on the web today, and we are NOT
including any of their partner sites.
MU: Impressive.
Let me ask you, should there be cause for alarm in the Internet
marketing community?
S/R: That depends
on the type of search engine marketing you are
involved in, but the general answer is no.
For those who use Inktomi's Pay For Inclusion (PFI) program and
thought that it would translate into their pages also being listed
in Yahoo, they were correct in their assumption, but it will be
short lived. Here is a recent quote from one of Yahoo's pages...
"Yahoo Search has transitioned to its own search technology and is preparing to launch a new inclusion program. As a bonus for Search Submit customers, Yahoo! Search is providing a free trial of Yahoo! traffic that will end on April 15, 2004. When the new inclusion program launches, Search Submit customers will have the option of joining the new program for ongoing participation in Yahoo! Search results."
MU: Wow! Sounds like now's the time to check out Yahoo Traffic.
S/R: (Laughing)
It sure is Mark.
MU: Tell me guys,
How do WE benefit from this? Is there a plus side
for marketers? Negative side?
S/R: It is our
belief that marketers will always be able to benefit from Pay-Per-Click
(PPC) listings wherever there are eyeballs, and Yahoo
certainly has the eyeballs -- this is why they bought Overture,
the pioneer of PPC listings.
We also believe that marketers can greatly benefit from the organic
listings if they will keep in mind that they should now identify
and optimize for additional keyword phrases that they don't already
have high rankings for on Google.
MU: Good point. You're
telling our audience that now's the time to take advantage of having
another major search engine out there.
S/R: Absolutely Mark.
Let us put it this way, if you already have a #1 ranking
for your primary keyword phrase on Google, then spending time and
money to acquire a #1 ranking for the same keyword phrase on Yahoo
may not be as beneficial to your bottom line as it would to spend
time and money to acquire a #1 ranking for a different keyword phrase
on Yahoo.
The reason we say this is because we believe that those who are
currently using Google as their default search engine as well
as their search engine of choice will NOT be switching over to
Yahoo anytime soon, but they will use Yahoo as their second choice.
So, if they've already clicked on your listing at Google, why would
they click on your listing again when they get to Yahoo? They wouldn't,
so having high rankings on both engines for the
same keyword phrase would not be as beneficial for you as having
high rankings for different keywords on each engine.
MU: Makes terrific
sense as usual Sharon and Roy.
Well, that explains how web business owners can benefit from the
new Yahoo search engine but tell us how Yahoo benefits from this?
S/R: Yahoo will now
benefit from the attention of the SEO and Webmaster communities
and the additional traffic that it will bring to their site. Also
from the revenue they'll soon begin to receive from their Pay For
Inclusion (PFI) program.
In Yahoo's PFI site owners can pay to have their individual pages
included in the Yahoo search engine and updated every 48 hours.
This will ensure site owners that Yahoo will have the freshest copy
of their content but this in no way assures that site owners will
obtain high rankings. These pages are subject to
the same algorithm as the pages that Yahoo's spider finds on its
own.
MU: For those that
may not understand the term "algorithm," simply stated (although
it's VERY complex) it's basically the mathematical formula based
on a whole lot of input data that a search engine spider uses to
rank a Web page.
S/R: That's right
Mark, and if Yahoo's algorithm is as complex as Google's then the
various factors taken into consideration will number more than a
hundred.
MU: Will Yahoo lose
anything by having made this change?
S/R: At this time
there is nothing that we can see that Yahoo will lose by having
their own search engine. In fact, if you stop and think about it,
since its inception over 10 years ago, they have been either #1
or #2 in market share and they have never had their own search engine.
That is amazing!
MU: No search engine
but they were the first major directory on the Net, correct?
S/R: Yes, Mark, that
is correct. Yahoo started out as a directory and has remained a
directory, but they did have the foresight to always include a search
engine (albeit from third parties) on their site so that searchers
would always find results for their queries when their directory
did not provide any. It was around June 2000 that they moved away
from their directory serving up the primary search results to providing
results powered by Google.
MU: You, and other
SEO's make your living knowing and understanding search engines.
How will the SEO community view this? Does it make your job more
difficult? Easier?
S/R: Actually, Mark,
our job won't be any more difficult or any easier. SEO will remain
the same for us as we are sure it will for other professional SEOs
as well. Conversely, it may appear more difficult for the amateur
SEO as they are prone to panic every time there is a shift in the
SEO landscape.
Our advice would be to pay attention to the top ranked pages
in each search engine for your specific keyword phrases
and to then answer this question. Are they all the same pages? No,
more than likely, they won't be, so you should understand that it
may not be easy to acquire a top ranking for the same keyword phrase
in every search engine. Thus the key to ranking well in all the
search engines including Yahoo would be to optimize other pages
for other keyword phrases.
The common mistake an amateur SEO will make in this situation will
be to attempt to rank the same page at #1 for all the search engines.
Of course, at times this is possible, but for most situations it
won't be, so don't get caught up into constantly making changes
to the same page, month in and month out, with the expectation of
getting things just right, so that your page will rank #1
on all the search engines. We refer to this as majoring
in the minors which is futile. Simply optimize another page with
new and unique content and for a new keyword phrase or phrases.
MU: The Internet
is still very dynamic -- ever changing if you will, and this move
by Yahoo proves it. Looking into your magic crystal ball, tell us
What are some other changes we should be aware of that are forthcoming?
S/R: MSN is busy
with a search engine of their own and will more than likely launch
before the end of the year.
Then there is something that all the major engines are investing
in and that's technology for personalized search and for local
search. This means that based on a personal profile and/or your
recent searching habits the search engine(s) will be able to "know"
whether you are interested in finding information about the planet
or about the automobile when you type in Saturn.
Then with local search technology implemented, the results you
seek for various products and/or services would initially list
companies that are located within say a 20 mile or so radius of
where you work or live. An example would be where a search for
"newspaper" would return the New York Times, Los Angeles Times
or whatever your local newspaper happens to be.
Don't look for these features to be available next month, but
they are on the horizon.
MU: I look forward
to it.
Thank you both so much for being my guest's this month for "The
Naked Interview." Very revealing. Sorry, couldn't help myself
with that last comment.
S/R: (Laughing) Thank
you Mark for having us. It was truly our pleasure.
MU: And thank you
to everyone who is listening to or reading this interview. I wish
you all the very best in your Internet marketing efforts and I hope
to have you back for our next "Naked Interview." Be sure to subscribe
to the "The Naked Truth About Marketing" at...
http://www.nakedtrutham.com
... to read Sharon and Roy's monthly contribution about search
engine marketing and for notifications of each month's "Naked
Interview."
May your web business be all you ever dreamed, and if it isn't...
maybe we can help. :-)
Mark A. Ungvarsky
The article above may be reprinted providing the following attribution
box remains intact:
Internet marketing, SEO, motivational tips, current news and commentary.
All presented in a way that's ... well ... naked!
"The Naked Truth... About Marketing"
http://www.nakedtrutham.com
<--
Marketing Articles Archive
Use the Search Box to find what you are looking for:
|