Yahoo SearchMonkey
September 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment
For the past few months its been a case of Bing Search this, Google Search that, but not much on the Yahoo! front.
It seems Yahoo! have been busy tinkering under the bonnet of their search engine and in the last week, some of the enhancements have gone live on the search engine.
Its a well known fact that Yahoo! will be/is using Bing to power their organic search results, but the deal Yahoo! reserved the right to control how these results were displayed.
Well if the new Yahoo! Search Experience is anything to go by, they havent changed the Bing results all that much. Bings 3 column interface is now visible on Yahoo! with some apparent enhancements to Search Assistance and access to search features.
Check out the video below to view the marketing hype about the changes.
Yahoo! have also started incorporating more SearchMonkey enhanced listings into their organic results. This coincides with the 1 year anniversary for the launch of SearchMonkey.
For those unaware, SearchMonkey is Yahoo! Searchs new open platform.
Using SearchMonkey, developers and site owners can use structured data to make Yahoo! Search results more useful and visually appealing, and drive more relevant traffic to their sites.
So now you can expect to see more enhanced listings when searching for product, local, entertainment, reference, social media and technology in Yahoo!
While none of these changes are game changers " its good to see Yahoo! still trying to innovate and keep the search focus going.
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Yahoo Video Search
September 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Yahoo! has recently introduced an inline video play feature that shows videos directly on the video search results page. Now, searchers can view videos directly on the search results page without entering the site where a particular video is hosted.
The inline viewing feature happens to be a bit controversial feature since the sites boasting videos will definitely want the traffic to the sites. With the large number of embeddable videos and the new feature, searchers will end up viewing videos off-site.
Anyway, if searchers wish to use the inline viewing feature they can click Play Now under the thumbnail of the video search result. This will open a large overlay window and play the video on the results page.
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Google and Nessie
September 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment
We are winding down summer and it appears as if all of the newsmakers have gone on holiday or vacation or whatever you call it in your part of the world. So in order to keep you informed of the most important developments we have scoured the globe and found that Google Earth may unearthed one of the greatest legends of all time. The Loch Ness Monster! Thats right, Nessie!
Cmon. You know shes real. Shes just very elusive. Fortunately, there is virtually nothing that escapes the eyes of Google. Check her out!
So what other mysteries can we turn to Google to solve? The origin of the universe? Time travel? How to open most small pieces of electronics packaged in those awful plastic things that cause harm to innocent consumers? What do you need from Google today? Ask and you shall receive.
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Yahoo Search Product Enhancements
September 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Interestingly enough, Yahoo search engineers have been doing a great work to give you an enhanced Yahoo search experience. This is an interesting news coming when the Yahoo-Microsoft deal is just few months from materializing. The most prominent of the search enhancements is the new Yahoo search page design which according to a post on the Yahoo Search Blog will make search more personally relevant and helps people explore things that matter most to them. Here are some new things that have been rolled out on Yahoo Search:
- A unique search page design realigning with the new Yahoo Home Page.
- Easy access to various Yahoo search features including Search Pad, Search Scan and Safe Search have been made more easy.
- Addition of Related searches in the search assist layer.
- Enhanced search results from more sites such as Wikipedia
The enhancements made by Yahoo are being tested out to a selected percentage of U.S users, but might take some more time for you to see it live.
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Search Ranking with Minute SEO Changes
September 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment
SEOmoz has released its latest Search Engine Ranking Factors report which gives an idea on how SEO works in 2009. A total of seventy-two SEOs participated in SEOmoz's survey that involved ranking possible factors used by Google while ranking websites, as well as a variety of questions pertaining current SEO trends and topics. The survey was completed earlier this year. The survey compiled the following as the top five ranking factors:
- Anchor Text from External Links
- Keyword Use in Title Tag
- Raw Link Popularity
- Diversity of Linking Domains
- Keyword Use in Root Domain
If we compared this year's list to that of 2007 survey by SEOmoz, it will come clear that the first three factors remain unchanged, however, the order is changed. The top five ranking factors in 2007 were:
- Keyword Use in Title Tag
- Global Link Popularity of Site (Raw Link Popularity above)
- Anchor Text of Inbound Links (Anchor Text from External Links above)
- Link Popularity within the Sites Internal Link Structure
- Age of Site
SEOmoz's 2009 survey ranking factors survey features negative ranking factors separately. It also features a new chart of Overall Ranking Algorithm elements.
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