| |
| |
|
SEO Information |
|
|
|
Your Top Search Rankings at Yahoo & MSN Search are Worthless
It seems I now do this rant every single year when traffic statistics are discussed in web industry news. Last week I posted to my Reality SEO blog that referred traffic numbers are the only statistic that webmasters should be concerned about when looking at their search engine rank. I wrote about this last year after ComScore Media Metrics statistics were relased discussing Search Engine Queries generated by each search property.http://searchengineoptimism.com/Google_refers_70_percent.html In that article, I suggested to Microsoft as they developed their own search technology that MSN search might consider resisting the urge to keep searchers on their site by plastering both PPC and "Sponsored Sites" above and below search results. Google displays two "Sponsored Links" above organic results and none below, along with Adwords ads along the right column. Well now that MSN search has made its official debut, we can see that they put three "Sponsored Sites" links both above AND below their organic search results, along with those Overture (Soon to be Yahoo Branded) PPC ads along the right side of the page. Not bad visually, but it appears to be keeping visitors on the MSN search site because they simply are NOT clicking through to highly ranked sites according to closely watched traffic statistics of several sites I monitor for clients. I've been pouring over web stats for a half dozen clients looking for traffic from MSN and it is missing in action. Even though these sites rank well for targeted terms for my clients - MSN is not delivering the traffic at all. This has always been an issue for SEO's and their clients and we are puzzling this one over, looking for results from those top rankings at both Yahoo and MSN as they seem to retain the searchers no matter how well we rank the sites! Yahoo has dropped dramatically, with referred traffic that used to amount to over 5% of the visitors to client sites, it has dropped as low as 1.5% of total referred traffic from search engines. After a recent increase in referred traffic from Yahoo search, we were hopeful it would stay high, but it wasn't to be. Rankings have not declined - Read That Again - Rankings have not declined, just the referred traffic! Google has gone up in referrals from foreign countries, including foreign language sites. We used to see tiny amounts of traffic trickle in from non-English language countries, but Google country sites for Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Mexico and a dozen other language specific Googles have combined to send more non-English referred traffic than the total coming from (English) Yahoo Search! The search world is getting very odd when great rankings at Yahoo and MSN don't equal referred traffic. This has always been the case to a degree, but is getting extreme and very disturbing. Google has always sent more traffic, with as much as 85% of referred search traffic coming from English Speaking Google variants in US, Canada, India, New Zealand, Australia, and UK sending more traffic than both the US Yahoo and MSN. What is the value of top rankings in MSN and Yahoo if those top positions don't bring traffic? Zippo, NONE are coming from MSN Search even though we are better ranked in several important search phrases for client sites at MSN than at Google! This is serious and it's a problem that we must resolve. "Searches performed" statistics, like those exhaustively researched by Bill Platt in a recent articleare absolutely meaningless if searchers don't click through to top ranking sites! What does this mean?http://realityseo.com/2005/03/day-internet-search-engines-stopped.html Even though I write a similar article each year, discuss this topic on large discussion lists and mention it regularly in my Reality SEO blog, I have yet to get honest answers from search engine representatives at Yahoo or MSN. I did get a couple of Yahoo Search managers to admit that more visitors stay on the Yahoo site and continue to either PPC ads or to other Yahoo links because "There is more of value to the searcher at Yahoo." What is of more value to a searcher than relevant search results? I gave those Yahoo's access to my traffic statistics and those of clients so they could see that nearly 70% of my traffic and that of clients was coming from Google - EVEN WHEN THOSE SAME SITES RANKED HIGHLY IN SEARCHES AT YAHOO! No comment and no explanations as to why, when they generate huge numbers of search queries, that far fewer visitors click through from Yahoo search results than do from Google search results. One must assume that someone searching for something visits at least a few of the sites that appear in the list of search results, no? They sure do visit from Google in significant numbers - consistently. But both Yahoo and MSN Search are failing to send referred search traffic to sites ranked highly in their search results. Why? I highly recommend that all webmasters with access to statistics fortheir own site look seriously at your traffic referred by Yahoo & MSNfor search phrases you rank well on. Do YOU have traffic referred byYahoo or MSN Search for your high ranking search phrases. Why not? Mike Banks Valentine operates http://WebSite101.comhttp://RealitySEO.com Ethical Search Engine Optimizationhttp://www.seoptimism.com/SEO_Contact.htmPress Release Optimization & Distribution OnlineIf you've got news you can rank top for your search phrases
