Google vs. Yahoo -- How To Rank High On Each One

Google likes incoming links, especially links from high-ranking, on-topic pages that include keywords in the link text. Google doesn't like over-optimized, high keyword densities and over use of keywords in headings, etc. like they use to.

Yahoo, on the other hand, looks at on-page factors more, such as keyword density, keywords in headings, etc. That is where the problem comes in.

Of course, they both look at everyting, but keep these two very important points in mind when you are trying to optimize your site.

When you search both Google and Yahoo for a keyword phrase, you will usually find a BIG difference in the Search Engine Results Pages or "Serps" as it is usually called. Serps just means the list of websites that show up when you do a search on any of the search engines.

Back to Yahoo and Google. Here's why the results are different and in a nutshell what you have to do to rank high on each one of them.

Links from other websites are the most important thing to Google. The higher the ranking of the actual page your link is on the better. Remember it is NOT the ranking of the Home page of the site you are getting the link from, but the ranking of the page your link is actually on that counts.

The text in the link to your site is VERY important. It needs to have the keyword phrases you want to rank high for included.

Then the next most important thing to Google is the keywords in your Title tag and then the content on your page. If your content is over-optimized (too many uses of keyword phrases or too many keywords in your headings, etc.), that will hurt your ranking with Google instead of help you.

Of course, there are 101 other factors that count with both Yahoo and Google, but get the basics right and you will be well on your way to high rankings.

As for Yahoo, the content that is on the page is the most important. To rank high with Yahoo you need to use a lot of keyword phrases on the page, have a lot of keywords in the headings, have a high keyword density, etc.

Basically, Yahoo likes all of the things Google used to count as being important before Google decided that too many people knew this and were making the most highly optimized websites show up at the top instead of the most relevant sites.

Now you can see why the sites that show up high on Yahoo don't show up high on Google and vice versa.

Bottom line: You could say that Google likes off-page factors (i.e. links) and Yahoo likes on-page factors. That's an over simplification, but it is a good rule of thumb.

If you understand this one thing, you can get your rankings higher than most of your competitiors. Of course, you will have to get it all right if you want to be at the very top.

The problem is that you can't completely do what it takes to please both Yahoo and Google. Of course, links help you with both Google and Yahoo, but the other factors seem to be either or.

If you have a reasonably good ranking on Yahoo and not Google and want to increase your Google ranking, I would recommend that you work on incoming links and particularly the text in those incoming links (and don't make them all word-for-word the same).

Then start cutting back on the over-optimizing of on-page factors and see when your Yahoo rankings start coming down and your Google rankings start coming up. Try to see how close you can come to making them both happy if ranking as high as possible on both is your goal.

Of course, this has to be done slowly because Google and Yahoo don't change their rankings that fast.

If you want to get the highest ranking on just one of the search engines and not worry about the other one, your job is much easier.

One last point.

Even though Google counts incoming links as being a lot more important than Yahoo does, the recent "search engine bombing" by political pranksters with the term "waffles" shows that Google is more immune to this than Yahoo. Obviously, Google wants a few other things to be in line before they will award top ranking to a site. Google is harder (if not imposible) to trick. Yahoo is not.

Craige Stacey has been studying search engines optimization as a hobby and has achieved some very good search engine positions in the past for PublisherGate subscription software

10 Basic Rules for Where to Place Your Keywords

First of all, Google and most other search engines do NOT look at the META keyword tag. Many people say not to bother with it, but I use the META keyword tag and I place my keyword phrases in it. Here’s why. I use this tag to help me remember what keyword phrases I am optimizing the page for. You’ll find this to be a big help later when you have a lot of pages and have forgotten what keyword phrases you were trying to optimize the page for in the first place.

For the META description tag, keep your most important keyword phrase near the beginning of the sentence and make this tag a full sentence.

Do NOT use bold or italic keyword phrases in the first sentence on the page, but DO use your most important keyword phrase in the first sentence, but not the first word.

By all means, use your keyword phrases in your headings, (H1, H2 and H3).

