Essentially, the deal has Microsoft’s Bing powering Yahoo’s search. Interestingly, the announcement states that Bing, not Microsoft’s AdCenter, is powering search, because both organic and paid listings are part of the deal. Furthermore, Microsoft is licensing Yahoo’s existing search technology for integration into Bing, not buying it. The organic impact and how SEO (define) practitioners address any evolved algorithms will, of course, be covered separately by the industry experts and pundits.

Yahoo and Microsoft: The Deal for Search Advertisers – ClickZ

Which is King – Quality Content or Keywords?

Yahoo tends to lean towards commerce-related sites more so than informational sites and has a paid-inclusion program that allows even newer websites to appear at the top of search engine results. To rank well with Yahoo, it helps to have very descriptive and keyword-rich content and titles for each page. The same goes for MSN search, which places high value on descriptive content.

However, MSN search currently drives little traffic so any website owner’s goal should be to rank with Google and Yahoo first and foremost. To rank with Google, long-term efforts to improve organic ranking are your best bet while more aggressive SEO tactics fare better with Yahoo and MSN. Google is a bit trickier when it comes to ranking your website based on content. If your website is obviously targeting a particular keyword phrase, such as when that particular keyword phrase is used in internal links, inbound links, the page title, etc., Google may omit your website from search results for that particular keyword.

If you want to successfully rank on Google, you must make the content on your website appear as natural as possible. Avoid overuse of keyword phrases and make your content newsy and informational. Disperse semantically related text throughout the content on your website and be frugal with keywords if you want your website to have a better chance of ranking on Google.

Query Processing – Text vs. Concept

Yahoo places a lot of importance on the text of your website. If you search for a particular keyword phrase, you will notice that the top search engine rankings on Yahoo have the exact same phrase in the title. Even common words of lesser importance such as “how to” will show up in the text of the page titles. Yahoo values even such commonly used phrases, making them important to use in your page titles and text if you want to rank on Yahoo.

On the other hand, Google places little importance on common words and phrases and instead judges a page based on its educational value. In sum, Google values concept over text. If your website has a lot of informational content it is more likely to rank on Google, which judges content based on its meaning rather than merely taking it for its literal value. MSN is also better than Yahoo in this regard but it still pales in comparison to Google.

So there you have it. Query processing and content are just a couple of the important factors top search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN judge when ranking websites. Keep these points in mind when creating content and titles for your website’s pages because your actions will have varying results from search engine to search engine. Decide which search engine you want to focus on ranking for and alter your approach based on that decision.

SEO Articles: How Google, Yahoo and MSN Differ

Best Practices

Keywords: Visibility, search engine optimization, SEM, meta tags, Alt tags, Google Adwords and other forms and strategies of online advertising depend on just one word – the keyword. There are two types of keyword that you can use: primary keyword and secondary keyword. Now for example: if the primary keyword is adventure travel then secondary keywords can be travel cruises, trekking, hiking, mountaineering, river rafting and many more. It will then come down to how well you are able to use your primary and secondary keywords without making your content sound more like a drag. So you need to avoid keyword spamming. You need to place your primary keyword strategically on your website so that the search engines can find them with ease and treat them as the most important words to appear on your website.

Optimizing website content: The factor that drives page ranking is textual content on your web page. You need to hence ensure that your web site should have sufficient text on each of the web pages in order to facilitate proper indexing by various search engines. You need to keep in mind that the text on your web page will not include images or Flash elements. The body copy of a web page should have the correct and most important keyword phrases.

Links from external websites: Page Rank is often increased based on the number as well as quality of links. This means that if your web page is linked to other good or high page ranking websites then it will have a positive affect on the page ranking of your website as well. You can start by sending linking requests to other top ranking websites. This should also be followed by reciprocal linking.

JavaScript navigation: If you are thinking of using JavaScript navigation then you need to reconsider the decision because search engines have difficulty indexing websites using JavaScript based navigation.

Page titles: You need to create appropriate page titles for each of the web pages on your website. A page title is the first line of copy that is displayed during search listing. To attract visitors, you need to apply the right keywords and compelling copy in page titles.

Dynamic URLs: If you are using a dynamic URL then search engines will face difficulty in indexing your web pages. Try to avoid using dynamic URL’s.