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Search Engine Saturation Tool - A Must Have SEO Tool Search Engines have become the soul of the Internet. They provide a means of aggregating, correlating, indexing and categorizing the vast amounts of content in the wild world of Internet. Fixed Point of Reference According to author Frank Peretti, "A fixed point of reference for human beings is always something that is found outside themselves. It has to be something to which we can always come back. What is Search Engine Optimization? It is no secret that search engines are the number one traffic generating method for driving visitors to the different web sites. Search engines are very useful in helping people find the relevant information they seek on the Internet. Give the Folks at Google What They Want Recent developments on the Google front have web marketers and SEO specialists talking even more than usual. What they're talking about is the changing Search Engine Optimization landscape. Feed me - Satisfy the Search Engines and Your Sites Visitors With Keyword-Rich Content Search engines love content. Graphics may make your site look great, but a nice picture does not attract a search engine. Google has an Achilles Heal - Will Their Competitors Notice? Even though Google Revenues continue to soar, the hidden problem that may stifle growth and may even allow Yahoo or MSN to overtake the paid search market in the future lies in two critical phrases: Customer Support, and Customer TrainingApproximately 40% of the small businesses we have surveyed have tried Adwords in the past and failed, and some of them have tried multiple times. In some markets the percentage is closer to 60%. Linking Strategies to Skyrocket to the Top of Google If you don't know already, one of the key success factors to getting loads of free Google traffic to your website is increasing page rank. So just how do you increase your page rank? Well, it's all in the linking. The Great Search Engine Experiment Revisited Who is the Coolest Guy in the Universe A recent Search Engine Experiment Demonstrates how by combining Key Word Rich Web Pages and Blog Entries (for a Highly Targeted Keyword Phrases) with Article Submissions to Top Ranked Article Directories anyone can Dominant the First Page of the Search Results in the Big 3 Search Engines.Recently I did a search engine Experiment where I decided to Brand Myself the Coolest guy in the Universe. Are You Hung-Up on Page Rank and Back Links? It's unfortunate that many website owners are so hung-up on Page Rank, they'll rarely if ever, link to a site with a page rank lower than their own.I'm frequently approached by other website owners who it's clear want to exchange links with one of my websites for no other reason than its Page Rank and so they can get more back links to their own website. Spamglish; A Search Engine Comedy With A Language All Its Own When the movie Spanglish hit the screens in 2004, it was dubbed "A comedy with a language all it's own." I don't think the producers even knew they were slipping a lesson for website owners who want better search engine listings into the movie. Directories and Their Importance for Search Engine Rankings About directories:A directory is simply a web site that contains a categorized listing of links from around the web. They aid surfers to locate the 'best' and most informative links for a particular category. What Size Body Section Ranks Highest? This is another one of the controversial questions in many of the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) forums, yet it is very easy to answer for any particular search engine. While popular belief seems to be that pages should be very short (less than 10K) to rank well with the leading search engine, this article conclusively answers that question? with a completely different answer. An Ethical Alternative to Doorway Pages Definition: A doorway page is content created specifically for the purpose of garnering high placements in the search engines.Issue: Google makes the following specific recommendation: Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content (http://www. Can Invisible Text in CSSs Slip Under Search Engine Radar? I'm literally inundated with questions on the subject of invisible text & hosting so in I thought I'd debunk some myths and give you the facts straight up.What is invisible text? Invisible text is the body text that's the same or similar color to the background. All About Google If you read The Search Engine Showdown, you know Google is my favourite search engine. Why? Google always offers the most results for any given search (they currently have over 8 billion pages indexed), it's faster than the Audi Quattro we test drove this morning, and 9 times out of ten, in my experience, all the front page results are relevant to my search. Designing a Website So the Search Engines Will Like You Before you go and spend big money on a professional website designer, or start designing yourself, read through this article and make sure that you or your designer knows how to design a website that the search engines will like.Being a web designer myself, I know firsthand what they teach you in college about being a good designer. Search Engines 101 - Search Engines Explained What Are Search Engines?A search engine is a database system designed to index and categorize internet addresses, otherwise known as URLs (for example, http://www.submittoday. Website Ranking With an Internet Marketing Specialist On the internet, competition is stronger than ever. There was a time where paying a few bucks to get in Yahoo was enough to generate substantial traffic but marketing websites on the internet got much more complex since. Top 2 Ways To Get Higher Rankings in Major Search Engines Top 10 search engine rankings. Everybody wants it but a few achieve it. Google Patent Application - User Data As Part of Ranking Process In this third article, we continue to dig into the patent application of Google regarding the method used to rank sites in search results. Interestingly, Google asserts in the application that it "might" consider user data as a factor in organizing search results.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