Start putting keyword phrases in bold in the second paragraph.

Put your keywords or keyword phrases in italics a few times AFTER the first usage of the keyword. Never let the first usage of your keyword phrases be in Italics.

Use keywords in ALT tags.

It’s very important to get other sites to use your most important keyword phase for your page in any inbound links. Of course, you are not in control of how other sites link to you, but work hard to get them to use your keyword phrase. Most sites will link to your home page, so give them the most important keyword phrase you are optimizing your home page for.

When you are linking from any page back to your home page, use your most important keyword phrase in the link. When your home page is linking to any other page, use the keyword phrase in that link that the other page is being optimized for.

Don’t plan on getting much (if any) help by putting keywords or keyword phrases in your left Nav panel. Google likes keywords in full sentences. Putting the sentence in a paragraph is even better. By the way, a sentence according to Google is three or more words starting with a capital letter and ending with a period or other punctuation. Stop words such as:

“I,” “a,” “the,” and “of” do NOT count as one of your three words.

Follow these rules and your Web site will make a big jump in its relevancy for your keyword phrases. Following these rules will NOT boost your PageRank.

To be #1 or even in the top 10 on the search engines your relevance for a given keyword phrase is much more important than your PageRank.

For example, you could have a PageRank of 10 and still not show up in the top 100 sites when someone is searching for “peanut butter sandwiches” unless of course, your page is optimized for (and has a high relevance for) the phrase “peanut butter sandwiches."

One final point: Use your keyword phrase in an H1, H2 or H3 headline followed by a keyword-rich paragraph and then repeat this with another H1, H2 or H3 headline and another keyword-rich paragraph. And of course repeat this again.

Use this format in addition following the 10 rules above and you will have a page with a high relevance for your keyword phrases.

Don’t try to optimize a page for more that two or three keyword phrases and always optimize for keyword phrases and NOT keywords. After all, the keyword is included within the keyword phrase. Most people don't search for just one word any more anyway.

I have seen pages rank #1 with keyword densities form 1% to 20%, but I usually try to have a keyword phrase density of between 2% to 6%. Sometimes I go up to 10%.

Craige Stacey has been studying search engines optimization as a hobby and has achieved some very good search engine positions in the past for PublisherGate subscription software

Twelve Steps to Higher Search Engine Placement

Recent studies suggest that more than 80% of new visitors to any web site get there as a result of a search engine query. If this study is to believed, it certainly suggests that working to get high rankings in the search engines might be the most effective thing you can do to bring traffic to your site.

The following 12 design tips will help you get started in optimizing your site's search engine placement.

1. Design for Specific Search Engines - there are hundreds of different search engines, but for best results you should design your site to take full advantage of the search criteria of the big three - Yahoo, Google and MSN. If you can get high rankings in these three, you won't need to worry about the other search engines. Knowing how these search engines rank sites (as well as why they will penalize a site) is important. The rules change often, but the tips below are the most current.

2. Know your target audience. Before you apply any of the tips below, do some research and find out what are the most likely key words and phrases your target audience will be searching for. In most cases, the key words or phrases won't be your site name, but will be something related to the solution to a specific problem or the answer to a specific question. Knowing the question that will be asked is half the battle.

3. Use Meta tags. By now just about everyone knows about Meta tags. These are commands you can place in the html on your web page to help the search engines categorize what your page is about. The two most important Meta Tags are 'Keyword' and 'Description'. The description Meta tag should describe what is on the particular page, and the keyword Meta tag should include the important key words from the page. Avoid using 'fluff' words and phrases as these will be ignored by the site.

Warning: If the keywords in the Meta keyword line are not found within the text on the web page, some search engines will penalize the page or simply not list it. This is done to prevent 'meta tag' spoofing.

My advice - have a different Meta description tag on every page. And be sure that keywords in the keyword tags are used on the page.

4. Optimize your Title tag. Many search engines give considerable weight to the html title tag on the page. It is the first element the search engine will scan and weight. Not including a title instantly reduces the search engine ranking your page will receive. When yo create a title tag, include keywords and write it to catch the attention of the users be scanning lengthy lists of titles in search engine results.

