SEO UPDATES

Pay Per Click consultants and agencies are holding their collective breath…

Yahoo! Is going to use Google for paid search…to see how it’s going to go. According to Marketwatch.com - Microsoft and it’s increasingly aggressive acquisition deal is freaking out at Yahoo! using Google paid search. The head of legal is saying that will bring 90% of all paid search to Google, a possible antitrust problem.

But the ads Yahoo is planning on using will only total 3% of all paid search, and they’re only doing it temporarily.

This is fantastic for those of us doing PPC, because Yahoo needs to find a better way to run the backend of their PPC campaigns.

The Yahoo backend is clunky and confusing, while Google’s MyClientCenter is sleek and easy to use. Yahoo could take many lessons from Google and I hope they do during this possible try-before-you-buy time. If Yahoo could incorporate some of the Google strategies of backend usage as well as not making it darn near impossible to work with Yahoo if you haven’t already spent $1,000 with them would make my life as a PPC consultant so much easier.

Yahoo has the right idea. If your system is broken, look at someone else’s (preferably someone that has paid search in the bag, like Google does) and use the knowledge to improve your own systems.

Or just merge with Google PPC so those of us running campaigns don’t have to spend three times as much time to run the same campaign we do over at Google. It’s just silly.

A new email virus called Yamanner has been making the rounds in yahoo email users inbox or spam folder. It is under emails titled “New Graphic Site” and once opened it spreads itself around your pc and then mails itself to everyone in your email address book.

Unlike other viruses this one does not come with an attachment that needs to be opened. The moment that you click on the email to read it, it starts to spread. Delete it immediately if you see it in your inbox and make sure that you have the latest antivirus programs, updates and patches protecting your pc.

It’s an age old tradition in webmastering and search engine optimization to code your pages especially with Yahoo in mind. They were one of the largest search engine teams that took pride in personally inspecting each submission. But are those personal services of the past, dead in the grave? Yahoo still claims pride in how they submit sites to their engines. Times have changed in SEO, and much of it caused by those annoying spam engines that go posting site after site in the search engines mucking them up so that others cannot actually find anything detailed that they are looking for. This is one of the reasons that Yahoo’s personal attention made them so great. But then came google … and it started putting Yahoo to shame. Then came the age of selling listings, and Yahoo was quick to jump on the bandwagon with outrageous prices that ensure that your listing can be at the top of the page.  So is it still worth registering with the engines for free? I still believe so. Even with Yahoo. You can do so here : http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request  but remember, they do take $$ to put listings ahead of you. But I was told ages ago, the best way to ensure a good listing with Yahoo, is to write to them through snail mail, with your listing, so that its hand submitted by their staff. Give it a try, you never know, might still be the best way to go.

For over a week I have been reading articles and blogs that have been wondering about the slowness of Yahoo!’s email. I personally don’t see any slowness but then again I use that email only a few times a year. At this point it has over 600 emails in it, all junk of course.

I started paying closer attention and have noticed that Yahoo! itself is slow. Doing a search took me two minutes and clicking news links took a minute or more for the page to open. Sometimes five minutes passed and I am seething in rage as the site refuses to go through.

I made sure to check that it wasn’t my pc or cable modem, and checked a multitude of websites that popped open in seconds and went back to Yahoo! only to sit there as it slugged through, trying to decide if it would let me through or just come up blank for the third and fourth time in a row.

While a lot of people use Google’s search. I myself use Yahoo! everytime and even has it as my homepage in IE. It has been this way with me for years and at this point I am thinking it’s more out of habit than preference because I’m no longer finding it very useful at times.

CNet: Microsoft plucks top Yahoo Search exec Gary Flake

More on Gary Flake on this thread at Search Engine Watch:

Dr. Gary Flake is Principal Scientist & Head of Yahoo! Research Labs. In part one of this wide-ranging interview, he talked about the daily work of researchers at Yahoo Labs, and what they’re doing to make search better. In part two, he talked about the challenges of indexing various types of information, and Yahoo’s efforts at realizing a current hot trend — personalized search. In this final installment, he touches on a wide range of other search related topics.

Do you see a time when Yahoo will be able to deliver an answer on a results page. For example, instead of just giving links to sites about the Prime Minister of France, you get an answer with key facts, directory info, and links to articles? You’ve started something close to this with Yahoo shortcuts but they usually involve a second or third click? Will Yahoo eventually become an answer engine?

