Google vs Yahoo

Why is their such a big difference in results

[twist]

So far my new site has been indexed only by Yahoo and Google. Yahoo, at this point, has only indexed my home page. Google has indexed 10 pages on my site.

Even though Yahoo has only indexed 1 page, my results show up like crazy and in high ranking spots. When I type "Company Name" it comes up as number one.

Now Google. When I type in "Company Name" my FAQ page shows up about 40 down in the results. My other 9 pages it's indexed don't even show up at all in 7,000+ results. All my pages are in terrible positions with all keyword combinations.

Truth is, I never used Yahoo until I started checking my site. Most of Yahoo's serps are showing relevant results for the keywords I am using. Not just my site but i'm seeing competing sites as well in positions they should be in. The Google serps are ridiculous. A site with the definition to the letter "N" showed up before relevent sites about the keywords I was using?

Is something seriously wrong with Google? Am I out of the loop, I thought Google was the search engine to use but I am considering replacing it with Yahoo search as my homepage.

[robotsdobetter]

Some would say Yahoo! is still far away from Google. Even though most major search engines use many of the same things to rank web sites, each one puts different amount of weight on the factors they use to rank sites in the search results.

Google also puts the Sandbox on new web sites or more like it, they put it on the backlinks for so long. Where Yahoo! or MSN don't do that, well at least for now. This is largely because Google uses backlinks so much to rank web sites in it's index.

[esengulov]

Yeah I would agree that Yahoo and Google provides very different results. But I am not really sure about the fact that Yahoo has mu ch lesser traffic. In my opnion traffic on yahoo is distributed better among search results then on Google.

Just as a matter of fact, I used to find it hard to switch among the windows to compare results from Google and Yahoo. There is a website www.yahoogooglemsn.com providing this service. I found it time saving and efficient
for result comparison.

[larryhatch]

Hello Eseng:

That is handy. I get the same results as a manual check of all three,
but its a lot less hassle and fewer keystrokes.

As for Google vs Yahoo, I'm just glad that there are two sets of results
and that they are NOT the same.
My take is that this is all in the algorithms which must differ greatly
and I'm glad of that.
Altavista used to find arcane stuff that the others would miss.
One example was an obscure beach in Uruguay I needed to locate.

G and Y have their flaws, but each keeps the other on their toes.
Likewise with MSN. G and Y keep MSN on its toes also. - Larry

[mmmwowmmm]

I too am perplexed at how different the two major search engines are. My site has been up for about two months, and Yahoo seems to like me. I get all my main pages indexed and ranked fairly well. Google, on the other hand, has only indexed my homepage, and will not go beyond that - and on half of my major keywords I don't show up at all. I worry about trying to optimize my site so that it will please both monsters. If I change things to try to appease google more, will yahoo start to pull away? It's like having two girlfriends, trying to please them both: a delicate situation.

[hp11]

Google has never shown a sites real number of backlinks and because of the sandbox (which some dispute), most new sites don't rank for anything.