Yahoo Showing New Results

That don't match up with Ink, Google, HotBot, etc

[Wbs_Stt]

We're seeing significantly different results on Yahoo! for several different search terms. In one industry in particular, here is some data:

Yahoo:
4,300,000 Results

Google:
6,630,000 Results

Search.Positiontech:
16,503,244 Results

HotBot:
18,367,142 Results

Additionally, the actual search results on Yahoo! do not correlate very closely at all with any of those search engines.

Perhaps Yahoo! has ported a different version of Ink for its own search results? Could it be showing different datacenters much like Google uses (and presumably other search engines as well)?

What other data has everyone else seen?

[kevinpate]

Noticed that myself this am. Not too surprising. Some folks in California were reporting some major changes a couple of weeks back when looking at yahoo.

On a kw1 kw2 of interest to me,
Google 2.33 mil (G)
Yahoo 1.82 mil (Y)
Pure .59 mil (P)
ATW .18 mil (ATW)

Ignoring all sponsored ads, on this particular kw1 kw2, the results today appear as:

G1 = Y4 = P6 = ATW1
G2 = Y5 = P3 = ATW2
G3 = Y3 = P1 = ATW19
G4 = Y2 = P4 = ATW3
G5 = Y10= P13= ATW5
G6 = Y8 = P12= ATW>40
G7 = Y>40= P>40 = ATW>40
G8 = Y12 = P15 = ATW>40

by the by, >40 could mean 41, could mean 410, or it could mean nowhere at all. I simply stopped looking once I hit 40.

[steveb]

There hasn't been anything geography based about Yahoo's experiments.

Also, comparing how many results Yahoo shows to how many Google shows doesn't mean anything either. Google's datacenters can vary greatly. The first term I checked showed 4 million onone datacenter, and 2 million on another, while Yahoo was showing 2.9 million.

In terms of the first post, Yahoo has been pulling results for a few selected terms from a unique algorithm that isn't the same as anything else out there. It seems to value the Yahoo Directory a lot... although the term you are seeing may be a completely different experiment.

They are still fiddling around. They aren't close to doing anything dramatic.

[powerstar]

>>>They are still fiddling around. They aren't close to doing anything dramatic.

Do you know or you are guessing?

[newwebster]

"It seems to value the Yahoo Directory a lot... "

Steve,

I agree, there does seem to be allot of weight with a directory listing.

I think however their algo is pulling in results from Inktomi, Altavista, and the Directory and then displaying only the pages that appear in 2 of the 3. Being in the directory alone does not seem to provide the best ranking, but if you rank well on either Inktomi and/or Altavista with a Directory listing then you will be ranked fairly well if not excellent in their serps.