- Sponsored by:
May 13, 2008
Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins Interviewed by Eric EngeSEW Expert Eric Enge published a terrific interview on his Stone Temple blog with Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins, who keynoted SES New York. What makes it a great read? Eric asks spot-on questions that cut to the heart of the matter.
Eric Enge: In New York you talked about the future of search, but the thing that really struck me in the conversation was the notion of “webmaster supplied content” communicated essentially directly to the search engine. Maybe you can tell me whether that notion resonates with you in just your general thoughts on the concepts that you laid out in the presentation?
Andrew Tomkins: I’ll start by saying that characterization of webmasters and publishers sharing more structured representation of their content is exactly what we are talking about. I guess it’s easy to think of it as sharing it with a search engine.
The exchange that really impressed me was late in the interview when Eric and Andrew discuss a site's authority:
Andrew Tomkins: Understanding how authoritative a site is, then specifically for each part of the site; what they are about, how much you should trust them and how much people tend to believe them. How deep they go; all of this is very valuable from the ranking standpoint.
photo credit: Marc_Smith in Flickr
Eric Enge: You could have a site that has a million links, and that has many sections like I talked about, but the tennis section for some reason has very few inbound links from third party sites. Whereas, the camping section has half a million links, where you would actually allocate trust differently by site section.
Andrew Tomkins: That’s a great example of a good cue that you would want to pay attention to.
If you care about how search enignes work and where they're headed in the future, this interview is a must-read.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 8, 2008
Yahoo Tests 'Glue Pages' in IndiaYahoo is testing a new home page design for its search engine in India. Dubbed 'Glue Pages,' the design has a 3-newspaper look with modules reminiscent of iGoogle or some RSS newsreaders like Netvibes. However, while iGoogle widgets are all over the place design-wise, Glue Pages modules have a clean, uniform look. On the other hand, you can't drag and drop the modules or choose from a catalog of modules to customize your page. Instead, Glue Pages changes up the modules and the placement of those modules according to the keyword that is being searched.
The organic search results are in the left column. Because we're so used to paid search listings being in a sidebar, these organic listings look like sponsored results. (Don't worry, there are still 10 organic results per page.)
On a search for "cell phones," a Google blog search module (of all things!) was the top center module. But on a search for "tea," a MyRecipes.com module took center stage (and that Iced Mint tea recipe looks delicious!). Other modules include Yahoo! Answers, Flickr images, and How Stuff Works.
Glue Pages facilitates both discovery and answers, something that searchers and Web 2.0 users love. On both of my searches, however, the Yahoo! Answers module was placed at the bottom. And with the success of Answer sites over the past year (with Yahoo! Answers leading the pack), perhaps the module should be tested above the fold. But perhaps that will be part of the test in the future.
Check out the screenshots below or go and test Glue Pages for yourself.
Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
May 6, 2008
Yahoo Releases Safe Search Product into BetaYahoo has teamed up with McAfee to develop SearchScan, a new safe search service. Here's what you need to know:
- Provides always-on alerts to users for "risky" sites with security concerns including spyware, adware and other malicious software
- Identifies sites that have shown bad email practices such as flooding user in-boxes with spammy emails
- Available for Yahoo! Search users in the US, Canada, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Spain
"The new SearchScan feature from Yahoo! Search makes searching the Web even safer than ever before. No other search engine today offers this level of warning before visiting sites that can damage or infect a user's PC and cost them valuable time and money," said Vish Makhijani, senior vice president and general manager of Yahoo! Search. "Through this partnership with McAfee, we can offer users a safer search experience and drive more users to make Yahoo! Search their starting point on the Web."
Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:01 AM | Permalink
April 22, 2008
Yahoo Updates Search Algorithm, Fixes Delete URL BugRecently, search marketers have been noticing changes to Yahoo rankings. And now, Yahoo has plans to roll out updates to its crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms, as reported on the Yahoo Search Blog. Expect to see the changes unfold over the next few days as the updates are rolled out.
Yahoo also took the opportunity to announce a fix to the Delete URL function on its Site Explorer tool. Previously, some search marketers were experiencing problems with submitted URLs remaining on “pending” status for a bit too long.
Posted by Nathania Johnson at 9:39 AM | Permalink
April 14, 2008
Yahoo! Slurp 3.0 Replaces Yahoo! Slurp Search Engine CrawlerThe official launch of the new version of Yahoo! Search crawler comes as no surprise to members of Digital Point forums, readers of Search Engine Watch and attendees of SES New York, who saw Yahoo Chief Scientist Andrew Tomkins' keynote speech on the future of search.
Yahoo! Slurp 3.0 won't change the content Yahoo crawls on your site: the new Yahoo! Slurp 3.0 recognizes the same user-agent and all robots.txt directives for Yahoo! Slurp. The primary difference will be in your log files where you'll see Slurp 3.0.
Yahoo shared that the new bot (phased rollout over several weeks) will start crawling from a different and smaller set of IP addresses. No change of location, though. Yahoo! Slurp 3.0 will originate from the crawl.yahoo.net domain. So any reverse DNS checks to ID Yahoo's crawler will still work.
The big change: Yahoo's recommendation to stop using IP-based recognition and use reverse DNS identification instead.
Here's why:
Yahoo warns you might see a drop in crawl and coverage if you’re using IP-based recognition. Best bet: switch to reverse DNS-based identification of Yahoo! Slurp if you’re using any other method. The current set of IPs will disappear from your log files in the next few weeks.
Crawlers that similarly respect the Yahoo! Slurp directive but identify themselves more specifically, such as Yahoo! Slurp China and others, will not be impacted.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 4:03 PM | Permalink
Changes to Yahoo Updates NoticedJust over a week after changes to Google SERPs were seen, over at Webmaster World, forum participants are noticing some changes going on in the Yahoo results.
Jgold454 kicked off the conversation:
I am noticing some changes/shuffling going on in my niche. Anyone else?Textex also noticed a change:
I did some more thorough investigating and these results are really bad....BillyS was finally seeing some relief since the last update:
Yahoo is like clockwork, pretty much rolling out a new update every 4-5 weeks. This update was right on time. The last one was announced on March 3rd.We lost about 50% of our Y! traffic during the last update and we noticed a nice lift today.
FrankWeb wasn’t thrilled with the wikis turning up in results:
Looks like an update to me. See wiki pages climbing to the top for many results. Why do they even want for each term a wiki to turn up. If I want a wiki explanation or information, I'll go to it myself. I find it a step back for search results.Hat tip to Barry Schwartz
Posted by Nathania Johnson at 10:52 AM | Permalink
March 26, 2008
SEW Experts: Yahoo and the Future of SearchBecause of spam, search engines had to stop trusting Webmasters to tell them about their site. Now, Yahoo is looking at new ways to get information from Webmasters. In today's Web Analytics and ROI column, "Yahoo and the Future of Search," Eric Enge explains the ways Yahoo is putting webmaster trust back into its search results.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink
March 20, 2008
Yahoo on the Future of SearchWhere's search heading? Ask Yahoo's chief scientist, Andrew Tomkins. He'll be giving the morning keynote today at SES New York. While most search engines for the past 10 years have relied heavily on analyzing anchor text, links, and content to determine relevance, researchers at the top search engines have recently begun to look at other signals that might indicate search result relevance. Tomkins reveals a few hints at the future in today's SearchDay, "Where's Search Heading? Ask Yahoo's Chief Scientist."
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:05 AM | Permalink
March 7, 2008
SEW Experts: Has Google Already Won?With the imminent demise of Yahoo and Ask.com, Google seems to have cemented its near-total control of search. The monopolization of our industry is fast becoming a reality, and yet the users of search are oblivious. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Has Google Already Won?," Frank Watson laments the downfall of Ask.com and Yahoo, and what that might mean for Google.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink
March 3, 2008
Does Page Layout Affect SEO?Bill Slawski is reporting that Yahoo is joining the ranks of MSN and Google in an attempt to incorporate page layout into its web search algorithm. A new patent filed by the search engine examines how to estimate page elements without rendering the web page the way a browser does. As a result, the process for indexing a page could become faster.
