Google v Yahoo v Bing - Why the difference?

[Jeff FV]

I'm still very much in the Kindegarten school of SEO but I'm keen to study and hope to make it in to the Reception class one day.

To help me learn, a few weeks ago I set up a little site to practise the theory I've learnt to date (and also experiment with affiliate marketing and maybe make a couple of quid on the side.)

Anyway, I've just done some analysis* on how my site is doing on the big 3 search engines - Google, Yahoo & Bing.

I'm doing quite nicely on Yahoo - page 1 for a phrase match, page 2 for a broad match for same phrase, and climbing on one or two other phrases I'm following.

I'm indexed on Google, but am only in the top 100 for one phrase match phrase and nothing else.

Not even found on Bing! (This may be because I didn't submit the site to Bing? (have now done so tonight) But I don't recall submitting to Yahoo either.)

So why the difference? Is it just because that Google 'analyses' more sites or is there something different in the way they rank sites?

Interested in any thoughts - I'm here to learn!

Thanks

Jeff


*(Using Market Samurai's Rank Tracker in the first instance, and then comparing these results on the engines themselves)

 

[NextPoint]

Only the people who work for the search engines know exactly how they work and they change their algorithms all the time. The best way to go about things is to simply provide good content and make sure that your content is accessible - meaning don't do things like having all of your website in flash and don't put lots of styling and Javascript embedded in your HTML - having them in separate files is good.

If you have good content, people will link to your website. You should also tell people via media like forums and Twitter about content you publish. I told someone on Twitter about one of my websites who unknown to me wrote a popular blog - the featured the website on their blog, which lead to a lot of other websites picking it up, so one link lead to many other links on other websites being published.

 

[crossdaz]

So why the difference? Is it just because that Google 'analyses' more sites or is there something different in the way they rank sites?

Google does a lot more analysis and things that will get you well placed on the others won't make a dent on google.
The others have not enjoyed the same levels of traffic so have not been so highly targeted by spammers - like any disease this makes the host evolve much stronger. You can still game bing and yahoo - you'll have a tough time gaming Google. Consequently the results are better and people use them more.

Hence 90% of UK users opt for Google - the figure is less worldwide but they are still the major player.

 

Although the algo is different ,the competition is much fiercer on google as the rewards are much greater.

Earl

 

[Jeff FV]

Google does a lot more analysis and things that will get you well placed on the others won't make a dent on google.
The others have not enjoyed the same levels of traffic so have not been so highly targeted by spammers - like any disease this makes the host evolve much stronger. You can still game bing and yahoo - you'll have a tough time gaming Google. Consequently the results are better and people use them more.

Hence 90% of UK users opt for Google - the figure is less worldwide but they are still the major player.

I like that analogy of Google having to evolve more to overcome the 'disease' of spammers, making it harder to influence your position.

But - as you say - Yahoo hasn't been as targeted by spammers, so wouldn't that make its (Yahoo's) results better than Google's?

Not really disagreeing with you - more just thinking aloud. That's another tangent I need to go off and explore & test: who gives the 'better' results? how do I measure what is a 'better' result? etc. Damn this SEO lark - you find the answer to one question is simply 3 new questions!

Jeff

 

[Jeff FV]

Although the algo is different ,the competition is much fiercer on google as the rewards are much greater.

Earl

So sites will be optimised for Google, but not necessarily for Yahoo?

(I've never thought to do this before, but I've just opened up two browser windows next to each other, opened Google in one and Yahoo in the other, entered the same phrase - quite surprised in the difference in results. I might spend a little while exploring this further...)

Jeff

 

[crossdaz]

But - as you say - Yahoo hasn't been as targeted by spammers, so wouldn't that make its (Yahoo's) results better than Google's?

No because those spam sites are still there to be picked up - they may have been created to get through Googles filters but it's yahoo and bing who end up indexing them.

In just one example I have a site which has been top on google for 2 years - I got lucky with a few links and things snowballed from there on. The keyword isn't mega competitive but it's not bad. My nearest competition has far fewer links of any value, has much less content and overall isn't as good.
On Yahoo I am in position 2 and the site above me doesn't even get listed on Google - it has thousands of links but they are very spammy and most from just a handful of sources.
It seems to me that Yahoo is simply counting the links and ranking accordingly - which puts them about 8 years behind the sophistication of Google.

This is just an example but there are many similar ones.

 

[SEO Lady]

86% of FPs traffic comes from Google, we are Google p1, no.2 for 'personalised cards' under our main competitior who dominates Google p1, r1 for almost any key phrase including the word 'card'

4% of traffic comes from Yahoo, for 'personalised cards' we are bottom of page 1, page 2 for 'personalised birthday cards' with 2 indexed pages

3.2% traffic comes from Bing, we are nowhere to be seen, not even for the other well performing phrase of 'personalised birthday cards' - interestingly enough the top 10 keywords in Bing that bring traffic to the site all contain a derivative of the 2 words "funky" and "pigeon" showing we have no SERPS in Bing at all, just brand awareness of people specifically looking for us.