Yahoo! shortcuts have been growing and improving at a healthy pace. I think if you try some today, you’ll see that we give many answers right on the results page (e.g., weather, flight and tracking information, word definitions, etc.). Shortcuts work best when there is an unambiguously correct answer to a query. Many queries have no clearly perfect result, or may be ambiguously formed. As we improve the technology, we’ll get better at answering more things with fewer clicks or query refinements.

(via webmaster world)

Yahoo te gustan TeRespondo.

That’s mangled Spanish, not Portuguese - I know.

Clickz has the scoop:

Yahoo! is expanding its presence in Latin America with the purchase of Brazilian performance-based advertising network TeRespondo.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

TeRespondo operates in much the same manner as Yahoo!’s Overture division — distributing paid text ads on search results pages — except its distribution network is centered in Latin America. The Sao Paulo-based company has offices in Mexico City and Miami.

Overture opened an office in Brazil in October 2004 and has built a distribution network that includes Yahoo!, Cadê?, IBest and Bondfaro. It will now include all the sites in TeRespondo’s network, including MSN Brazil, UOL, IG and Buscapé.

“We are very happy to be joining forces with a pioneer and global leader like Yahoo!’s Overture,” said Juan Calle, CEO of TeRespondo. “We believe the combination of our strengths and our shared dedication to our customers and to Internet users help us execute on our vision of providing the largest online search advertising network in Brazil.”

As with Overture, TeRespondo’s search ads are sold on a cost-per-click basis and displayed in order of bid price. The minimum CPC bid amount is R$0.15 in Brazil, P$0.50 in Mexico and US$0.05 in Argentina.

Webmaster world thread here.

Ever wondered what Anchor Text your competitors are targetting?

Check out the Yahoo Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer.

Using this tool you can see what backlinks your competitors have and more importantly the anchor text.

Here are a few guidelines suggested by MSN to help you out. First and foremost, MSN readily admits that MSNbot will actively be using Meta tags for part of its web site analysis. Yes, meta tags are still relevant pieces of code (despite all the nay sayers out there), and with this new Bot they seem to play a very important role within the indexing algorithm. Similar to other search engines, the ‘title tag’ again appears to be the most heavily weighted within the algorithm, followed closely by the Meta Description Tag and if you read between the lines, it is suggested that your best ‘keywords’ should be included in both places. MSN does not come straight out and say that the “keywords meta tag” will be utilized, but by reading between the guidelines it strongly suggests the keywords in all areas (title, description and keyword tag and content) should adhere to each other.

Content of course is still king when it comes to MSNbot’s ability to put the entire puzzle together. Apparently, at this stage, the Bot does not read text within a graphic, so if you have important keywords contained within a graphic (especially on your main page), they strongly suggest you move those keywords into plain old text format. And here’s a tip; the closer to the top of the page, the better.

MSN Search calls for pages to be under 150K in size, suggesting the Bot will either simply stop reading after this point or in a worse case scenario, may measure/weigh the page size before reading and simply skip the page all together. This point is not made entirely clear, but it should be of enough concern to have every SEO firm scampering to measure their clients web site’s index pages, just in case. In actuality, a page size of 150k could contain a lot of relevant text content, but add a few fancy graphics in there and the total can add up quickly.

An interesting point within the guidelines suggests that words (even keywords) within headers, footers and tables will not be read. Again, simple text is the rule of thumb. This may cause some web sites to need a complete redesign. Graphics with long or non-content supported ALT tags will also be dismissed. This is very similar to the rules from other major search engines, as it provides somewhat of a safeguard against sites that stuff keywords in an attempt to fool or “spam” the engines into thinking they are something they are not. Redirects will not be read either.

Linking, as per usual, will be an important part of MSNBot’s equation. They offer two suggestions as to which links will be deemed the most important: links from the main page and links no more than three levels deep. This means all hyperlinks on your site should be accessible within three clicks or less from each other for maximum effectiveness. Very interesting. Larger web sites may have a problem adhering to this rule, but it should be kept in mind that the MSNBot is still feeling its way through the web. A three deep scenario is probably the beginning of the parameter. It will surely offer a deeper crawl as it becomes more sophisticated.

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