The process involves creating object trees based on structural elements contained within the HTML code of a given web page. The goal is to give more weight to the unique content of a page versus the site-wide static content.
In other words, Yahoo wants to pay less attention to sidebars, headers, footers and other elements that are on every page of a site, and focus on the element that is exclusive to a single page. As a result, the links and content within the unique element will be given more weight compared to the static elements.
Slawski concludes that if you develop your own sites, then looking in-depth at the patent may be worth your while: If you build web pages, and you want an idea of how a search engine might be looking at and weighing the content of your pages, you may want to spend some time with this patent filing.
Considering that Google and Microsoft also have developed methods to segment the contents of web pages, It’s not a bad idea to get a sense of how they all might be breaking pages down into parts.
Posted by Nathania Johnson at 3:08 PM | Permalink
February 29, 2008
Aaron Wall Shows Yahoo Lagging On Indexing SitesSeems Yahoo has really been falling behind in updating their databases, according to Aaron Wall's article today.
This is something all people who work in the SEO area should be taking notice of since Yahoo has had good conversion numbers for many of us and if the efforts to add more content are not being recognized by Yahoo then efforts may be better spent improving existing pages - though even this may not be possible.
Yahoo has gone through a number of changes both to its system and its personnel lately so hopefully this will soon be remedied.
Posted by Frank Watson at 6:58 PM | Permalink
February 26, 2008
Yahoo to Allow Publishers to Improve its Search ResultsIn another move toward openness, Yahoo is creating a platform to allow site owners to create plug-ins that its visitors can add to their Yahoo search accounts to see enhanced listings from that publisher in Yahoo Web search results. The plug-ins are intended to expose structured information, and provide more deep links into a site, images, or ratings and reviews, for example. In today's SearchDay, "Yahoo Opens Up Search Results," we'll take a closer look at the move.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:05 AM | Permalink
December 6, 2007
Yahoo Adds Support for Page-Level Exclusion Tags for Non-HTML DocsYahoo is giving webmasters more control over page-level directives to its Slurp crawler for non-HTML files.
The X-Robots-Tag is a page-level exclusion tag that is used to direct a search engine spider in how it should treat that page. Similar to the way a robots.txt file is used, or a meta tag, the X-Robots-Tag can use the NOINDEX, NOARCHIVE, NOSNIPPET, or NOFOLLOW tag to tell spiders not to index a page, not to display a cached version of a page in search results, not to display a summary of the page in search results, or not to crawl links on a page.
The difference is that the X-Robots-Tag directive is processed in the http header, so it can now be used on non-HTML pages like PDF files, Word documents, PowerPoint, video, and other file types. It can still be used on HTML pages as well.
Yahoo also gave a weather report: "Along with this change, we'll be rolling out additional changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the next few days. We expect the update will be completed early next week, but you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages in the index during this process."
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:47 PM | Permalink
October 31, 2007
Yahoo Quietly Making Algorithms ChangesYahoo announced they have been making changes to their crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the past few days. Guess we were all too busy discussing the impact of recent Google changes and buying and selling links etc.
If I am reading their blog numbering system - it was their 500th post. Way to go Yahoo!
What I liked about this announcement is they called for input - the post has link to a form to submit problems or feedback - guess Google does it by reading all the blog and forum noise.
Yahoo wins this round - they avoided the "slap" effect Google's changes have caused, while still changing their algorithms.
Posted by Frank Watson at 1:22 PM | Permalink
October 2, 2007
Yahoo Search Gets Blended, HelpfulYahoo today launched what it's calling the "new Yahoo Search." The biggest changes are the introduction of Search Assist, a pre-search query refinement tool that Yahoo has been testing since July; and blended search results that include more photos, videos, and Shortcuts.
Search Assist refines queries by providing related topics as searchers type to assist them in finding the right search term. It's similar to Yahoo's Search Suggest feature, which as the name implies suggests alternate queries, but Search Assist goes further by offering related topics as well as specific suggested queries as searchers type. This kind of recommendation and discovery tool is part of the Ask 3D interface, which offers pre-search query refinement suggestions and post-search related categories.
Blended search results are now available on all the top engines, with recent launches of Google Universal Search, Ask 3D, and Microsoft Live Search. Yahoo's version is closer to Microsoft's and Google's in that it includes multimedia results within the main results, instead of in designated areas like Ask uses.
Results are pulled from Yahoo properties, like Flickr, Upcoming, and Yahoo Answers; as well as third-party sites like YouTube. New today are the video inline results and Flickr inline results, as well as the Upcoming.org shortcuts.
"One thing we've learned since launching our own algorithmic search engine back in 2004 is that at the end of the day, people really don't want to search; they want to get things done," Tim Mayer, VP of search products, wrote on the Yahoo Search Blog. "Today, we're launching an all new Yahoo! Search experience that gets users the answers they're looking for quickly and easily, and often in one search."
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 8:42 AM | Permalink
August 6, 2007
Yahoo Continues Search Suggestions RolloutYahoo has been on a search refinement kick lately, which continued on Friday with the release of Search Suggest for Yahoo Toolbar for Internet Explorer.
"We really believe that Search Suggestions improves your search experience. By automatically giving you suggestions based on what you've typed (as you're typing), you can get to what you're looking for faster," writes Yahoo Toolbar product manager Hua Ai on the Yahoo Search Blog. "We're driving to push it out to all your favorite search boxes."
Yahoo added the pre-search Search Suggest feature to its Web search on Yahoo.com last month, which had been available in the Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox since March. In July, Yahoo also released Search Assist, a new Web search refinement tool.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:39 PM | Permalink
July 12, 2007
Yahoo Adds Search Suggest FeatureYahoo has added a Search Suggest feature to its Web search box on Yahoo.com. A user is presented with a likely search term when they begin typing a query into the search box. It's intended to prevent misspellings, as well as aid in the discovery of refined or related queries.
The feature has been available in the Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox since March.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:43 AM | Permalink
May 16, 2007
Yahoo's New MissionIn the wake of Yahoo's recent reorganization, Jeff Weiner, EVP of Yahoo's Network Division, has introduced a new mission statement that he says will help tie things together: “To connect people to their passions, communities, and the world’s knowledge.”
"In this statement, we not only define our sense of purpose as a company, but also a strategic framework for the Network Division as well," writes Weiner.
The newly created Yahoo Network Division houses most of Yahoo's consumer-facing products, like Web Search and Answers; Yahoo Groups, Flickr and Bix; Yahoo Mail and Messenger; and its media and portal properties, including the Yahoo home page and My Yahoo.
He breaks down the statement into its parts:
"To connect people..." – "When we talk about connecting people we are specifically talking about connecting our consumers to their most essential needs, connecting our advertisers and publishers to their most valuable consumers, and connecting the dots internally to create far greater efficiencies and fully leverage the company’s strengths."
"...to their passions..." – "In other words, we want to connect the right user to the right content at the right time. If we get this right, the implications are considerable. Consider that the one-size-fits-all content featured on most web sites clicks at only a fraction of the top algorithmic results in web search. Why? Because we know exactly what you are looking for when you do a query. However, for the most part we can only do our best to anticipate what you want when you are browsing your favorite property. The goal is to close that gap, and ultimately make your content browsing experience as fundamentally relevant as your web search experience."
"...their communities..." – "when we talk about connecting people to their communities, strategically we are talking about creating better user experiences not simply by knowing what you want, but also by leveraging who you know."
"...and the world's knowledge." – "we want to leverage our assets to build the most relevant, comprehensive, dynamic, and open repository of knowledge and content on the Web."
