Yahoo serps of this past week

Did anyone else notice some bizarre moves over this last week or so? My site was ranking #5 for my longtail and then it would fluctuate between like 5, 6, 7 and now it's consistently on the 2nd serp at like #17, which sucks. Sometimes it would give me a different result if i searched a few minutes later.

Anyone have any idea why that would have happened? I also noticed some inconsistencies with their site explorer. Sometimes it would only show a few backlinks, then it would show them all.

What you are noticing is the fact that Yahoo is customizing a very LARGE number of their searches right now (possibly 90% or better).

I started to notice some weird changes during the month of September (what looked like weekly updates, etc.) and I started tracking the results kind of closely.

Now, I notice that the majority of the results are customized based upon previous searches - in other words, a #1 is not a #1 is not a #1.

If you use an automated SERP ranking checker, you will notice it pretty quickly. Run a SERP check-first thing you will notice is that some SERPS show a LARGE amount of saturation (either for you or your competitor). Run that search manually and you will likely NOT see the same results in Yahoo's results.

This in many ways changes the SEO game and it looks like it slipped in on a lot of SEO's - I'm not finding a lot on the web right now about it. I was thinking of doing a blog post on it because there doesn't seem to be all that much out there right now about it.

Now for the big news-Google is doing some of the same stuff as well - they have dialed customization up as well. In many ways, it's a new day for SEO.

What's the solution? BRANDING. What I am noticing right now is that mature brands are not necessarily adversely effected-in some cases, they appear more frequently in searches (In some cases, I've seen increased traffic since I've noticed this level of customization from Yahoo).

I'm still investigating it, but as I know more I'll share it!

All speculation. I think Yahoo is broken and Google mastered the SERP. Site explorer is inaccurate. No-one knows what is going on, just that they are working on it.

So, don't expect to keep any listings for a long time in Yahoo no matter if your site is 15 years old and authority.

I think in natural order, age should be considered however at this point, I would like to boycot Yahoo. Stop as many people as you can from using this useless search engine. All the complaints they have received since Slurp 3.0 have gone unnoticed.

Oy! I hate that there isn't more you focus on this board. It's 20% of my traffic and has been for a number of years. Why would you not be concerned about that? That can be a ton of visitors, and yes, your focus should be on Google but you need to be aware of what tends to work differently in Y! and what they're up to.

Okay, rant over. Answer to question: Yahoo does monthly algo updates and announces them on their blog. Here's one from the 14th which is why you posted on the 15th. http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000638.html

Notice how they make these posts about once a month: http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/cat_weather_report.html

OK-my only input on this one-do the same search on 2 different PC's (like your home one and one at a library, etc.) and see if the top 10 results are the same. I can't swear by it of course, but I'll about bet you that they will be different going forward-regardless of when the algo changes happen (and to be honest, this is the one Yahoo is announcing, they roll out "tweaks" on an almost weekly or better basis).

For REAL changes, they never announce them at all. For those who have had a good Yahoo rep, rest easy-you may even see increased Yahoo traffic come out of this. If you are trying to establish a site, the going will be pretty rough going forward.

Roseberry, I agree with you - This board needs to pay more attention to Yahoo events. Really not enough Yahoo experts. Why - Yahoo was the easiest search engine to get into. The SERP at that time was good quality. Now, the SE is filled with SPAM results. This board was still and google busy as always. say 75 G and 3 Y.

They are in fact broken - That is why updates are reoccurring.

When you have quality sites disappearing who generate thousands in advertising revenue, it makes sense to start paying attention Yahoo. I am almost cutting them off. I am spending 80% less on one domain a year on ads and lost all my ranks in Yahoo. Was number one for nine years straight.

Yah - I see some big class actions happening if they don't get their **** together.

Looking forward to some real info for once. The only thing I got officially is that they are broken. Nothing is accurate.

I too recently lost a lot of my top positions on yahoo. My site was pushed down by things like craiglist, gumtree, etc. These sites have almost no direct relivence to my market.

At the same time my longtail traffic from yahoo increased dramitically. My speculation is yahoo is judging each page seperatley now. I think deep links to a site only help the page the deep links are going to and not increasevb general site strength like in google. Thus if your site does well because of powerful deep links in google (and used to work in yahoo) your home page has seen drops. But the other side is those deeper link pages have improved for longtails.

I also agree with the other posters the level of knowledge about yahoo in this forum is pretty poor.

gazzahk - I agree with you on long tail exposure - However.
This site has 60 - 90k links to the homepage. Should be number one for most keywords. Now page two or three for all. Long tail appears somewhere in 1-5.

Is siteexplorer reporting your site inaccurately?

Since Yahoo! SERPs are so erratic, I think that we have a good handle on it.

gazzahk... I used to dominate Yahoo at positions 1-2 for around 15 keywords. They have all fallen to 5-20. Our primary link strength is to internal pages. Do you have any other info to backup what you are saying as far as Yahoo only looking individual page strength vs. site strength. If true, I am likely screwed for the time being in Yahoo. Luckily they were only around 5-7% of my traffic (now ~2%). I still feel it though because the conversions were good.

My conclusions are based on my own observations and some research I did on some other sites. My site too has some very good internal link bait that recieves heaps of edu, gov links etc. My competators that have increased above me for words I track have almost all their link juice to their index page. My other competators (not really competators just in the same serps i watch) that have lots of deep links also have dropped for my main targetted phrases ie edu sites. The longtail keywords I have gone up on yahoo for are largely for pages that have their own direct link juice. I see very few longtails in yahoo appearing for pages that do not have own links. Many for my internal pages that have strong links. Thus my speculations...

Makes sense. I used to just ignore both Yahoo and Live because we were always in the #1 or #2 slot for most all kw's. Live still has us there but Yahoo will now have to get some attention. I guess I have to start getting more attention to the index page to see if I can recover in Yahoo faster. Thanks.

I know we have to optimize for yahoo. But how do we specifically optimize JUST for yahoo? Like, how do we focus our attention on yahoo rather than google?

I have been looking at all my client’s site and see a change in Yahoo almost daily. Looks like they are test numerous results and can’t get one to be consistent. I believe the best action is no action right now.

Till they have a stable rhythm we are pushing jello up hill and with Google dominating the search seems like time almost wasted.

Where have you been. Yahoo has been f**ked up since April or Slurp.3.0. If you wait it out, it's too late. You can still achieve good ranks with good fundamentals, Do your SEO and forget about what Yahoo is doing. SERP will change weekly and fast if your site has no legs to stand on.
By the way, Yahoo is making a grave mistake in algo. It's like a flousy date.