Yahoo Update July 13th

[textex]

I am seeing a major update...I think?

I say I think b/c it is so bad it seems like a bug. There was also no weather report on the Yahoo! blog.

Anyone else seeing what I am seeing?

[trinorthlighting]

I am seeing some positive changes in my niche, both for me and my competitors. We were both ranking badly for keywords, but now we are all ranking where we should be, 1,2,3,4,5

[mrhazelj]

I'm happy :) my site is #3 out of 77,000,000 pages for a term according to a keyword tool gets over 6000 searches in a single day! keep ya posted on sales/conversions....

[edited by: mrhazelj at 10:25 pm (utc) on July 14, 2006]

[textex]

I am sitting tight....there is no way that this can stick for too long.

I am seeing sites ranking for competetive terms that don't even have the term or a semantic of the term on the page.

Also, I am seeing parked domains ranking as well as affiliate links.

Each update gets worse.

We need a new player!

[crobb305]

It's like I said before, Yahoo can't see the forest because of all the trees. They keep banning good sites or sites with a couple of affiliate links. Meanwhile, blog spam rises to the top. The search results stink and have getten worse. Furthermore, they don't even communicate with us anymore. Such arrogance. I give MSN a big applause for all of their public support. Yahoo is losing big time.

[Erku]

How longs does it usually take untill the results settle in throughout the Yahoo?

[caveman]

Linkfest.

<added>Could be some dup filter and internal site link issues too</added>

[edited by: caveman at 11:08 pm (utc) on July 14, 2006]

[idolw]

hmm, just had a look at it.
for me, it looks pretty cool. never ranked so high on yahoo.
the sector i watch is so competetive that no pure spammers are there. in fact, everyone in top100 is the spammer.
on balance, i am pretty happy with this update. let's see if it makes more money.

[steveb]

Pretty bad. I wish I had a nickel for every "access denied" spaces.msn.com page I saw listed in a top ten in the past fifteen minutes of checking.

It's clear they have no handle at all on blog spam.

Google's thimble full of niche authority in their algo looks like a raging river compared to Yahoo.

[SuddenlySara]

I made it to the middle of page 2 for a one word, keword! The problem is that the first page and second page results around me are all the same person using free sites to spam blogsnguestbooks.

[SuddenlySara]

For real....So get a "Blog" hosted at Googles's company or any blog site with serious advertising income potential.
The history of Yahoo banning a C block can just not happen anymore with all the new blog n news sites. Same with MSN that used the same search algo back when. Now is the easy time to test MSN with their spam blocking comment.... It's manual based on who knows what?

[MLHmptn]

The Ca. search looks much better as far as results
[ca.search.yahoo.com...]

I would have to agree, .com results are horrible to say the least! Will Gigablast take Yahoo's market share or will it be MSN?!

[edited by: MLHmptn at 11:43 pm (utc) on July 14, 2006]

[trinorthlighting]

This update has improved their index. Its still not perfect but what index will ever be.

[tictoc]

Yeah I agree.. Yahoo is worse than ever. They have NO interaction/NO Feedback with Webmasters or even web surfers.

All you see is splogs/redirects taking over the results.

With all of the search engines that Yahoo dismantled you would think they had big plans to converge them into something big and more powerful than Google (or at least keep up). Nothing happened.

[Erku]

Altough I am pleased with the present Yahoo results, I agree with the above post that Yahoo needs more interaction with webmasters in this forum. I have sent numerous requests and feedbacks as well as feedback on Yahoo News Search, and no reply. If there is a Yahoo rep here, please take a look at the MSN search forum. See how msndude is active and takes our feedback to improve the search engine.

[JoeSinkwitz]

I do not mean for this to be taken the wrong way for those of you newer to the field, but perhaps there is a telling aspect to this update where newer SEOs are touting the increased ranks and therefore believe the results to be more relevant, whereas some of the older members of the search community are holding their collective noses and counting all the sites that have mysteriously gone AWOL.

Does it mean anything? Probably not; it's just one more datapoint for me to look at.

BTW, anyone else notice the strange geotargeting? If you lost some on the .com, are you showing a lot of links from outside the US? I picked up ground in CA and UK, possibly due to an increase in relevant links from this area...another thought to ponder.

Cygnus

[mrhazelj]

well, probably won't hear complaints from surfers who don't have a clue what seo is. just webmasters who aren't ranking that think they should be. as stated before by the fantomaster, customers don't care how the car is made or who makes it, as long as it serves it's rightful purpose so all this spam is probably only bothering webmasters, not the customers if they're gettin what they ask for, no matter how they get it.

even if it's relavant spam, so for now u'll have to learn to adapt or not, plain and simple, wether you like it or not.

[Kirby]

One of mine went from #6 to out of the top 100 and #2 to mid 50's for two strongest queries. Another site of mine hasnt budged from #1 for top 2 queries. Same niche. Results have always kinda sucked and traffic is usually only 20% of similar serps in Google, so this is just an observation, not a complaint.