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:47 AM | Permalink
May 2, 2007
Yahoo Lets Webmasters ID Non-Essential Page ElementsUsing a new "robots-nocontent" attribute, webmasters will soon be able to tell Yahoo's spiders that certain elements or sections of a page are not the real "content" of the page, and so should not be included in Yahoo's index. For example, a webmaster could flag site navigation, ads, legal disclaimers, and other non-essential elements with the attribute, leaving the main content of a page to be spidered and indexed.
It's done by creating a class attribute called "robots-nocontent," which can be used on <P> tags for individual paragraphs, as well as on <DIV> and <SPAN> container tags.
Yahoo first proposed the idea at an Indexing Summit at SES New York in 2005, the same time that Google introduced the "rel=nofollow" attribute for links. The idea was floated again at the Robots.txt Summit in New York last month, where it was well-received by site owners.
For now, the attribute will only be supported by Yahoo. It remains to be seen whether the other engines accept it as a standard, as most now have with Google's nofollow attribute.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 2:29 PM | Permalink
April 4, 2007
Yahoo Alpha (beta) Tested Down UnderYahoo is testing a new search interface called alpha, which meta-searches several Yahoo properties, and also allow users to add their own search service via OpenSearch RSS. Alpha, spotted this week by tech blogger Amit Agarwal, is the product of a Yahoo Australia Hack Day, according to the Alpha blog.
The search results page on Alpha are reminiscent of AskX. For example, a search for [New York Mets] on Alpha and the same search on AskX will show the main search results in the left column, with results from additional properties on the right. For Alpha, this means, Flickr, Yahoo Answers, YouTube, News Search, and Wikipedia by default. It also includes Yahoo's sponsored links results. For AskX, the answers come from Citysearch, Pricegrabber, blinkx, blog and news search.
It's also an expansion of the idea of a Google OneBox or Ask Smart Answer, both of which surface additional content from the search engine or its partners at the top of a page.
If users add their own search services, it becomes a meta-search engine, such as Vivisimo's Clusty, Rollyo, Google's Custom Search Engine, or Yahoo Search Builder. Its RSS remixing abilities are also reminiscent of Yahoo Pipes.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:36 PM | Permalink
March 28, 2007
Slurp's Change of AddressYahoo's web crawler, affectionately known as Yahoo Slurp, is moving. According to the Yahoo Search Blog, Slurp will move from its domain of inktomisearch.com to crawl.yahoo.net. The crawlers will be switched over in phases over the next few weeks, starting immediately.
Identifying Slurp in robots.txt files will not be affected, as the user-agent name will remain the same, as will the IP addresses of the crawlers. However, any reverse DNS checks for the crawler identity or network access rules to allow inktomisearch.com need to be updated to allow for crawl.yahoo.net.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:49 PM | Permalink
January 22, 2007
Yahoo Confirms Index UpdateYahoo announced on the Yahoo Search blog on Friday that a search index update is underway.
"We are in the process of rolling out some changes to our search results. As usual, you may be seeing some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index throughout this process. This update began last night and should be complete very soon," writes Yahoo's Priyank Garg.
How's this affecting your sites? Share your experience at the SEW forums.
Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 9:51 AM | Permalink
December 18, 2006
2006 Top SearchesFollowing Yahoo's release on December 4 of its top searches for 2006, last week AOL, Lycos and MSN Live released their top searches for the year 2006. Google still has their 2005 review at Zeitgeist, along with recent monthly totals. Ask.com presents weekly lists, but has yet to release a 2006 year in review.
A closer look at these lists reveals some interesting questions about the differences in the data from engine to engine.
Looking at the slight differences between this data can be an interesting project, and can probably yield some good insight into both the user demographics of each of the engines
Paris Hilton is an interesting example to use in showing how search engines classify types of searches. In Yahoo! and in AOL, Paris is listed as a celebrity, yet she is found in top News searches for MSN Live. Does this mean that people search Live's (formerly search.msn.com) News category when they look for everyone's favorite socialite?
More can undoubtedly be read into the top overall searches reported for each portal. AOL reports: "weather" (does this mean they included all weather-inclusive searches or just the term "weather?"); Yahoo! says Britney Spears is number one (hmm...wonder if that includes people misspelling it?); MSN Live claims that the world wanted to know about Ronaldinho more than anyone or thing else; and Lycos puts Poker at number one. Again, others can fill in the blanks as to what they think the demographics most closely associated with each portal are.
It will be interesting to see what the top Google searches are. It would also be nice to have some more details as to how many misspellings were included in searches and perhaps how many of the searches for each top term were actually contained in a longer keyword phrase.
See also the discussions about this at the Yahoo! Search Blog, and the MSN Blog post that introduced their list. AOL has opened up the floor for discussion at the AOL Search Blog (thanks Susan for the link!). Lycos provides a platform for discussion which can be found at the Lycos 50 Blog. (Thanks Carolyn!)
(Note this story was edited after I discovered that Paris Hilton did make the top celebrity list at AOL. For some reason I missed that originally. Apologies to the AOL team for this oversight. CB)
Posted by Chris Boggs at 10:58 AM | Permalink
December 13, 2006
Yahoo! Organic Rankings Update ConfirmedYahoo! has been updating its organic search results database since Sunday night and states they will complete the process by the end of today, December 13, 2006. Initial feedback is naturally louder on the negative side, but the topic is being discussed in various areas, including the Yahoo! Search Blog announcement from Tim Mayer.
Tim had actually commented on the story earlier at the WebmasterWorld Forums, under his sneaky alias of "Tim" in this thread about the latest Yahoo! update. WebmasterWorld appears to have been the first source indicating there was a shift happening.
The topic has raised some questions in regards to the timing, reminding some of the much maligned and often misunderstood Florida update that cost Google plenty in public relations costs. Barry Lloyd has a good recap of that at the Search Engine Journal.
The bottom line, however, seems to be that the majority of well-designed and deserving sites will likely remain roughly in the same position in the rankings, with a few good ones possibly slipping through. The majority of the noise around most of these updates comes from those that have lost position, and rarely do the good luck stories make headlines. A few of those from past updates can be found within the comments threads at MattCutts Blog .
One question to ask, is will this update affect YPN publishers in a way that Bourbon did to AdSense publishers as discussed in this thread at WMW?
Further discussion also at Search Engine Watch Forums.
Posted by Chris Boggs at 9:35 AM | Permalink
November 20, 2006
Yahoo Integrates Answers Into Search ResultsYahoo has finally officially integrated Yahoo Answers into the Yahoo Search results, according to an email we received from the company. We reported back a month and a half ago that Yahoo Tests Enhanced Yahoo Answers Integration In Search Results but now everyone can see it for themselves by conducting a search for vacation ideas.
If you do not see it, I have posted a screen capture below of the before and after.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:15 AM | Permalink
November 8, 2006
In The Election Results Race, Yahoo's The Winner
Like many Americans, I wanted to know what was up with the vote in the US midterm elections this morning. As a search analyst, I then wanted to know how the search engines performed in helping me find out. The results are in! Yahoo's the winner by far, but I'd still take the New York Times over it. Come along for an illustrated tour.
Google told us last month that Google Earth was all geared up to be an election guide. That's great if you've downloaded Google Earth and wanted to learn more before the election. But how about a quick, fast summary of what happened yesterday? What's Google got for us?
The Google home page is as minimal as always, no help there -- not even a special logo as in the 2004 race.
How about a search for "election results," which I think is a fair query to try. After all, using Google Trends, I can see a huge spike for that term after the last elections in the US:
I also checked the volume for just "results," and that was even higher whereas "elections" was much lower (see them all compared here). So my two queries for this test were "election results" and "results." On Google, both disappointed.
Here are election results on Google:
CNN's top with 2004 results! I know -- web search is always behind the times. That's why Google inserts that big news results OneBox unit above the regular results. Let's click on the main news link there, which takes us to news results:
Pretty bad. News about the dollar, stock prices -- but who won?!!! I've got to really work to figure this out, especially compared to the New York Times, as I'll show at the end of this story.
