The Optimizer - Weekly SEO News

Google once again flexes its search muscle, continuing to increase its lead over its closest challengers Yahoo and Windows Live/MSN.

For October alone, according to ComScore, Inc., Google Sites increased its lead atop the core search ranking with 58.5 percent of U.S. searches, gaining 1.5 share points versus the previous month. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 22.9 percent, followed
by Microsoft Sites (9.7 percent), Ask Network (4.7 percent) and Time Warner
Network (4.2 percent). Let's go to the numbers:

comScore Core Search Report*
October 2007
Total U.S. -- Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch 2.0

Share of Searches (%)
Point
Change
Oct-07 vs.
Core Search Entity Sep - 07 Oct -07 Sep-07

Total Core Search 100.0 % 100.0 % 0.0
Google Sites 57.0 % 58.5 % 1.5
Yahoo! Sites 23.7 % 22.9 % -0.8
Microsoft Sites 10.3 % 9.7 % -0.6
Ask Network 4.7 % 4.7 % 0.0
Time Warner Network 4.3 % 4.2 % -0.1

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and
cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and
user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five
search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

We Americans love our searches, and we just keep getting more and more passionate about it. In October, we conducted 10.5 billion searches at the core search engines, up 12-percent from September. Google got most of that love, 6.1 billion core searches during the month, up 15 percent, while Yahoo! Sites recorded 2.4 billion, an increase of 8 percent. Have you hugged your Google today?

Labels: google, msn, search, yahoo

Yahoo! has added a new search function to it's ever-growing bag of tricks.

Yahoo! Instant Search displays results as you type your query. The results come from either Yahoo! Shortcuts to news, weather and other relevant information or from the #1 results in it's index. Yahoo! Search also provides instant corrections for "select" misspellings. I emphasize select because it did not offer any corrections for misspellings that I entered.

If this becomes a popular tool, I see a lot of webmasters scrambling even more feverishly to get their web sites listed in the #1 position at Yahoo!.

Try Yahoo! Search Beta for yourself.

Labels: search, seo tools, yahoo

The Yahoo! web site suggestion page has a new paragraph of text which reads:

You can also provide the location of a text file containing a list of URLs,
one URL per line, say urllist.txt. We also recognize compressed versions of
the file, say urllist.gz.

Yahoo!'s site map technology is far less complicated than Google's sitemap, which must be a special file formatted in XML. Although, unlike Yahoo!'s urllist.txt, which is purely a list of URLs. Google's sitemap.xml contains more information. Such as: last date modified, projected change frequency, and page importance.

While neither of these will probably increase your rankings, they will help ensure that every page you create at least has a chance to get "on the map".

Links: Yahoo! Search submission page, Google's Sitemap login page

Labels: yahoo

Yahoo has revamped it's local portal today with a new set of features and an updated user interface. Here's a break down of the newly added content:

• Most popular local searches - I see SEO opportunities here.
  
• Search by neighborhood - Major cities are now broken down into local neighborhoods.
  
• View local info on a map - There's also a toggle to show local wi-fi hotspots and traffic data, where available.
  
• Upcoming local events for chosen location - If anyone finds out how to submit an event, please leave a comment.
  
• User recommended restaurants and other recommended businesses and services.
  
• RSS Content - Add current events, top restaurants and local favorites to My Yahoo or any feed reader.
  
• Browse by category or location - In case you don't know exactly what to search for.
  
• Other local info on Yahoo - Access local info available across Yahoo on the local city page.
  
• Your most recent local searches
  
• Personalized Recommendations - Suggestions about local listings or businesses that are similiar to your prior searches.

If you have a business, now is the time to add or update your local listing.

If you are a developer, here's a link to the API specifications for Yahoo Local.

Labels: search, yahoo

According to an interview by Gary Price at Searchenginewatch.com, Yahoo's Tim Mayer announced that his company will soon be launching Yahoo Site Explorer. A tool that provides webmasters with linkage and indexing data.

"Yahoo Site Explorer is a place to see which pages Yahoo has indexed. After clicking "Explore URL" you'll find the number of pages found in the Yahoo Index and also the number of inlinks. You can sort pages by "depth," submit URLs, and quickly export the results to TSV format. Site Explorer is also supported via an API."

Tim's advice on creating links for link popularity: "Create natural links, make it look natural."

Labels: seo tools, yahoo