Yahoo's "Most Popular" Sections

Were they generated by Google Web results?

[dinehart]

Does anyone know if Yahoo has updated their "most popular" sections since they are no longer generated by Google web results?

[pmac]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld dinehart.

>Were they generated by Google Web results?<

No, they were generated by Y! directory listings.

[2_much]

Thanks for posting this Dinehart. It made me go digging in the Yahoo directory and I noticed some changes. Many categories don't have "most popular" listings any more. The ones that do I believe are powered from a mixture of editorial choice, clickthrough popularity, and link popularity. Can anyone support or discredit this?

[carlr]

From the ones that we are in, there is no change since the switch from Google.

[pmac]

>Can anyone support or discredit this? <

I see no changes for the cats I follow.

[coconutz]

I think the most popular listings are determined from a combination of factors, including the click through rate from the directory and the search results combined.

Not sure if link popularity is a factor or not as I see sites with very few links listed in this section.

It seems like the list is updated approximately every 3 months or so as we recently moved up.

[4crests]

I don't know what they are, but they definitely aren't "Most Popular"

My results have sites in them that have no links, are nowhere to be found in the listings (except the directory), and probably rarely ever get visits. My site used to be listed there, until I made a URL change. I get just as many visitors as I always did. Only change was to the URL. So, I can say for certain that it's not based on amount of visitors.

It looks to me to be more RANDOM than anything (at least in my category).

[4crests]

ok, i understand it a bit better now.

It depends heavily on the Category Name in the Directory.

If your Category is VEGETARIANS , then they rank the most popular for sites that rank high in the directory for that keyword. If you have a site about VEGETABLE JUICES, you won't show up on the most popular list, even if you have millions of more visitors than your competitor.

You have to rank high in the directory listing for the same keywords that are in the TITLE of your Directory Category. So, to get into the "most popular" section, your Vegetable Juice site would need to start promoting the VEGETARIAN keyword.

This is just my opinion from investigating over the last 10 minutes or so. I could very well be wrong, and I'm sure there are other factors involved.

[dinehart]

I've always been under the impression that Yahoo's Most Popular sections were generated by people searching Yahoo and clicking Google results. I say this because a long time ago I noticed a very prominent category with many multi-million dollar companies. In the Most Popular section there were 2 small companies with highly optimized websites appearing near the top. Since there were over a hundred sites in that category and many big name companies it would be unlikely that these two virtually unknown companies would be chosen by people who simply browsed that directory. Their company names also did not begin with the letter "A" or the number "1" so I made that assumption, but now that Google results are not powering Yahoo's directory I was anxious to see new Most Popular sections generated which might be enlightening as to the relevency of Yahoo's new search algo.

[4crests]

I'm pretty positive it has to do with the keywords in the directory category name.

In my case, many small companies are listed in the most popular section.

When i do a DIRECTORY search for the exact keywords that are in the TITLE of the Category, it's almost a match of the most popular list. The problem is that the keywords in the category title aren't keywords that I would normally target, so i'm not showing up there.

I tested this theory on many, many categories, and it appears to be pretty sound.