New Yahoo ranking system

Are they spidering the page now?

[poet22]

All my 1st page rankings in Yahoo are gone but one today. There seems to be no relation from the old ranking system to this new one. Do you think they are actually spidering the page now?

[agerhart]

I am not seeing too much of a change, if any at all.....sorry poet22.

Anyone else seeing anything?

[Travoli]

For my industry, seems to be ranking the "big-dog", well known sites first. Kind of like the "Who's who" list.

Similar to Teoma.

[Napoleon]

A bit of a mixed picture. I sense that some sites that were carried slightly higher by virtue of the category they were in have suffered. Another early hunch is that newer sites have suffered, whilst older sites (perhaps with bigger click bank) have benefited.

A little to early to be certain with anything, but these are possibilities.

[ggrot]

Unless they are mooching data from google, I haven't seen any yahoo 'spiders' visit my site.

[dogboy]

well, one possible explanation for what you are seeing is simply that the serps are now merged, instead of 'groups of listings' being broken down by categories on the page. ...in other words, you are now not ONLY competing with others in your cat to be at the top of the group, but you have to outcompete the other top players in the OTHER groups that came up for that search....

....basically, competition just went up a big notch in the more competitive areas and Y! doesn't have to spider the on-page text to rank you differently.... if you were a big fish in a little pond before, you may now be swimming with sharks... everything is relative unless you're at the top of the food chain.

(edited by: dogboy at 3:22 pm (gmt) on Sep. 25, 2001

[seth_wilde]

I don't think Yahoo is spidering.....but I have been noticing what seems to be changes to the algo.... I've had new submissions (over the past few weeks) acting differently than they were a month ago...

[poet22]

I cant find any logical reason for the sites ranking on top now. New sites are in the top 10 as are old. Keyword in the yahoo title, well there are hundred sites with that keyword in the title. Keyword in the yahoo description, well none of the sites in the top 10 have the keyword in the yahoo description. Name of the category? nope not that either. Random Luck? maybe

[skibum]

For at least some searches it looks like they decided not to display sites on the front page instead of the sometimes hunderds of categories. The ranking clusters still seem to be intact on a number of searches though the rankings have changed somewhat (maybe just the usual, periodic, YAHOO! shuffle.

[skibum]

The category matches for some searches decreased dramatically as well (by hundreds in some cases). Looks like lots of regional cats are no longer returned for (at least some) topical searches.

[bartek]

I think it has to do with Y! counting clicks and updating the algo with the clickpop info.

[Liane]

I don't understand anything Yahoo are doing. First they shortened (stipped) my description (3 months after paying to submit) ... then my ranking went up last week in one category and now it has dropped back to where it was.

I'm sure it all makes sense to them but the ones who pay the bills are the ones left wondering what the heck we are buying. Still scratching my head and trying to make sense of something which doesn't seem to have any obvious answer.

[engine]

Well, something is not correct with the directory. For one popular term, I get just one return from the directory. There should be hundreds.

BTW - Yahoo has a dead link directory spider called Morgue

(edited by: engine at 8:58 pm (gmt) on Sep. 25, 2001

[agerhart]

I saw that eariler also......weird

[WebGuerrilla]

Yahoo Title and descriptions sorted using Google PageRank.....

[Bubba]

We have lost some placement and gained some placement. I think that it is too early to tell.

[Bubba]

Engine,
BTW - Yahoo has a dead link directory spider called Morgue

What is it's purpose?

[seth_wilde]

"Yahoo Title and descriptions sorted using Google PageRank"

I would love it they did that, unfortunately I don't think that's the case. I have a site with a high page rank that enjoys great placement for competitive terms on Google. The same site won't even pull up on the first page for a non competitive regional phrase on Yahoo.

[dogboy]

... to mole out 404s

[JD]

uk.yahoo is still returning the old results in categories. It looks like they are taking the first spot from each of the old categories and listing them in the new serps. I compared several of my kws and this was the case.

[dogboy]

yeah... what JD said:)

[uk_dokey]

Hmm. I hate change this will surely have a huge impact on us all, some bad some good. If they keep it then it looks like those Yahoo/Google hits we get will almost certainly quarter. I held the 10th spot for a hugely popular keyword and now I'm at position 18 luckily still on the first page. It seems as though I'm seeing the effects of this already more hits from Yahoo and very few from the Google side. Oh well nothing is sacred in this business even the seemingly concrete of Yahoo now feels more foam like.

[JD]

The #2 spot in the first category in the old, gives me a #6 position in the new serps every time.

This has effected the number of refers. That Old #2 spot was very popular.

[skibum]

It looks like they now display the main, non-regional categories up to six of them at the top of the SERPs. All the regional categories get one category link.

Might mean a significant reduction in referrals to sites in regional cats till people figure out how it works. The non-regional categories get better placement now.

[ggrot]

>It looks like they are taking the first spot from each of the old categories and listing them in the new serps
This appears correct to me too, but let me add some qualifiers. It appears that they are taking all the categories with an exact string match in one of the site's titles, then using the first site with an exact string match in that category. Not necessarily the first site period. Not sure if and how descriptions filter in yet. Personally I don't like it, but hey - that's life.

[kapow]

And I just submitted a site to a regional cat yesterday - wish I'd read this first.

BTW what does 'SERPs' stand for?

[zechariah]

Sure got my site up the rankings for desired keywords-- very good - still haven't really studied their human algo.

[maccas]

Well it was looking good, got a free regional listing on the 19th now they for some unknown reason they removed this site.

[agerhart]

BTW what does 'SERPs' stand for?

Search Engine Results Pages

I finally asked the same question a few months after I first showed up on WebmasterWorld's doorstep

[DiAl]

Well it looks like they are displaying the "web sites" by relevance that was always available but a little hidden.

I think you will find that the relevancy ranking is based this way.

Importance in order.
Key words in Title then URL then description
if it appears in more than one place then bonus to you.
The category it is in seems to be least of the relevance.

That's my observation anyways. :)