Maybe I head to the actual Google News home page:
Nope. I get some headlines telling me about the Democratic house victory, but it could be much better.
FYI, checking on a search for just results, I don't even get the news headlines inserted. Overall, I found Google to be a pretty poor resource.
How about Yahoo? The home page there immediately gives you some news:
If I actually gravitate to the picture and resist the pull of the search box, the "Full elections coverage" link takes me to a Full Coverage page with lots of info, including an interactive results page (my link takes that out of the normal pop-up box, but it still works great):
This is very, very nice. I can see at a glance who is ahead in the race for control of the US House Of Representatives, plus with a click I can check out the Senate or governor races. Selecting any state also gives me the information about races with that state.
I love this. It very similar to what impressed me at the New York Times. I hope Yahoo searchers found it. However, I suspect many bypassed it. To understand why, let's do that search for election results:
Similar to Google, Yahoo inserts a big "News Results" shortcut unit above the regular results, to help detour searchers into the freshest results. Of course, searcers might bypass that. If so, unlike Google, Yahoo has managed to get the CNN 2006 results page up rather than the CNN 2004 page. Nice. After that, there's Fox News 2006. But c'mon -- Yahoo's own special election results are third. This is one case where I'd totally applaud a little hand manipulation to get that to the top, especially to highlight that interactive results summary page.
Still, the web search results for this particular day at Yahoo far outshine Google. That's almost certainly due to some human editing, which is fine. Along with the sites I've mentioned, you get the New York Times politics page, USA Today's politics page, C-SPAN's 2006 results page, the ABC News politics page, CBS News's 2006 page, politics from the LA Times, then the Washington Post's 2006 results page. All of these are excellent choices. If Yahoo did human intervention to make this happen, kudos to them. You can check out a snapshot of the entire page here.
Over at Google, nothing is either timely or general enough. The Virginia state election board, California election info, assorted things dating from 2004 -- then oddly Virginia and California get another bump for their 2006 pages. Ugh. See the entire list in the snapshot here.
What happens if we detour into the news area that Yahoo promotes at the top of the page? Disappointment:
Yes, relevant news stories. And the image results to the side are kind of fun. But some hand help could have made a difference. How about a promo for that awesome election map of Yahoo's?
Let's go over to Ask, where I had high hopes. Ask has made a big deal of its special Smart Answers for the election, and they are cool. But will I see them? Yes, if I search for election:
I'd also get to this box if I went to the Ask home page and clicked on the Election Day link there:
But for election results (what I believe to be the more popular query), all I get is a small news unit:
The news unit will take me over to some news results, but like Yahoo's, these aren't thrilling. It's pick and choose through what you want, rather than any type of easy overview. As for a search on just results, that doesn't even bring back the news unit at all.
The overall web search results, similar to Google, are underwhelming. Nothing really helpful for the 2006 results pops up (see the full results in the snapshot here).
Even the special Smart Answers box, had it shown up, isn't that helpful for what I want now -- RESULTS! None of the featured links with it takes me to results.
Microsoft, what have you got for me at Windows Live Search? On the home page, nothing. For search on election results, it's disappointing old or non-targeted results (screenshot here). Unlike the others, there are no news results inserted above these. A search for just results is no better. If I specifically try a news search for election results, as with the others, there's no attempt to get me a comprehensive overview. It's up to me to review each story and hope for a good match.
Ironically, at the largely overshadowed MSN site, similar to Yahoo, I get a big election photo on the home page along with links, including one called "state-by-state results" that leads to MSNBC here. And over there is a pretty neat "Democracy Dashboard" giving me that type of overview I wanted:
It's a pity Windows Live didn't reach out to either MSN or MSNBC and do something special to point to this or somehow integrate it into the results.
What about AOL? From the home page, it's pretty easy to spot a link to a AOL election page with results for the House, Senate and more:
Searching for election results brings back disappointing Google listings in the main results. However, the new FullView column does a good job of dividing news into elections overall, US Senate coverage, US House coverage and more. And clicking on any of the "View all" links brings up the special AOL election page (see the full page here).
Now to the New York Times. I headed over there pretty much by chance. There are any number of newspapers I might of thought of off the top of my head, and usually its my original home town paper of the Los Angeles Times. But I hit the NY Times today, and boy was I glad.
Right on the home page, above the "fold" is an easy-to-spot election map. In seconds, it organized the most important information I was looking for into a way for me to know what was going on:
Drilling into the full map was even better. There, I could click on any state -- in particular the undecided ones -- and see the current situation:
Just when I was thinking "what if," I saw the "Create Outcomes" tab where I could click on a state and flip it to the Democrats or the Republicans to see how it might go with the Senate. Outstanding!
Other newspapers or web sites might have done as well with similar displays. If so, my apologies that this wasn't a review of the best election results sites. Instead, it was really meant to see how well the search engines held up as information resources for this particular news event.
Overall, I've written many times before that there's a role humans can play in search results. Today -- this was a perfect example of that. Yahoo almost certainly put some human effort into crafting results, and it was the clear victor in terms of quality of what was coming up in web search listings. AOL comes in second, again where human effort has helped its FullView listings help make up for the poor crawler-based results from Google.
In third, I put Google and Ask. Google's results were poor, but at least it floated some news results that may have helped. Ask, I was rooting for. But that Smart Answers box simply wasn't showing up for the queries I thought people were doing. Even if people were getting it for "election," it wasn't helpful to get election results. I really appreciate the effort, and if this had been for something other than actual results, Ask would have been great. In last place -- Windows Live.
This campaign of sorts is also one of those classic "what if" races. With just a little more effort, Yahoo would have had a landslide victory by getting people to its great overview page. The same is true for AOL. Ask, with just a bit more thought, could have had that box coming up for "election results" rather than just "elections" and added some links to get people to actual results. Windows Live, if it had remembered its MSN origins, might not be in last. And Google? A company that's all about organizing information might not have put in such a poor performance if it used some human power in the way the New York Times did.
Postscript: See also Case Study: Digg Versus Google News Traffic from me on my personal blog that covers how this article ultimately brought in lots of traffic from Google News from those unable to find election results there, along with lots of other data and a comparison to traffic from a top story at Digg on the same day.
Posted by Danny Sullivan at 4:17 AM | Permalink
November 3, 2006
Yahoo Asking Users To Rate Usefulness Of Search ResultsSEOdisco has screen captures of Yahoo asking him to rate how useful he finds the first two organic results for his search query. He is asked to rate it on a scale from one to five, one being "not useful" and five being "very useful". This is not the first time we have seen Yahoo ask people to rate search results, I reported it back in July of this year. In addition, we know Google occasionally asks users to rate the AdWords results.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:38 AM | Permalink
November 2, 2006
Yahoo Slurp Adds Wildcard Support For Robots.txtThe Yahoo Search Blog announced that Yahoo's web crawler, aka Yahoo Slurp, now supports wildcards in the robots.txt file. The two parameters that Yahoo now supports include the "*" and the "$." The * will tell Yahoo to do a "wildcard match a sequence of characters in your URL." The & will tell Yahoo to do a "anchor the match to the end of the URL string." Many more details at the Yahoo Search Blog.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 4:04 PM | Permalink
October 26, 2006
Yahoo To Add No Yahoo Directory TagRejoice! I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Yahoo! is to add no yahoo directory tag support soon. Yesterday Yahoo added support for the NOODP tag, and based on a WebmasterWorld thread, requesting Yahoo to also support a tag to prevent the Yahoo Directory title and description from showing, Tim Mayer of Yahoo said, they are working on it. He also asked for our input on if they should make "a different tag or should the NOODP tag apply to both YDIR and ODP?"