For higher ranking, make sure the title tag matches headline text on the page. And be sure to use a different title tag for each page on your site. (Pages with the same title tag will often be ignored.)

5. Use Keywords in page headlines. Page headlines are important - to your visitor as well as to search engines. Use short keyword phrases, including hot button words and phrases. Avoid 'fluff' and generic words.

My advice - use a strong headline on the page, and use the same headline in the title tag.

6. Use interesting text. Search engines actually count all the words on a webpage, then rank those words by frequency of use. The more often you use a word or phrase(up to a point), the higher you will rank with that word or phrase in the search engine. For that reason, be sure to include words or phrases that are likely to be searched for on your pages.

My advice - Keep your text short, on topic, and packed full of keywords. Avoid useless and meaningless words, and certain phrases that will place you in the penalty box.

7. Use the AlT tags on all images. Search engines are starting to index sites by the images found on the site. They accomplish this by looking at all the image tags on the page, and cataloging the ALT tags accompanying the image. Obviously if you don't use the ALT tag, then images on your site won't be properly cataloged. When using the alt tag, be sure to use a keyword or phrase describing the content of the image.

8. Use the Title tag on links. Search engines look at all text on the site, including the title tag on the links on your site. Most sites still don't use the link title tag, so when you do, you gain an advantage. The link title should be a short keyword or phrase.

My advice - Check out how the pages on my site have a left navigation menu filled with department names. I try to make these names keywords for my site, and the link to the departments all make use of the title tag. Doing it this way means that the search engine ranks the department names twice. Once as text, and again as a Link Title Tag.

9. Provide a Link Trail. Search engines coming to your site follow the links on the front page that lead into your site. These links should provide a 2 level trail to all pages on your site. If you don't provide a link trail, the search engines probably won't find all your pages. (And even if you do provide a 'link trail' - if you use the same title tag and Meta tags on your pages, the search engine may ignore all the pages beyond the first one.)

My advice - check out how every page on my site has a one click link trail to any department on the site. You are never more than two clicks away from any page. Plus every page has at least 30 different link trails (through the departments) making it easy for visitors as well as search engine spiders to move through the site.

10. Avoid the Penalty Box. Search engines are getting smarter every day, and they will penalize a site if it violates search engine rules. These rules include:

Keyword spoofing - using keywords not related to site content

Keyword spamming - pasting hundreds of copies of the keywords on the page just to get high ranking

Numerous doorway pages - using hundreds of index pages that do nothing but point to the site

Link Spamming - submitting links to the 500,000 link submission services

Page Redirects - not necessarily a major penalty, but can cause loss of ranking

Frames on Main Page - not necessarily a major penalty, but can cause loss of ranking

Flash Movie on Main Page - not necessarily a major penalty, but can cause loss of ranking

My advice: Keep in mind that search engines are intelligent software. When they visit a page they try to determine what the page is about, relying primarily on the titles, headlines, text, links, and images on the page. That's why it is important to focus on those elements, and avoid the ones that can put you in the penalty box.

11. Check for errors. Before you submit your page to the search engines, run the page through an html checker and a spelling checker. Search engines do check and take into consideration spelling and html errors, and will penalize a page that has too many of either.

My advice - take the time to do it right. If you get a poor ranking on a search engine it might be six weeks before the search engine comes back to re-rank you. Get it right before you submit to the search engines, and then keep it right so when the search engine returns, you will continue to get high rankings.

12. Manually submit the site. Don't be tempted to use an automatic site submission program. They don't work, and can get you penalized. Better to manually submit your site to the top search engines. Yahoo, Google, MSN.

My advice - Start with Google.com, then yahoo.com, and then MSN.com. Each has a place to register your site with their search engine.

This may seem a lot of work, but if you do it right and get high rankings, it will pay off.

Craige Stacey has been studying search engines optimization as a hobby and has achieved some very good search engine positions in the past for PublisherGate subscription software