Marketing, Internet, Local, Expert: Mixed with Common Sense
Yahoo opens up its search algorithm.
19Aug2008 Filed under: Google, Yahoo, & others Author: JonTo get back into the search game, Yahoo has opened up the source code to its search algorithm. It is a clear sign that Yahoo is struggling to keep up with Google, and it is a last ditch effort by Yahoo Search to stay relevant. You will remember that when Netscape collapsed, it moved the same direction, so that it could leverage external developer’s knowledge to try and compete. Yahoo is in the same place, it is looking for a Hell-Mary pass to become relevant again.
4 Responses to “Yahoo opens up its search algorithm.”
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Julian Sutter
August 19th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Hi Jon.
If you follow the Yahoo blog (which it looks like you do) you can see that this is part of a trend of Yahoo’s in trying to have a dialog with developers and SEO’s. Even the fact that Yahoo’s link: search is superior to Googles is a clear sign of this.
By the way, could you post the link to the opened up source code for the algo?
Jon
August 19th, 2008 at 9:31 am
I agree that Yahoo is doing what ever they can to survive. With their recent moves partnering with Google, and their refusal to be bought by Microsoft, the tensions on the board, they can’t help but get aggressive with new strategies.
I totally disagree that Yahoo is superior in search. The major issue with any search in Yahoo is that they have “paid inclusion”, so your natural results are bought by some people. Second and maybe more importantly, the traffic resulting from Yahoo makes up less than 10% of all of our(all 200 + clients) incoming traffic, so placing more value on it than it is worth would just be a waste of money.
Julian Sutter
August 19th, 2008 at 9:44 am
I think you may have miss understood my statement about Yahoo. I was referring to the ability to preform incoming link research using yahoo search vrs google. (Rand Wrote about it last week in fact http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-much-do-you-know-about-use-yahoos-site-explorer-and-link-research).
I do need to clear up something about the paid inclusion. Yahoo paid inclusion is run the same way that Googles Adwords is. So you can rank for natural search number 1 in organic returns. Also on I wouldn’t snuff at 10%. The amount of “extra” work it takes to rank in yahoo as WELL as google is minimal at most, and for something like an e-commerce site, 10% increase in overall cash flow is something to look into.
All that said, Google is definitely the dominate Engine both in its ability to crawl, index and return relevant content, and in volume of users.
Jon
August 19th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Ok I understand - I have used a number of spidering programs for incoming links, but not the Yahoo program. Today I rarely look at the actual location of links because we have simplified our SEO processes.
Don’t get me wrong we buy paid inclusion all the time in Yahoo for clients, however we never spend any extra time on Yahoo or MSN results. We only play on Google, if Google likes us, it is clear that Yahoo and MSN place us in the same ballpark as Google does. We do want that 10%, but we place more importance on raising all traffic volume, not on improving our percentage results.