Yahoo and Google

Has Yahoo stopped using Google results for some Keywords?

[bigace]

I lost half of my Yahoo traffic today. I noticed today for the first time that the Yahoo search results for my most important keyword are totally different than in Google. They have been the same for months. Some keyword phrase SERPS have not changed, but some have. Only one result on the first page is the same.

Anyone see this or know what is happening. I thought the inktomi results were going to be implemented later in the year.

[Traveler]

Yes.
I've noticed the same thing on just ONE keyword we target.

The targeted keyword is a MONSTER, one of the biggest queries on the net.

All others are fine...just this "monster"...

I think it might have something to do with the strength of the keyword.....

[ReRun]

I've seen the same thing. This has been true for some keywords since late last year.

Try this as proof on Yahoo:

Enter keyword "Furniture" - the results don't match Google at all.

Enter Keyword "Furniture " with a space after the "e" - results match Google results exactly.

For hotly contested words, Yahoo definitely is generating their own results.

The question is how do they generate them?

[vincevincevince]

it would be in yahoo's interest to be BETTER than google... i am guessing that it'd not take much to go through a bunch of the top search terms and manually remove anything remotely spammish, etc from the google results?

solid business approach, afaik they are not soliciting funds for these

[sachac]

I made this observation 2 weeks ago on the Yahoo thread and Google Guy even emailed me asking for the details to see if it was a glitch on their end. Apparently it was not.

I have since been following this very closely and Yahoo is definitely not using Google results for major category keywords. I don't have a clue where their new results are coming from but it's definitely not from Fast or Ink.

I also saw for a while, sponsored Overture listings for the top three positions for my targeted category keyword. This soon disappeared but you can guess Yahoo will be going this route very, very soon.

Based on what I have seen to date, I will guess that in the short term, secondary results will still come from Google until Ink kickes in. After that, pure ink results.

Major one word results will come from the top three positions on Overture. The other results will continue to be garbage as they are now.

This move will have serious implications when traffic begins to dry up. Imagine the #2 site on Google for "cosmetics" is not in the top 100 sites on Yahoo! My #4 site in my category keyword, is now #45. What a disaster!

Does anyone know where these new Yahoo web results are coming from?

[bigace]

It is already a disaster for me. I have a commercial site and have been #numeral uno for the most important keyword in my industry for many months. Now I appear nowhere in the results. You get used to the traffic and the cash flow. I now see a reduction of over 100 unique visitors/day that came from that one search term.

I wish I could figure out where the SERPS are coming from. You can't do much SEO work if you don't know the source. Oh the joy and the pain of the internet. If there is any information on this developement, I would appreciate knowing it.

Fortunately the Google SERPS have not changed.

[heini]

Here's a past thread on this development:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[textex]

I too am seeing the same thing for competitive two word term we target for first 9 results. Perhaps these tops listings are most popular listing from directory?

[ReRun]

I've been seeing this since October for our main keyword.

We have a top listing on Google, and are not in Yahoo's results, despite paying for a directory listing.

The Yahoo results for our keyword have not changed in 6 months.

They are not INK results - we have a top listing there too.

(An oddity - try Yahoo advanced search for your keyword and you'll still see Google results.)

I expected it to settle down after Yahoo launched its new search, or to hear from Yahoo how much it would cost to be included in their keyword results.

Neither has happened.

Why would Yahoo alter Google results and not try to extract a fee for the trouble? I'm starting to wonder if this is a technical glitch.

Sachac, I'd sure like to hear what Google Guy has to say on this - it's been driving me mad for months.

[cashmere]

I have a set of serps I follow, and the one site in Google that doesn't show up in Yahoo is - surprise - an aol personal homepage type url.

lesson being you want to be search engine neutral with your optimized content/filenames. (don't use the letters A, O, or L)