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:22 AM | Permalink
October 25, 2006
Yahoo Adds NOODP Support & Weather Report UpdateThe Yahoo Search Blog announced that Yahoo has finally added support for the NOODP META tag. You can deploy this two ways;
META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP" (stops MSN, Google and Yahoo from using ODP directory) or META NAME="Slurp" CONTENT="NOODP (stops just Yahoo from using ODP directory)
I reported back on October 11th that this was coming and Danny explains why NOODP tag support is not enough, we need it to support a method to tell Yahoo not to use the Yahoo Directory title and description as well.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:37 AM | Permalink
October 11, 2006
Yahoo Hurting While Google Healthier Than EverThe NY Times has an article named Yahoo’s Growth Being Eroded by New Rivals (free version available at (IHT.com). The article goes through how Yahoo is suffering and lagging behind its competitors. (1) They made a bid at YouTube but those deals broke down, according to the article, and Google "swooped" them up. (2) The new Yahoo search ad system, Panama, is over a year delayed. This "delay has sucked up the company’s engineering resources and prevented it from developing new advertising products."
Based on my coverage of Yahoo over the past year, it seems like webmasters, SEOs, and industry folks have become less and less interested with the company.
The LA Times has an article this morning that goes on the same theme. If you can't get to the article, try going through Google News to gain free access, it worked for me.
Postscript From Greg Sterling:
This is not the kind of publicity you want to see if you're on the PR team. While it's true that Google has momentum and Yahoo may need a kind of "shot in the arm," what people forget is that Yahoo is the largest site on the Internet with the most monthly uniques.It also has a bunch of market-leading properties including mail, finance and local (among others). Mail is also the number one mobile site.
Google, though a very dynamic and powerful company with lots of momentum, is not without its challenges and vulnerabilities. If anything the YouTube acquisition was an admission of some of those. Though, by the same token, Google now has great opportunity with YouTube.
I'm not sure, from where I sit, how many problems identified in the Saul Hansell Times piece are real and how many are simply perceived. But perception does influence reality.
Yahoo is a little like a strong sports team that happens to be in a bit of a slump right now.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:40 AM | Permalink
Weather Reports: Yahoo Search Update & Google Status ReportWe received two search "weather reports" last night, the first from the Yahoo Search Blog that announced that an "index update" that has begun rolling out last night. The other from Matt Cutts blog that informed us of Google's "update on search quality/infrastructure on Google going into the fall."
Yahoo told us to expect "some changes in ranking along with shuffling of the pages that are included in the index" but based on my tracking of the search forums, either there is not enough shuffling or Yahoo isn't sending enough traffic these days for SEOs to care about it. So keep an eye out for that.
Matt Cutts basically gave a summary of what happened since his last Google weather report and what to expect in the short-term future. He mentioned Big Daddy, their crawl caching proxy, the new supplemental index, the site: command update, and much more. He also posted on smaller issues later in the night on, as a continuation to his weather report.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:25 AM | Permalink
Yahoo To Support The NOODP Tag; Won't Prevent Display Of Yahoo Directory TitleLast night, I spoke with Tim Mayer of Yahoo about supporting the NOODP tag at Yahoo. In short, the NOODP tag allows webmasters to tell the search engine not to use the ODP's title in the web search results. MSN was the first to implement the standard, and then Google followed. Tim Mayer said that Yahoo will be supporting the NOODP tag starting next week or the week after. But the tag will not prevent the Yahoo Directory title from displaying in the Yahoo search results.
Tim Mayer explained that Yahoo uses an algorithm to figure out when to use the title provided by (a) the webmaster, (b) the ODP directory or (c) Yahoo Directory. He said that since the NOODP is a standard already, they will add support for it. But they did not want to create a new meta tag to exclude the Yahoo Directory, because they use algorithms to best determine when to use which title. He said it doesn't mean they will not create a new tag in the future, but the NOODP tag that will be released next week will only prevent the ODP title/description from displaying.
Danny and I feel that the NOODP tag should not just tell Yahoo to not display the ODP title but also be used to tell Yahoo to not use the Yahoo Directory title. Danny clearly showed me how Yahoo's algorithms to determine when to use what title is not working a 100%.
A search on tony knowles shows the same thing it did back when he wrote; "you'll see that tonyknowles.com is given a description by Yahoo about his senate attempt. That was correct at the time, but since then, Knowles has changed the web site over for his gubernatorial attempt."
So something needs to be done here as well.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:28 AM | Permalink
September 8, 2006
Google's Title & Description Hijacked In Yahoo Results Due To GlitchI reported at the Roundtable that Yahoo! Shows Different Site's Title & Description For Google.com. Apparently, this is visible in the US, and if you conduct search on [google] at Yahoo Search you may notice that the top result for www.google.com has the title, "Elisha Morgan Gemologists." That title comes from a site listed in the Yahoo Directory, that happens to 302 redirect to google.com. So now, Yahoo lists that site's title and description for Google.com. Go figure?
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 7:49 AM | Permalink
August 25, 2006
Google, Yahoo, & MSN Update Search ResultsIt appears that all the major search engines have been reported to be updating their indexes in some way. Google is updating back links at some of the Google data centers. Yahoo has been recently reported to have updated its algorithm or index, although there is no official word from Yahoo on this as of yet. And MSN Search has confirmed that an update has occurred to their index recently. While Google's update may not be represented in the index, Yahoo and MSN's updates have reports that the search results have indeed changed. For the better or worse - that is in the eyes of the beholder.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:52 AM | Permalink
August 1, 2006
New Search Patent Applications: August 1, 2006 - Microsoft Answers?There are a number of new patent applications from Yahoo, including one that utilizes concept networks to understand the intention behind a user's query; another describing an addition to a user interface that lets a searcher define the context of a search; an API approach to retrieve information from fast changing dynamic sites such as job listing sites, news site personals, or online auction sites; a way to use the contents of a first set of results from the search engine to find relevant pages from a second set of results, including both paid and organic results; a process of dynamically modifying the layout of a page so that the most important content is likely to be seen by a visitor; and a remote filtering system for filtering spam for client-based email programs.
Microsoft unveils a patent application that could be the inspiration for Windows Live QnA, a process for removing unlinked documents from a search engine's index, an approach for presenting relevant snippets with search results, a means of using cached search results for queries with relevant advertising results, and a query refinement process based upon past user behavior.
IBM provides a linguistic approach to identifying the main body text of a page, and they present that approach as an improvement upon methods such as a VIPS or a Visual Gap Segmentation process.
