Latest SEO News and Thoughts
 by: Michael Rock


Yahoo! launches ’social search’ in Britain

“Yahoo! will launch a service today that allows users to ask other people’s advice, when looking for anything from a good hotel or bar to an apple pie recipe, rather than rely solely upon electronically generated search results.”

With Yahoo now joining the social search network it won’t be long before SEO dies and have to merge with SEM. In basic web site structure SEO research I have come to find that when you compare the top ten results of a search term in Google, Yahoo, and MSN you will come up with surprising results. In Yahoo and MSN you can see that keyword density, web site structure, and easily measurable results that you can just outdo to get to the top. MSN being the easiest, with Yahoo next because backlinks coming into effect more strongly, and Google last.

With Google comparing the same basic web site structure you come up with a totally different story. You will find that you cannot rely on the this data at all! Keyword density appears to have no effect with Google results. Nor does the structure, proximity, and placement of the keywords on the page. Although all of these factors are still important in Google they play a smaller part than what they used to. You will find top positions held in Google that barely even mention the keyword phrase in the copy sometimes. This is because Google grabs information from different sources to help determine high rankings.

Some of the things that Google considers are:

1. Age of the Domain Name
2. Age of the Web Site
3. Age of the Backlinks Pointing to the Site
4. Popularity of the Site through use of Social Bookmarking
5. Popularity of the Site through ISP Information
6. Popularity of the Site through Google’s Browser Toolbar

Did you know that your ISP (Internet Service Provider) sells the browsing habits of it’s customers to the search engines? This information is applied to Google’s algorithm as well.

‘Social Bookmarking’ or ‘Tagging’ is a method of bookmarking a site online with just services as DIGG, Furl, and Del.icio.us. Google takes information from these sites to determine the popularity of the site and applies it to its algorithm. This is why I see SEO going from strict results of keyword density and merging with SEM that applies ways to gain web site popularity. You can read more about this information in this search engine placement article that I wrote.

With Yahoo launching a ‘social search‘ in Britain that tells me that Yahoo won’t be to far down the road in following Google’s footsteps in bringing more accurate and relavant searches.

The next thing in SEO news is Google’s CEO joining Apple’s Board of Directors.

After reading this article it makes me wonder if Google will become more integrated with Apple Computers. It is true that Eric Schmidt would offer great experience to the board, but it makes me wonder what would become of this. Did Google’s idea of creating ‘Google Computers’ phase out? Will Google become the default search engine on Apple computers?

We will find out more in the future.

This is Michael Rock signing off. Have a great day!

The Internet Presence (http://www.theinternetpresence.com)
Web Ranking Consultants (http://www.webrankingconsultants.com)

About The Author
Michael Rock is the owner of the registered companies, The Internet Presence and Web Ranking Consultants, and has over twenty years experience with DOS, windows business applications, numerous programming languages, artistic development, web design, and search engine optimization. After the persuasion of those praising his work, he decided to go into business for himself and highly suggests everyone else to do the same.