We are Google, Yahoo and Bing verified and I regularly pop in to webmaster tools in all 3 to check for errors and indexing, to me, Bing is more of a mystery than G!

 

[Jeff FV]

On Yahoo I am in position 2 and the site above me doesn't even get listed on Google - it has thousands of links but they are very spammy and most from just a handful of sources.
It seems to me that Yahoo is simply counting the links and ranking accordingly - which puts them about 8 years behind the sophistication of Google.

But as an end user, is the site at number 1 on Yahoo any good? How does it compare - for the end user - to the sites on the first page of Google?

- I'm not being deliberately argumentative, I'm just trying to learn more about search engines and how they work!

I think I'll try and do a little more research into back links to see if Yahoo are placing a greater emphasis on links than Google.

thanks again for your time & thoughts,

Jeff

 

[Jeff FV]

4% of traffic comes from Yahoo, for 'personalised cards' we are bottom of page 1, page 2 for 'personalised birthday cards' with 2 indexed pages

Which supports another thought I'm beginning to develop since starting this thread (again - a question spawns another 3 questions rather than one answer!!) - along with a comment from Sir Earl on another thread:

Started a site on friday to sell calor gas in an area of Kent .Its now N01 on Yahoo and taking orders.

Going niche is - we are constantly being told, and makes sense - is the way to go as you can't compete with the 'big boys' on Google, but what about targeting Yahoo? OK, it may only get 5% of the search traffic to Google's 90% (just made those figures up!) but is it better to get to the top of Yahoo for a more searched for/competitive term or the top of Google for a less searched for/less competitive term?

Questions, Questions!!!

 

[VinceSamios]

Is it just me, or does Yahoo seem to love what Google tries to filter? Link Volumes for instance...

But lets face it, theres no point SEO'ing for Yahoo because Google drives the traffic.

 

[SEO Lady]

But lets face it, theres no point SEO'ing for Yahoo because Google drives the traffic.

I agree.

No point in me spending time to SEO for Yahoo / Bing when over 80% of our traffic comes from G, the rest shared between Ask/Aol/Yahoo/Bing and other random search engines.

 

[Andy Walpole]

Bing only seems to index a small faction of the pages of a website, while Yahoo indexes more than Google

Also, Google seems more sensitive than Bing and Yahoo to building links too quickly and will generate an auto-penalty

 

[Jeff FV]

But lets face it, theres no point SEO'ing for Yahoo because Google drives the traffic.

But if its easier to rank on Yahoo than Google perhaps it is worth it?

I've done a little number crunching:

A ranking on Yahoo is equivalent to a ranking on Google if the Yahoo search phrase has 19 times the searches that the Google search phrase does. Once the differential goes above 19 Yahoo is better than Google. [See below for assumptions]

For example (and these search numbers are made up purely for illustrative purposes), lets say I want to sell digital cameras.

Digital cameras is a competitive keyword, but perhaps I can rank for it on Yahoo, but, given the competition I can't for Google, so for Google I go after pink digital cameras.

Search traffic for digital cameras is 2000 (per day/week whatever), for pink digital cameras is 100 (per day/week whatever)

My calculations suggest that position 2 on Yahoo for digital cameras would yield 12 visitors, position 2 on Google would yield 11.5 visitors, so it would be better to go after digital cameras on Yahoo than Pink digital cameras on Google.

I know this is very simplified, but worth thinking about?

Jeff

[Assumptions:
Google receives 95% of search traffic, Yahoo 5%
The percentage click through rate from Google and Yahoo are the same e.g. if position 2 on Google gets a 12% click through rate then position 2 on Yahoo also gets a 12% click through]

 

[kumarudaya]

please provide more importance to google while compare other search engine because has large search volume try studying about google and its algorithm

 

[crossdaz]

But as an end user, is the site at number 1 on Yahoo any good? How does it compare - for the end user - to the sites on the first page of Google?

It's not very good - but perhaps I'm not in a position to make an objective assessment?
However, if you look at a sample for the same phrase against all 3 search engines I think you'll agree that there are an awful lot of poor results on the first page of yahoo and bing?

 

But lets face it, theres no point SEO'ing for Yahoo because Google drives the traffic.

Google also drives the Dross.

Although google has the lions share,the other engines should not be ignored as they still produce millions of visitors.

And in my experience the traffic from Yahoo and Bing is of a higher quality than Googles in terms of time spent on site and conversion.

Earl

 

[omnivore]

I agree.

No point in me spending time to SEO for Yahoo / Bing when over 80% of our traffic comes from G, the rest shared between Ask/Aol/Yahoo/Bing and other random search engines.

we have only optimised for google, but rank much better on yahoo and bing. no idea why.

 

[Jeff FV]

we have only optimised for google, but rank much better on yahoo and bing. no idea why.

Me too - that's exactly why I started this thread. It might be as someone suggested in an earlier post that Yahoo place more emphasis on links - I hope to do a little testing to find out if this is so and will report back with my findings.

Jeff