Yahoo
Systems and methods for managing and using multiple concept networks for assisted search processing Inventors: Shyam Kapur, Jignashu Parikh, and Deepa Joshi Assigned to Yahoo US Patent Application 20060167896 Published July 27, 2006 Filed on December 5, 2005
Abstract
Multiple concept networks are generated from subsets of received queries. These concept networks can be used in various ways to enhance response to subsequent queries. In one embodiment, concept networks can be merged into a larger concept network that can be used to infer a user's likely intent given a query. In another embodiment, suggestions for related searches obtained using different concept networks can be merged or aggregated. Other users for concept networks in query processing, including assisted search, are also described.Systems and methods for contextual transaction proposals Inventors: Reiner Kraft, Andreas Hartmann, Farzin Maghoul Assigned to Yahoo US Patent Application 20060167857 Published July 27, 2006 Filed on May 12, 2005
Abstract
Context-specific transaction proposals are automatically generated and presented to a user who expresses interest in a particular topic. A user viewing a World Wide Web page or other content item activates an interface to indicate that he or she is interested in additional information related to the subject of the page. A context vector or other representation of the content of the page being viewed is transmitted to an information server, which identifies possible transactions related to the content and proposes one or more of these transactions to the user. Transaction proposals can be presented together with a contextual search interface that allows the user to submit zero or more search terms together with the context vector as a search query.System and method for improving online search engine results
Inventors: Daniel Patrick Dissett, Arkady Borkovsky, Charles Converse Carson, JR. Assigned to Yahoo! Inc. US Patent Application 20060167852 Published July 27, 2006 Filed on January 28, 2005
See also: 20060167854
Abstract
System and method for improving online search engine results. In one embodiment, a search system queries one or more servers of a destination site to obtain detailed and relevant information. In one embodiment, this query is in the form of an application programming interface call. Based on the content received in response to the aforementioned queries, a plurality of content pages may then be used to build one or more search databases against which user searches may be made during some future time period.Matching and ranking of sponsored search listings incorporating web search technology and web content Invented by Charles C. Carson, JR., Devika Chawia, James B. Harvey, Matvey Nemenman, Mohit Sabharwal, and Marco J. Zagha Assigned to Yahoo! Inc. US Patent Application 20060161534 Published July 20, 2006 Filed on January 18, 2006
Abstract
A system is disclosed for generating a search result list in response to a search request from a searcher using a computer network. A first database is maintained that includes a first plurality of search listings. A second database is maintained that includes documents having general web content. A search request is received from the searcher. A first set of search listings is identified from the first database having documents generating a match with the search request and a second set of search listings is identified from the second database having documents generating a match with the search request. A confidence score is determined for each listing from the first set of search listings wherein the confidence score is determined in accordance with a relevance of each listing when compared to the listings of the second set of search listings. The identified search listings from the first set of search listing are ordered in accordance, at least in part, with the confidence score for each search listing.Value system for dynamic composition of pages Invented by Armin G. Ebrahimi and Daniel L. Rosensweig Correspondence Name and Address: Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione / Yahoo! Overture US Patent Application 20060161843 Published July 20, 2006 Filed on January 15, 2004
Abstract
Pages are dynamically composed in order to increase the overall value of the page. In one approach, the overall value of the page is a function of the actual values of the page components that compose the page. These, in turn, are functions of the nominal value of the page components and of an effectiveness of the page components on the page. The actual values of the page components are expressed in a same unit of measure, thus facilitating direct comparison of their relative values.System and method for providing improved access to SPAM-control feature in mail-enabled application Inventors: Ashit Gandhi, Edward Seitz, and Eric Paul Burke Assigned to Yahoo US Patent Application 20060168056 Published July 27, 2006 Filed: September 12, 2005
Abstract
Disclosed is a system and method for providing users of web-accessible E-mail services with improved access to their E-mail messages and other information. In a first embodiment, a SPAM-control feature of a web-accessible electronic mail service is provided to a user of a mail-enabled application running on the user's client machine by software which integrates with the mail-enabled application. The software scans E-mail messages for a bulk-indicating indicia inserted by SPAM detection software running on a remote machine, and an E-mail message identified as including such bulk-indicating indicia is routed to a bulk folderMicrosoft
Game-powered search engine Invented by: Luis A. von Ahn Arellano, Eric D. Brill, John C. Platt, Josh Benaloh Assigned to Microsoft US Patent Application 20060167874 Published July 27, 2006 Filed: January 24, 2005
Abstract
The subject invention provides a unique system and method that facilitates an interactive game-powered search engine that serve the purposes of both users who may be looking for information as well as game participants who may desire to earn some reward or level of enjoyment by playing the game. More specifically, the system and method provides feedback to a user based on the user's input string or a string derived therefrom. The feedback can be a response or answer to the user's input in the form of text, an image, audio or sound, video, and/or a URL that is provided by one or more game participants when there is some degree of consistency or agreement between the responses or when individual players have demonstrated good reliability in their responses.System and method for intelligent deletion of crawled documents from an index Invented by Lin Huang and Dmitriy Meyerzon Assigned to Microsoft Corporation US Patent Application 20060161591 Published July 20, 2006 Filed on January 14, 2005
Abstract
Documents are intelligently deleted from an index of crawled documents based on link and parent node information recorded from the crawl. A document visited during a first crawl may not be navigated to during a second crawl because of an error and the present invention verifies whether the document has been deleted. The present invention also prevents the document from being deleted when it is referenced by another document, indicating that the document is still a valid document.Systems and methods that enable search engines to present relevant snippets Invented by Silviu-Petru Cucerzan and Matthew R. Richardson Assigned to Microsoft Corporation US Patent Application 20060161542 Published on July 20, 2006 Filed on January 18, 2005
Abstract
The subject invention relates to systems and methods that provide search and/or query-relevant information and/or links thereto to a user as and/or with a search and/or query result. This information can be determined form summary information that can be included within a tag, header, body, meta-data, etc. of the data. A user can employ a local and/or web search utility along with a search word, phrase, sentence, etc. to search over a data repository to locate and retrieve data that satisfies the search criteria. The summary information of this data is obtained and matched against the results and/or search criteria to determine whether the data is relevant to the search and/or query. The summary information is utilized to determine a snippet that summarizes the data, based on the search and/or query, search criteria, etc. to provide the user with search and/or query-relevant results and/or one or more links thereto.System and method for prefetching and caching query results Invented by Andrew B. Cencini Assigned to Microsoft Corporation US Patent Application 20060161541 Published on July 20, 2006 Filed on January 19, 2005
Abstract
A system and method are provided for implementing information from an advertising system within a search system that includes a search system cache. The method may include accessing information contained within an advertising database of the advertising system, and generating search results based on the accessed information. The method may additionally include storing the accessed information and the generated search results based on the accessed information in the search system cache. A system for implementing information from an advertising system within a search system may include an advertising database within the advertising system for storing advertising information. The system may also include a caching system within the search system for extracting the information from the advertising database and storing the extracted information in a cache within the caching system.System and method for generating alternative search terms Invented by Brett D. Brewer, Eric B. Watson, Eric D. Brill, James Dai, Oliver Hurst-Hiller, Robert J. Ragno; Robert J., and Silviu-Petru Cucerzan Assigned to Microsoft Corporation US Patent Application 20060161520 Published July 20, 2006 Filed on January 14, 2005
Abstract
A system and related techniques accepts user search or query terms over of the Internet or other network or connection. In addition to presenting regularly generated search results, according to embodiments of the invention the search engine and related logic may examine the search string for suggested refinements or improvements to the search terms, to attempt to derive improved results or results closer to the user's search intent. According to embodiments of the invention in one regard, the alternative search logic may attempt to extract related or more meaningful search terms from sources including past usage patterns by users, and other data. That alternative search logic may thus examine the user's search terms to determine a substring match to prior searches, for instance stored by the search host for all users. In embodiments, the alternative search logic may likewise present user search extensions or refinement paths selected by prior users running the same search, as an indicator of likely content or source relevance. In further embodiments, the alternative search logic may perform a reverse query lookup to trace queries which resulted in the same Web site or other hit, as the present search and present those other queries as possible alternatives for the user to pursue. These and other search refinements may be performed, taking advantage of usage patterns and other information to improve search quality beyond straightforward spelling-type correction.IBM
Detecting content-rich text Invented by Einat Amitay and Nadav Har'el Assigned to IBM US Patent Application 20060161537 Published July 20, 2006 Filed on January 19, 2005
Abstract
A method includes finding content-rich text in a document by identifying areas of narrative in the document. An apparatus includes a detector and a content-rich text indicator. The detector detects linguistic parameters which characterize narrative text in an input document and the content-rich text indicator provides the locations of narrative text in the input document.My usual reminder about patents: Some of the processes and technology described in patents are created in house, and some are developed with the assistance of contractors and partners. A percentage are never developed in a tangible manner, but may serve as a way to attempt to exclude others from using the technology, or even to possibly mislead competitors into exploring an area that they might not have an interest in (sometimes skepticism is good.)
There are times when a Google or Yahoo acquires a company to gain access to the intellectual property of that company, or the intellectual prowess and expertise of that company's employees. And sometimes patents are just purchased.
Want to comment or discuss? Visit our Search Technology & Relevancy area of the Search Engine Watch Forums.
Posted by Bill Slawski at 11:21 PM | Permalink
July 28, 2006
Yahoo Launches New Slurp CrawlerThe Yahoo Search blog announced the launch of a new crawler (aka Yahoo Slurp) that is faster and more efficient then then its previous robotic arm. This crawler is still named Slurp, but it crawls faster and uses up less bandwidth. Yahoo says we can expect a "25% reduction in the number of requests and bandwidth consumed by the crawler."
