How Yahoo's phrased based indexing affects your website rankings

26 February 2008 - Yahoo recently published a patent applications that gives some insight on how Yahoo finds and evaluates keyword phrases on web pages. How does this affect the position of your web pages in the search results?

Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.

This week, we're taking a look at Yahoo's phrased based indexing patent. Are your website rankings affected by this?

In the news: January search engine statistics, Google updates its display URL policy, Bill Gates explains why Microsoft needs Yahoo and more.

Table of contents:

• Facts of the week
• Search engine news of the week
• Articles of the week
• Miscellaneous
• Win a $100 Amazon coupon
• Previous articles

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1. How Yahoo's phrased based indexing affects your website rankings

Search engine spiders are becoming more intelligent. It was possible to fool search engines with a simply meta keywords tag some years ago, but search engines have now a deeper understanding of the contents of a web page. Yahoo recently published a patent applications that gives some insight on how Yahoo finds and evaluates keyword phrases on web pages. What's the new patent all about? The patent application explains how Yahoo parses web pages to find related keyword phrases. Yahoo breaks down the content of web pages into several possible phrases and matches them with a content dictionary. Yahoo also seems to consider searches and query refinements to determine the topic of a search query. For example, Yahoo might monitor a users queries and find out that the terms "woods", "club" and "green" appear during a given query session. The patent application also contains a lot of information about how Yahoo might work with the gathered information. What is the essential point of the patent application? The patent application indicates that Yahoo tries to understand concepts instead of single words. For example, someone looking for "tiger woods" isn't just searching for web pages that contain this word combination. If a page contains the phrase "tiger woods" as well as some related keywords such as "golf", "green" and "clubs" then it is more likely a match for a search for "tiger woods" than a web page that has a story about a tiger in the woods that threatened a boy with the name Mowgli that doesn't contain the related keywords. What does this mean for your website rankings? When writing web pages, it can be helpful to use related keywords on a web page that has been optimized for a certain keyword. That will make it easier for search engines to understand the content of the keywords that you use on your web pages. According to the patent application, it seems to help to use these related keywords close together on a page to make it easier for search engines to find the relation. It will probably also help to optimize different pages of your web page for different but related search terms. That way, you can show search engines that your website is relevant to a special topic. Using different but related keywords on different pages of your website to make your website more relevant for a special topic has already been recommended in the IBP manual (zipped PDF file). The manual also contains information on how to optimize your web pages so that they are best prepared for high rankings on Yahoo, Google and other major search engines. It is a good read if you want to optimize your web page for high rankings. Visit Axandra.com

2. Search engine news of the week

January 2008 U.S. search engine rankings "In January, Google Sites marginally extended its share of core searches to 58.5 percent. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 22.2 percent, followed by Microsoft Sites (9.8 percent), AOL LLC (4.9 percent), and Ask Network (4.5 percent). [...] Americans conducted 10.5 billion searches at the core search engines, representing an 8.9 percent gain versus December. Google Sites saw 6.1 billion core searches during the month, while Yahoo! Sites recorded 2.3 billion." Related: Google takes UK's top brand spot Yahoo announces launch of Yahoo! Buzz "Yahoo said that Yahoo! Buzz would open up the Internet's starting point by uncovering the most interesting and relevant content from websites across the Internet and bringing more buzz-worthy stories to its homepage." Google updates its display URL policy for AdWords "We have made the decision to no longer allow certain exceptions with regards to our display URL policy. This includes, but is not limited to redirects and vanity URLs. This policy will be strictly enforced regardless of past approvals and will apply to all advertisers, beginning on April 1st." Search engine newslets MSN Search and Ask audience profile. Hackers turn Google into vulnerability scanner. EU: search engines under EU rules. Google to store patients' health records. Will Google acquire a Ukrainian web portal? Ask.com adds Compete stats to its search results. Personalized search is still the holy grail. Google’s annual report by the charts. Google Mapspam takes on international flavor. Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com

3. Articles of the week

How vulnerable is Google on search? "I think Google is vulnerable in search. Google hasn't changed search in 7 or 8 years, they are fat and happy. There are so many ways search can be improved. Google is way too locked into Larry and Sergey's original vision, which has hardly changed at all; it's not the only canonical way to do search. There's so many ways to granulate search and make it conditional and do a much better job." Gates explains why Microsoft needs Yahoo "Gates spoke to CNET News.com on Tuesday about how Microsoft needs Yahoo's engineering talent, how Windows 7 will make the keyboard and mouse less essential, though far from obsolete, and what journalism will look like in the future." Related: Yahoo plays it safe, for now, Can Microsoft use AltaVista without buying Yahoo?, Microsoft president on Micro-Hoo: we can do it Search Engines: intense competition drives better user experiences "In the December 2007 Keynote study, Google makes a clean sweep of first place in all four key index rankings: Overall Customer Experience, Brand Impact, Future Usage Impact, and Customer Satisfaction. Yahoo! takes second place in every category, and Ask.com, MSN, and AOL follow in order." Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com

4. Miscellaneous

Frequently asked questions about our new top 10 ranking guarantee 1. What is the Top 10 Ranking Guarantee? We now offer a top 10 rankings or money back guarantee if you buy IBP. We're convinced that the new IBP version 10 is so good that we can offer you the strongest guarantee on the market. 2. How long does it take to get the top 10 ranking? It depends on the search engine. High search engine rankings are the result of optimized web page content and good inbound links. Search engines have to index your optimized content and they have to find the links to your website. This takes some time, but IBP will guide you through all the necessary steps. 3. Can I choose the search engines and the keywords for which I will be ranked? Of course. IBP is not a search engine optimization service. It is a software tool that allows you to choose for which keywords you want to have high rankings. You can use IBP to get top 10 rankings for as many keywords as you want. IBP works with Google, Yahoo, MSN and all other major search engines. If you haven't done it yet, you can download IBP here. "My clients are absolutely blown away!" "The new interface makes it easier to navigate the program, and actually makes me WANT to work in it! Also, the new Top 10 Analyzer has so many more features, my clients are absolutely blown away! I loved version 9, but version 10 is THE GREATEST!" Dan Jablons, StandardInternetMarketing.com "IBP is very user friendly." "Using IBP has made my job more efficient. Especially, combining ARELIS into the software. Not only has this improved our overall ranking, but it has also helped us support our independent agency distribution channels. They value our opinion when helping them grow their existing online capabilities. In addition, having all the tools in one place is more cost efficient and productive. Very user friendly! Nice Job!" Ron DeVince, MultiNational Underwriters "Many of my sites are ranked on page one of Google." "IBP is a vital tool for search engine optimization - Many of my sites are ranked on page one of Google as a result of using the site submission function and the Top Ten optimizer." James Schramko, InternetMarketingSpeed.com Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com

5. Tell us what you think about IBP 10 and win a $100 Amazon coupon

We're looking for feedback to IBP version 10. Tell us how IBP has helped to improve your online business. The names of all participants will be entered into a raffle for a $100 Amazon coupon. Thank you for helping us make IBP the best SEO tool!