Optimizing for Yahoo!

Its been 5 years and I guess I really don't understand Yahoo

[howiejs]

I was hoping for some feedback on Yahoo best practices (there was an excellent on page overview thread for Google last month).

I have been doing this full time for 5 years and I guess the truth is that I don't understand the way Yahoo ranks pages. I get Google (until at least 2 weeks ago before their update)

My pages get indexed (slowly but they get in there) but I would really like to see a discussion overview of the one page elements

[howiejs]

<bump>

I am hoping for some pointers - now that it is the holidays and things should be a bit slower for everyone

[elklabone]

From my experience, following the standard steps to rank well in Google also seem to bring our sites up in Yahoo as well... i.e. incoming links with targeted anchor text.

In fact, on our newer sites, we seem to rise faster in Yahoo than we do Google.

Here's my question:

How often does Yahoo "dance"? Or is it a continuous update?

--Mark

[Marcia]

Figure on roughly about once a month for updating, give or take a bit. Not quite the same issue, but it seems that sites that get worked on frequently with added pages or updated content show up treated as more timely than ones that sit out there untouched for long periods.

You can't go by 5 years because until last year Yahoo was using Google's index for a period of time. Early this year a switch was made to their own technology, so it's changed.

Basically, optimizing is a combination of inbound links and classic on-page optmization.

[larryhatch]

I agree. In general, the same good practices pretty much benefit you in both SEs.
If anything, rankings will improve in Y faster than G, and maybe more greatly so. -Larry

[howiejs]

thanks for the feedback.

Any comments on on page optimiziation (there was a great thread covering on-page for Google last month)

[twebdonny]

Best Prcatice for Having Pages in Yahoo?

Don't show them any competition, Yahoo hates
real competition.

[prairie]

I can't profess to know, but it seems to me that today Yahoo is working how Google used to: on-page text + pretty simple inbound anchor text. I don't think they are as sophisticated as Google when it comes to judging inbound link quality -- I haven't tried to game Yahoo, its just an observation.

[minnapple]

Noticed the same thing as prairie.
Nice job of spotting it!
Anchor text seem's to carry more weight in the algo since mid December. Doesn't look as individual inbound value is calculated as closely as with g.