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 3:59 PM | Permalink
July 14, 2006
Yahoo Tests Redirecting Some Searches To Site Explorer & Yahoo Search UpdateYahoo is testing out redirecting some of those who conduct a link command or site command search at search.yahoo.com to the Yahoo Site Explorer tool. I reported this and just now received confirmation from Yahoo that they are testing out this solution with a "percentage of users" conducting these searches. Yahoo has always wanted to move these special searches off the main search.yahoo.com page and onto the Site Explorer front.
On other Yahoo news, Yahoo just announced a weather report stating, "we rolled out an index update last night. As usual, you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index."
Want to discuss the Site Explorer change in our forums, join the discussion named Yahoo operators re-directing to Site Explorer.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 2:44 PM | Permalink
Yahoo Tests Redirecting Some Searches To Site Explorer & Yahoo Search UpdateYahoo is testing out redirecting some of those who conduct a link command or site command search at search.yahoo.com to the Yahoo Site Explorer tool. I reported this and just now received confirmation from Yahoo that they are testing out this solution with a "percentage of users" conducting these searches. Yahoo has always wanted to move these special searches off the main search.yahoo.com page and onto the Site Explorer front.
On other Yahoo news, Yahoo just announced a weather report stating, "we rolled out an index update last night. As usual, you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index."
Want to discuss the Site Explorer change in our forums, join the discussion named Yahoo operators re-directing to Site Explorer.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:44 PM | Permalink
Yahoo Tests Redirecting Some Searches To Site Explorer & Yahoo Search UpdateYahoo is testing out redirecting some of those who conduct a link command or site command search at search.yahoo.com to the Yahoo Site Explorer tool. I reported this and just now received confirmation from Yahoo that they are testing out this solution with a "percentage of users" conducting these searches. Yahoo has always wanted to move these special searches off the main search.yahoo.com page and onto the Site Explorer front.
On other Yahoo news, Yahoo just announced a weather report stating, "we rolled out an index update last night. As usual, you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index."
Want to discuss the Site Explorer change in our forums, join the discussion named Yahoo operators re-directing to Site Explorer.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:44 PM | Permalink
Yahoo Tests Redirecting Some Searches To Site Explorer & Yahoo Search UpdateYahoo is testing out redirecting some of those who conduct a link command or site command search at search.yahoo.com to the Yahoo Site Explorer tool. I reported this and just now received confirmation from Yahoo that they are testing out this solution with a "percentage of users" conducting these searches. Yahoo has always wanted to move these special searches off the main search.yahoo.com page and onto the Site Explorer front.
On other Yahoo news, Yahoo just announced a weather report stating, "we rolled out an index update last night. As usual, you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages that are included in the index."
Want to discuss the Site Explorer change in our forums, join the discussion named Yahoo operators re-directing to Site Explorer.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 2:44 PM | Permalink
June 20, 2006
It's Not Just Google With Disappointing ResultsWe have been poking hard at Google for disappointing search results, but Google is not the only search engine that has been disappointing me recently. You can group Yahoo and MSN and even Ask.com into the search engines that I have been disappointed with.
Over at the Search Engine Roundtable, I cover what I call "forum buzz," the discussions taking place within the SEM/SEO community. I tend to pick up on algorithm shifts and post the details at my site.
Today, I covered two threads, one I named Yahoo! Also Easy To Spam and the other MSN Asks Webmasters What Are Quality & Authoritative Sites. But what really got me was Danny's postscript on Google Sub Sub Domain Issues Clearly Visible showing Yahoo has a similar issue.
Typically, I have always had a search engine to fall back on when one wasn't "doing it for me." Today, I don't have that search engine. Google pushed me over the edge with the Sub Sub Domain Issues. Yahoo is easy to spam with comment spam (ummm, nofollow not working?), and MSN is being laughed at, IMO. Ask.com, they are good, but way too slow to update at this point.
To make it even worse, Google still refuses to take a stand on the whole cloaking debate. Just take a look at the back and forth in our Search Engine Watch Forums thread!
So where does that leave me? Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com are all disappointing right now. Tomorrow? Well, I can always hope for a better tomorrow. Who knows, maybe a new Google will come along? Maybe AltaVista will rise up again?
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 11:25 AM | Permalink
It's Not Just Google With Disappointing ResultsWe have been poking hard at Google for disappointing search results, but Google is not the only search engine that has been disappointing me recently. You can group Yahoo and MSN and even Ask.com into the search engines that I have been disappointed with.
Over at the Search Engine Roundtable, I cover what I call "forum buzz," the discussions taking place within the SEM/SEO community. I tend to pick up on algorithm shifts and post the details at my site.
Today, I covered two threads, one I named Yahoo! Also Easy To Spam and the other MSN Asks Webmasters What Are Quality & Authoritative Sites. But what really got me was Danny's postscript on Google Sub Sub Domain Issues Clearly Visible showing Yahoo has a similar issue.
Typically, I have always had a search engine to fall back on when one wasn't "doing it for me." Today, I don't have that search engine. Google pushed me over the edge with the Sub Sub Domain Issues. Yahoo is easy to spam with comment spam (ummm, nofollow not working?), and MSN is being laughed at, IMO. Ask.com, they are good, but way too slow to update at this point.
To make it even worse, Google still refuses to take a stand on the whole cloaking debate. Just take a look at the back and forth in our Search Engine Watch Forums thread!
So where does that leave me? Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com are all disappointing right now. Tomorrow? Well, I can always hope for a better tomorrow. Who knows, maybe a new Google will come along? Maybe AltaVista will rise up again?
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 11:25 AM | Permalink
It's Not Just Google With Disappointing ResultsWe have been poking hard at Google for disappointing search results, but Google is not the only search engine that has been disappointing me recently. You can group Yahoo and MSN and even Ask.com into the search engines that I have been disappointed with.
Over at the Search Engine Roundtable, I cover what I call "forum buzz," the discussions taking place within the SEM/SEO community. I tend to pick up on algorithm shifts and post the details at my site.
Today, I covered two threads, one I named Yahoo! Also Easy To Spam and the other MSN Asks Webmasters What Are Quality & Authoritative Sites. But what really got me was Danny's postscript on Google Sub Sub Domain Issues Clearly Visible showing Yahoo has a similar issue.
Typically, I have always had a search engine to fall back on when one wasn't "doing it for me." Today, I don't have that search engine. Google pushed me over the edge with the Sub Sub Domain Issues. Yahoo is easy to spam with comment spam (ummm, nofollow not working?), and MSN is being laughed at, IMO. Ask.com, they are good, but way too slow to update at this point.
To make it even worse, Google still refuses to take a stand on the whole cloaking debate. Just take a look at the back and forth in our Search Engine Watch Forums thread!
So where does that leave me? Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com are all disappointing right now. Tomorrow? Well, I can always hope for a better tomorrow. Who knows, maybe a new Google will come along? Maybe AltaVista will rise up again?
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 11:25 AM | Permalink
It's Not Just Google With Disappointing ResultsWe have been poking hard at Google for disappointing search results, but Google is not the only search engine that has been disappointing me recently. You can group Yahoo and MSN and even Ask.com into the search engines that I have been disappointed with.
Over at the Search Engine Roundtable, I cover what I call "forum buzz," the discussions taking place within the SEM/SEO community. I tend to pick up on algorithm shifts and post the details at my site.
Today, I covered two threads, one I named Yahoo! Also Easy To Spam and the other MSN Asks Webmasters What Are Quality & Authoritative Sites. But what really got me was Danny's postscript on Google Sub Sub Domain Issues Clearly Visible showing Yahoo has a similar issue.
Typically, I have always had a search engine to fall back on when one wasn't "doing it for me." Today, I don't have that search engine. Google pushed me over the edge with the Sub Sub Domain Issues. Yahoo is easy to spam with comment spam (ummm, nofollow not working?), and MSN is being laughed at, IMO. Ask.com, they are good, but way too slow to update at this point.