[JoeSinkwitz]

Kirby, on the phrase that you fell out of the top 100, what is your KW density across the various elements when compared to the top 10 guys...I'm showing that proper optimization isn't practiced by any of the 10 in the phrase I just finished computing -- it is possible that an over-optimization penalty might be in effect on a phrase by phrase basis (the "average" % for this highly competitive phrase right now among the top 10 is 3.75 if you can believe it). My 8-9% average is apparently much too high, though I'm not about to change the existing ones and lose the Google traffic.

Anyone else want to chime in with the top 10 % average versus their site [both those that went up as well as well down; good to know]. If we see a consensus on a lower KW, then that's something to consider.

Cygnus

[crobb305]

Well they (yahoo) issued a "weather report" for the update that supposedly occurred last night. In meteorology, that would be pretty poor weather forecasting LOL...telling us the weather for last night. Good thing they don't have to issue tornado warnings LOL. :)

[andrewshim]

I am seeing sites ranking for competetive terms that don't even have the term or a semantic of the term on the page.

I've been saying this for months! There is this webhost site in my category that ranks high and there's absolutely no relevance and keyword! When I do a variance of the keywords in question, I get Yahoo! Geocities main site in the top ten! Also no relevance and NO keyword (except for FREE).

I have 2 theories about this...

1. Y! is placing paid ads IN the serps.
2. Y! is broken.

Go figger man....

[inkywinky]

It so funny ,anytime a SE makes an update and some webmasters lost ranks the same old moaning.For some people Yahoo is bad (loosers) for others Yahoo is great (winners).

[CCowboy]

Gained some... lost some... blog spam is still out of control...

[MLHmptn]

It so funny ,anytime a SE makes an update and some webmasters lost ranks the same old moaning.For some people Yahoo is bad (loosers) for others Yahoo is great (winners).

I would have to agree but something is messed with this update.

Also on another note Yahoo has reverted back to the old SERP's from my location. Cookie's cleared as well to make sure it's not that. Maybe they in fact are not done with the update or are hearing horror stories about the update from the community.

Their search blog has a lot of negative posts.

[edited by: MLHmptn at 7:26 am (utc) on July 15, 2006]

[soapystar]

its funny, every-time there's an update and webmasters post observations on the sites moving up and down, some webmasters who have gained always like to ignore the actual opinions expressed and the reasons for doing so with a an insult. This is slightly strange. One can understand someone putting forward a well thought out argument with observations and examples as to why they believe the update is positive overall but when they fail to do this it gives suspicions that perhaps they control the very sites being held up as examples of a poor update.

just a thought.
:)

[inkywinky]

"some webmasters who have gained always like to ignore"
looks like this is about my comment.
answer:if you are not possessed with Google rankings and if you are ready to sacrifice a few sites from Google in favour of Yahoo then you can earn (sometimes) higher revenues only if you just rank in Yahoo.And the biggest spam at the moment is on Google not in Yahoo.

[textex]

Don't think that comment is a reasoning why you think the update is good.

[inkywinky]

"why you think the update is good. "
for the simple reason that I rank for thousands of keywords in top spots is not that a good reason :)

[soapystar]

if you are not possessed with Google rankings and if you are ready to sacrifice a few sites from Google in favour of Yahoo then you can earn (sometimes) higher revenues only if you just rank in Yahoo.

whats that got to whether its a good or bad update?

And the biggest spam at the moment is on Google not in Yahoo.

again the thread was addressed the sites that have moved up and down in this yahoo update. Whats that got to do with what sites are in Google?

Perhaps you are trying to say that it can only be a bad update if the eventual outcome is that the total spam in yahoo is worse than the total spam on Google? Personally i never followed that logic. I always believed a update thread whether in this forum, Google forum or msn forum was about the changes pre and post that update and specific to that search engine.

If i hire a plumber to fix my drains and they are more blocked when he leaves then before he came, i would not be happy if he said well....THEY ARE LESS BLOCKED THAN THE LAST HOUSE I CAME FROM..SO WHATS THE PROBLEM?

[soapystar]

for the simple reason that I rank for thousands of keywords in top spots is not that a good reason

this was the initial conclusion i had to the question of why some posters knock constructive critism of an update. It actually proves the majoity of posters right when the argument for it being a good update is that you rank for 1000's of keywords. Case is proven.

[JoeSinkwitz]

To try and get the tread back on the right track:

1. For those of you that lost ground significantly, were your backlinks primarily within your region or international or mixed?
2. Is the average KW density of the top 10 for your search is now significantly lower than it once was? Does any particular element stand out as to be under-optimized here among the leaders (hint, reference tags and alt tags)?
3. Other things I haven't thought of.

If you went up, you need to understand why, perhaps more so than if you went down, because you can replicate your success.

Cygnus