Flash content: As of date, search engines are unable to index flash based web pages. So if you need to use flash then limit it to images only and for text, you can use simple HTML. This will serve all your purposes.

First Place Goes to Google:

Second is Yahoo – not as good as Google, but a fair stab at it!

Third Place is Ask – one of my Favorite entries, very original and ‘artsy’:

Fourth Place and LAST place is awarded to MSN, who has a poor showing of Independence Day Cheer in their logo:

*Looks like the MSN Butterfly is flying into battle and knows it will get burned up in the colorful explosions of Fireworks…lol – morbid I know.

Have a great Independence Day everyone!

Click here to get a free 14 day trial of SEOintelligence today!

Seriously?

Not only is it an all-time understatement on the “too little, too late” axiom — it’s hideous.

If I were a YHOO shareholder, I’d want Yang’s head on a kaiser roll with extra mustard.

(via TechCrunch)

The Definition
SEO is quite simply a practice (the experts believe it’s a process) of modifying, improving all aspects of your website (internal and external) to direct more traffic (read visitors) from the various search engines. SEO firms are many and varied; some SEO firms focus on specialized areas, while many others have a more general approach towards this process. Moreover, the optimization of your website for the different Mega Search Engines takes into consideration several unique factors that can be loosely classified as website optimization.

Search engine optimization is a discovery of various aspects that have the potential to generate targeted traffic, while ensuring that your website is not just search engine friendly but also well linked and marketed by utilizing the intrinsic offerings of your business.

Want a more complicated jargonized definition of SEO?

The Reason
As a webmaster you may wonder why your website needs SEO at all. Let’s consider this. According to comScore’s study on search engine rankings for America in the year 2008, it’s been found that Google (the big daddy of search engines) is at the top of the list. It commands a market share of 53% alone (an increase of 3% from 50% in September 2007. (Check the graph below). In January 2008 alone, Google received 7.7 billion search queries (Google search – 6.2 billion and YouTube – 1.5 billion).

Almost all the internet traffic is directed by the big search engines namely, Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL, and AskJeeves. The most important way to ensure your website’s success is to… be discovered by the web spiders or the search engines. If your website content doesn’t exists in the databases of these SEs, you simply haven’t arrived and are anonymous, hence, unsuccessful. Irrespective of who or what your website caters to (services, content, products, information etc) search engines are, unarguably, the only method to navigate for a majority of the web users.

Essentially, search engine optimization is a way of making your website attractive enough for SEs to discover it and direct traffic so that they can be converted into potential customers, ensuring success of your venture. Studies have repeatedly proven that search engine driven traffic can make or break your business. Not to be overlooked are facts that targeted traffic also provides free (or paid) publicity, exposure, and (of course) revenue for your company.

The Benefit
As a business owner, website owner, or SEO specialist, you’ll want to work hard to make sure that the big search engines find your site and throw it within the first 20 results for a targeted keyword. Why? Here’s why:
• Google has a market share of 53% – 58% for current year
• Yahoo has 22.9% market share
• Microsoft has 9.8-10% market share
• AskJeeves has 4.6% market share and
• AOL or Time Warner has 4.6% market share as well.

So, in this introductory article on What is SEO, we’ll just like to say – making an investment in SEO (time, money, and sweat) will definitely bring you exceptional return, albeit you need to be patient.

Get the best Search Engine Marketing service now! Try our 14-day FREE trial by clicking here.

We looked at many queries from fruit, scooters, hindi, to evergreen trees in depth (100’s of high CPC PPC terms) and we saw some amazing results – which all served up relevant ads. In my opinion this could really help Yahoo! gain additional pageviews and also increase engagement across the board.

According to the “What are Glue Pages” tutorial:
Q: What are Glue Pages?
Glue Pages unite your Classic Search Results with visual information from the best sites anywhere on the Web.

Q: How are they different?
In one click, browse through images, videos, articles, and more all on one page!
With Glue Pages, you spend more time learning and less time searching.

Q: What are Related Pages?
These are Glue Pages that we think you might be interested in based on the topic of your search.

This should remind us that Yahoo! is not “second tier” and is looking to catch up with Google in the organic results arena. Albeit they are at a deficit, if they can do more tests and beta releases with results like this – they have a fighting chance of winning back some market share.

Kudos to Yahoo!

Check out Barrys in depth post here: Yahoo Glue Pages Launches In India