To make it even worse, Google still refuses to take a stand on the whole cloaking debate. Just take a look at the back and forth in our Search Engine Watch Forums thread!
So where does that leave me? Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com are all disappointing right now. Tomorrow? Well, I can always hope for a better tomorrow. Who knows, maybe a new Google will come along? Maybe AltaVista will rise up again?
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 11:25 AM | Permalink
Google Sub Sub Domain Issues Clearly VisibleThreadwatch reveals some more examples of issues Google is having. They note a search on queer forum returns CraigsList 97 times out of the top 100 results. That is not all, a search on wedding forum returns about 50 of 100 results from CraigsList's site, just scroll down to number 50 and you will see.
Is CraigsList spamming? No! Is Google suffering? :) Google is clearly having issues with sub sub domains. Continued coverage of Google's public index issues.
Postscript From Danny: Comments at Threadwatch also note Yahoo has the same issue. MSN does not as badly (but that could be the result of spidering fewer pages) and Ask looks very good.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:19 AM | Permalink
Google Sub Sub Domain Issues Clearly VisibleThreadwatch reveals some more examples of issues Google is having. They note a search on queer forum returns CraigsList 97 times out of the top 100 results. That is not all, a search on wedding forum returns about 50 of 100 results from CraigsList's site, just scroll down to number 50 and you will see.
Is CraigsList spamming? No! Is Google suffering? :) Google is clearly having issues with sub sub domains. Continued coverage of Google's public index issues.
Postscript From Danny: Comments at Threadwatch also note Yahoo has the same issue. MSN does not as badly (but that could be the result of spidering fewer pages) and Ask looks very good.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:19 AM | Permalink
Google Sub Sub Domain Issues Clearly VisibleThreadwatch reveals some more examples of issues Google is having. They note a search on queer forum returns CraigsList 97 times out of the top 100 results. That is not all, a search on wedding forum returns about 50 of 100 results from CraigsList's site, just scroll down to number 50 and you will see.
Is CraigsList spamming? No! Is Google suffering? :) Google is clearly having issues with sub sub domains. Continued coverage of Google's public index issues.
Postscript From Danny: Comments at Threadwatch also note Yahoo has the same issue. MSN does not as badly (but that could be the result of spidering fewer pages) and Ask looks very good.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:19 AM | Permalink
Google Sub Sub Domain Issues Clearly VisibleThreadwatch reveals some more examples of issues Google is having. They note a search on queer forum returns CraigsList 97 times out of the top 100 results. That is not all, a search on wedding forum returns about 50 of 100 results from CraigsList's site, just scroll down to number 50 and you will see.
Is CraigsList spamming? No! Is Google suffering? :) Google is clearly having issues with sub sub domains. Continued coverage of Google's public index issues.
Postscript From Danny: Comments at Threadwatch also note Yahoo has the same issue. MSN does not as badly (but that could be the result of spidering fewer pages) and Ask looks very good.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 8:19 AM | Permalink
June 15, 2006
Yahoo Asks Web Searchers How Clean Are The Search ResultsGary Price captured a screen shot of Yahoo polling search users on how clean the Yahoo search results page looks. The question asked is "How clean and uncluttered do you find this page?" With a five point scale, 1 being cluttered and 5 being clean. View the full screen capture by clicking here.
Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:18 PM | Permalink
Yahoo Asks Web Searchers How Clean Are The Search ResultsGary Price captured a screen shot of Yahoo polling search users on how clean the Yahoo search results page looks. The question asked is "How clean and uncluttered do you find this page?" With a five point scale, 1 being cluttered and 5 being clean. View the full screen capture by clicking here.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:18 PM | Permalink
Yahoo Asks Web Searchers How Clean Are The Search ResultsGary Price captured a screen shot of Yahoo polling search users on how clean the Yahoo search results page looks. The question asked is "How clean and uncluttered do you find this page?" With a five point scale, 1 being cluttered and 5 being clean. View the full screen capture by clicking here.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:18 PM | Permalink
Yahoo Asks Web Searchers How Clean Are The Search ResultsGary Price captured a screen shot of Yahoo polling search users on how clean the Yahoo search results page looks. The question asked is "How clean and uncluttered do you find this page?" With a five point scale, 1 being cluttered and 5 being clean. View the full screen capture by clicking here.
Posted by Kevin Heisler at 1:18 PM | Permalink
MSN's Hand Crafted Results (Fake? - Shame On Me!)"MSN Hiring People to Hand Code SERPS" at SEO Blackhat is a nice catch from the MSN Search jobs page talking about needing people to help hand-craft results. Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped reacts with "Oh my." I react with "Hallelujah."
Note: As Threadwatch spots in comments, this page looks like a joke that MSN is hosting. Shame on me for not reading more closely -- type 150 words per minute! The page IS on the real MSN Search domain, but it's not linked from the real jobs area [OK, Pip at Google Blogoscoped found it connected from the jobs page]. Anyway, I'll drop a note and get confirmation. And the points below -- still valid :)
Let's look at the job post first:
When all else fails, and the ranking algorithms do not pass the confidence threshold, we fall back to delivering handcrafted results. Working on a team of approximately 132 other handcrafters in 26 worldwide markets, you will receive a user query, use all the available search engines to quickly scour the web for results, pick the top 10 results for this query, and send it on to the user. Successful handcrafters can typically find top 10 results for a real-time users query in less than 3.8 seconds. This is an opportunity to truly connect with customers, because the queries that get routed to you are precisely the ones that the engine cannot answer well. We will have adequate staffing to allow generous coffee and bathroom breaks. If you are an expert at using at least 3 different search engines, well versed with American English/colloquial usage, and can type at > 149 words/minute as measured by the Simia-Lico method come join us and delight users real-time!
I agree. Search engine algorithms are not perfect. I'm tired of seeing bad listings make it into the top results that any human reviewer would nix. The Google mantra has always been that they prefer to tailor their computer algorithms to figure out how a human would see and rate things and then get the algorithm to do the right thing. We've had that mantra for years. And yes, generally the algorithms do the right things. Still stuff gets through. So kill off the bad stuff with a human and sure, insert a good quality page you know you are missing.
As a reminder, MSN used to have human editors, as I've written before. That was actually one reason why years ago, they compared pretty well when we would do relevancy tests on popular queries. They had a very sophisticated editing suite that allowed a team of editors to constantly review -- AND FIX -- bad results.
Now I can buy into the "Oh My" idea if MSN is returning to hand crafted results because their automated technology is so bad they've got to fall back on humans. No, that's not good. But if it's to complement and better tune what the automation does? Bring it on. If you want more on the how and why this can help, see my past post, More On Query Refinement, The Human Scale Problem & Creating The Search Dialog.
I also have the "Oh My" reaction if hand handcrafting involves payment. This year, I've had one serious allegation that MSN has rigged one set of its results to favor a top advertiser. I just had another serious allegation like that levied against Yahoo. In the MSN case, the difficulty in pursuing the allegation is deciding whether they are true or an attempt to knock out a competitor that might be ranking well. In the Yahoo case, I'm awaiting that tipster to send me more information beyond the quick eye opening stuff I was shown at our recent London conference.
Yahoo, of course, does hand manipulate already, to my belief (I'm not saying for payment -- only that for whatever reason, they seem to hand craft some results). I wrote about this in 2004 but never got an answer about it from Yahoo, nor did I get an answer when I followed up at least one other time. It also came up on our forums last year and at here at Search Engine Roundtable.
Google has long denied "hand jobs," as wizened search marketers call them. Setting aside censorship cases, I believe that. I've never seen any solid evidence of results being hand selected by Google (and the quality raters we're written about before have not been shown to be manipulating results).
In fact, Google used to trumpet that it had no hand manipulation. That was true in crafting results, but it wasn't true in terms of removing them. As I