Getting to #1 in Yahoo

[WebMonkey]

I've read though the old threads here about optimizing for Yahoo, and in my experience the only factors affecting your position are already visible in the Yahoo listing, i.e:

Site title - most important
Site description - seems to be the least important.
URL

Yahoo occasional changes the weights of importance these factors.

What I cannot work out is the optimal keyword density in these 3 factors. Anyone got suggestions?

Thanks

[cheemo]

You are forgetting pagerank from google. In my experience this is the most important factor in your Yahoo position.

[akogo]

WebMonkey,

I believe Yahoo! editors will change a few submissions before they will include it into their directory. So if keyword density is a factor on a Yahoo! SERP, it would only benefit you if you were lucky enough to not have your title and description changed by an editor before it was added to the directory.

Akogo

[jaytierney]

As somone who relies heavily on Yahoo, I can tell you with the utmost confidence that Yahoo considers both PR from Google, as well as the content on your page! I don't know what exactly it is, but I have a feeling Yahoo might get keyword densities from Google or something similar. Believe me, my sites can fluxuate with each update based solely on even the slightest keyword/content changes on my index pages.

[4crests]

My competitor has a lower PR and Fewer Keywords in the Title and description. He ranks #1 and I am #2 for my most important keyword. It seems to me the only thing he has going for him is his URL. His URL is the exact keyword. His page design is terrible. We have stayed #1 and #2 for the past year. It seems there is nothing I can do to take the #1 spot. So, I know for certain that PR and Keyword Density aren't necessarily the most important factors.

Yahoo is one puzzle I have never been able to totally solve. Overall, I rank #1 on most of my keywords. But it is hard to place a certain formula on Yahoo. I guess the editors must have a big part in picking the positions of certain sites. Just do your best to cover all points listed above (PR, Keyword Density, URL, Content, Description, etc. etc.) and hope the editor gods bless you.

[skibum]

We just added a site with nothing in the URL, most important keywords in the title and some secondary keywords in the description. It's got a PR0 (new site). It ranks top-5 for most any keyword combination in the title. Every site below it has a higher PR. In this case, it seems the closer the exact match in the title, the higher the rank.

[JayC]

What I cannot work out is the optimal keyword density in these 3 factors. Anyone got suggestions?

I think it's essential when asking something like that about Yahoo to clarify whether you're talking about rankings in the directory listings themselves (which it seems to clear you are not, but the way), "web site" rankings which come from the directory, or "web page" listings which come from Google. Otherwise your question may return several differing yet accurate answers, because different people will actually be answering different questions. :)

[WebMonkey]

Hello Everyone

Thanks for your answers. I also doubt pagerank is a factor becuase I often submit new sites which are not indexed yet by google and they go straight to somewhere near the top (and stay there).

On keyword density, I was not talking about the density of words on my page. I am thinking of the density of keywords in the yahoo title, description and url. I am sure this is a factor, but seach on competitive keywords and very similar listings appear in different positions. Why? Perhaps there is a page score given by the yahoo editor?

[4crests]

webmonkey....

In my experience, I think your pretty close.

[markd]

I have ready reports (theories?) that even the directory side of Yahoo factors in the site's Google PR.

Therefore, you pay to get listed (and hopefully catch an editor on a good day) and then Google PR is a factor in ranking your site in the Directory. I just wonder how this is achieved when Google PR focuses on pages, where as the Yahoo Directory concentrates on the URL, site description, category requested etc.

Is this the case or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

[WebMonkey]

Hi Markd

I think it's the other way round. When you get listed in Yahoo, google will pick it up as a link because the Yahoo directory is a static web page (like most others on the net). This therefore helps your site get Google pagerank.

I don't know of any reverse link where google supplies ranking information to Yahoo.

[cheemo]

I strongly beleive that pagerank is a factor in the directory listings and I think this happened only a few months ago. I own a couple of sites that simply redirect traffic for me and they used to be #1 because of good url, title and description. In the last few months they have fallen drastically to sites clearly less optimized for the particular search. Why? Because the pagerank on them is non existent, I don't promote the sites, I just use them to redirect traffic which is obviously decreasing because of the lower ranking.

I am not saying that higher pagerank automatically puts you higher in Yahoo, but it is a factor. There seems to be some intangibles as well and I don't think we will ever be able to completely understand this directories ranking system.

[2_much]

I think it varies by keyword. In my opinion it's all a percentage. All the factors mentioned here come into play.

1. KW in Title
2. KW in URL
3. KW in Description
4. Page Rank
5. On-page criteria
6. KW Proximity (for kw phrases)\

For competitive categories, PR becomes the definitive factor. For less competitive keywords, 1, 2, and 3 are given more weight.

I have also noticed new sites with no PR ranking well. Some explanations for this:

1. KW matches perfectly in Yahoo Title & description
2. Google is tricking us (sometimes Google doesn't display PR for a page, but it does have PR)
3. Editor Intervention

Any other ideas?

[haxorize]

I definitely think PR plays a big role in Yahoo "Web Sites" rankings. One of my sites was just added to Yahoo in the past 30 days. The category, title, and description were absolutely PERFECT, hitting all my major keywords at least once. The site has a PR1 in Google (it was picked up on the tail end of the crawl before the last update with no incoming links) and ranks TERRIBLY in both Yahoo and Google. I don't even show up on the first page for searching my company name, which is the exact title and URL in Yahoo.

When searching for my primary KW, the top 20 results are all PR5-7 sites, and the bottom 20 results (this is where I am) are all PR1-3 sites. This leads me to believe that Yahoo factors in link popularity in their SERPs. And since Yahoo has no active spiders (right?), it can't determine link pop on its own. That's where Google comes in.

IMO, Google must provide Yahoo with the PR of every site in the directory, and Yahoo uses that in determining their rankings. You guys are also saying KW density is factored into the equation as well. Since Yahoo doesn't crawl its sites (and thus doesn't see the actual content), it must get that data from an outside source. If so, it sounds like Google comes into play in that aspect as well. How? I dunno.

There is, however, a problem with the above theory. PR is determined on a page-by-page basis by Google. So Yahoo must use PR (or maybe even a backlink check on Google) of the exact URL that was added to its directory, which is usually the index page.

Now, if all of the above is true, that brings up an interesting situation. If Yahoo drops Google for FAST or Inktomi, will that, in turn, influence the "Web Sites" SERPs? Will it use the other engine's link pop for your site?

[WebMonkey]

Hi Hax

That's really interesting. Now I think about it, all my sites doing well on Google also do well on Yahoo.

You got me thinking about what happens when yahoo dump Google. For sure they will no longer have access to the pagerank database. If Fast don't have an equivalent, then Yahoo will have to go back to the old model - just ranking on title, description and URL.

I am 100% sure that page keyword density is not used. We regularly change our page content with no effect on ranking. The keyword density we are discussing is only the density of keywords in the Yahoo database: keywords in Yahoo stored Title, description and URL.

If Google is dropped those good URLs may suddenly become much more important....