Yahoo Update Oct. 25, 2006

Yet another update to SERP's

[MLHmptn]

Just noticing a completely new index early this morning. Either a filter was just tweaked or we're seeing a new index again. Not so drastic of changes as the 2nd to last update but significant. So far it looks good to me. Relevance looks good Yahoo! I'm surprised I'm saying this!? :> Of course I'm probably not checking the correct niches for authority and relevance but in my niche all is good!

Now...Analysis...

[Marcia]

The first thing I'm catching is a snippet pulled and displayed in the SERPs that doesn't include either word in the 2-word search (a phrase with synonym for the main keyword is displayed), and also that a homepage is ranking for a 2-word search phrase for which the second word in the phrase doesn't even appear once anywhere on the page (or in anchor text) though it is on an interior page.

[edited by: martinibuster at 9:03 am (utc) on Oct. 25, 2006]
[edit reason] Spliced thread. [/edit]

[martinibuster]

There's a Weather Report [ysearchblog.com] on the Yahoo Blog but aside from the title of that post, it says nothing about the update.

[Marcia]

Kind of a cryptic, veiled reference but the page shuffling has been typical of what they've called "weather updates" for past updates.

We are reindexing content on the web to launch this change. This will be accompanied by the usual ranking changes and page shuffling in the index that are typical of weather updates.

What is really disturbing me is that they've got a page listed as a backlink to a site that *definitely is not* linking to that site, or anyplace else for that matter. I know for sure, because it's mine and is just a temporary page put up for a new domain instead of parking it. It has no inbound links and links out to nothing. BUT it's on the same IP number as the other site.

Tinfoil hat time: I do run the Yahoo toolbar. And both those domains are private registration.

[edited by: Marcia at 9:52 am (utc) on Oct. 25, 2006]

[idolw]

oh dear,

they have deleted their memory. 6 months ago they picked my 301 redirect from one domain to another. now they got back to original URLs.

[textex]

The portals have changed also but are completetly different than the Yahoo! I see.

[leapforward]

I'm seeing positive movement across a number of my sites. Yahoo referrals this morning are up significantly from the last month.

The biggest impact has been seen on sites that picked up a few authority links in the last month.

[bwnbwn]

no movement here in central us serps look the same

[BillyS]

Maybe it's just because of these formal Weather Reports, but it seems to me that Y! has been working very hard on Search lately.

[piconsulting]

<meta name="slurp" content="NOYDIR"> would also be nice or NODIR to cover both odp and ydir.

[JoeSinkwitz]

For a very competitive commercial search I'm seeing 4 of 10 spots held by government articles...and a #1 listing by wiki...looks like the "authority" filter was tweaked a bit. Again with more emphasis on the Y directory too...how fun.

Now, if they could determine true authority on a topical basis, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, but as it is, these results are too academic for searches shown in the MSN research tools to be very commerically driven in nature.

Cygnus

[andrewshim]

groan... no changes this update. I'm seeing two sets of results for my main key phrase.

set one : has my internal pages at #6 and #11 with my homepage nowhere.

set two : has my homepage at #18 and no internal pages.

[netmeg]

samo samo... one of my client sites dropped way down on Oct 10, and today they're back in the 2-8 positions for everything, without my having touched a thing. This happens *every time* for years now. Weird.

[trinorthlighting]

The last two updates have been positive for our authority sites. Seeing some minor changes today on a few keywords.

[marketingmagic]

I'm not seeing any changes in my categories. *yawn

I'd love to see the no yahoo directory, never mind the ODP. Do they use ODP? I've never seen that with my categories...

[Killer_Bee]

Yahoo doesn't deserve my accolades they been sending us from #1 to 56 -58-100 and who knows what is up next.

[whatson]

I have seen them do this update a few months back, then it went back to the old index, now this one again. They sure are jumping around a lot.

[Robert Charlton]

6 months ago they picked my 301 redirect from one domain to another. now they got back to original URLs.

I'm seeing this too, but mine goes back almost 3 years. The home page shows the old domain in the serps, but new pages on the site show the new domain.

I'm thinking that if Yahoo's changed the way they're treating 301s, this might explain it. The home page still has lots of external inbounds to the old domain that we could never get changed, whereas the new inner pages don't have that old domain inbound legacy.

[calumniate]

from page two to #5 for me. I have seen the results 'flip' before though, so I'm not holding my breath.

[steveb]

I found one hijacked listing. The result shows a yahoo directory title and description for a non-existent site now redirecting to another site. The second site's URL is shown below the inaccurate info above it. When you click the link you get redirected from an affiliate link to the correct URL.

The hijacking site is completely unrelated so its Yahoo directory title and description are completely out of place in the results.

Something quite wrong here.

[andrewshim]

Something quite wrong here.

That's putting it mildly ;)

[RichTC]

LOL

I think they are giving msn a chance to catch up!.

i havent got a clue with this one, its all over the place perhaps it needs a few days for data to feed through or something

[Hollywood]

Seeing terms rise as much as 10-20 positions and also other terms falling 10-20 positions, kinda of 1/2 and 1/2 for all my terms, some up some down, so all in all I guess it's about equal or a wash.

Some key terms for my industry doing much better some doing worse, really is about 1/2 and 1/2.

Hollywood

[marketingmagic]

Be nice if we saw an actual update for once with Yahoo. I haven't seen a real shuffle (for the good) since they switched to Google results.

[Marcia]

>since they switched to Google results.

Huh?

[marketingmagic]

>since they switched to Google results.

You don't remember when they served up Google results back in the day?

[vstevens]

These results are the funniest ever. But than again I acutally bought Yahoo stock so I guess they have the last laugh. Seriously though the results are the spammiest ever and the funny part is that sites are ranking at the top without even hiding text keyword stuffing? One sites has at the very top every KW in the industry (300 + phrases) right in a row and he has no other off page SEO, but is doing extremely well in Yahoo!

[UK_Web_Guy]

Anyone else noticed another major update today?

[surftrack]

i've noticed big changes in backlinks, but not in serps (yet)

[JoeSinkwitz]

Wow, big changes. Get this, in the top 10 of a very commerical search, not one result is commercial...all are academic or false authority -- not good.