Yahoo! Search Update: Domains History, 301s

[mandy]

We've rolled out some changes to our index with fresh web data and updates to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the last few days. We expect the update will be completed very soon. Throughout this process you may see some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling of the pages in the index.

This is the first update after the launch of Dynamic URL Rewriting in Site Explorer. We've had millions of URLs rewritten based on your submissions and your sites should have seen smarter crawling from Yahoo! Slurp as a result. You will see further benefits in how your site is represented in the index from this update. Your input improves relevance and coverage for users in search results, particularly in relation to your site...

full announcement: http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000488.html

more:

, I’ve noticed some sites with high authority domains, in the perception of Yahoo, such as TheFreeDictionary.com, and all of its keyword heavy definition pages, rising in Yahoo rankings. Could such domain be what Aaron is talking about? Or is it keyword heavy domains?

These pages seem to also be ranking higher in Yahoo again, so authority seems to be more important than keywords in the URL.

    * Yahoo Directory
    * Yahoo 360
    * Google Groups
    * Google Translate
    * Topix
    * About.com

full article: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/yahoo...ects/5710/

[mandy]

More on Yahoo Search's recent update:

Today Yahoo Search has finally launched what industry analysts and search engine enthusiasts have been waiting for, a search engine which reflects the moves Yahoo has been making over the past few years and attempts to tie everything together.

In the launch of the project which Yahoo has internally dubbed “Falcon” however, does not only change the way search results are served to the user, but also the way the user searches.

Yahoo today is rolling out a series of changes to their search technology which on the usability side addresses the need for educating the searcher and helping them perform the search query which will lead them to relevant results. And on the findability side of search Yahoo is now offering embedded video, Flickr integration and other universal or holistic search result features which Yahoo’s Tim Mayer tells me is the most significant change Yahoo has made to their search business since dropping their Google powered results three years ago...

full article: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/yahoo...tion/5741/

[jezebel]

Search Assist offered me these suggestions for boink: boinked, boinking, boinks, progressive boink, super boink .

[BellisimaJ.]

bolding mine.

boinked, boinking, boinks, progressive boink, super boink

:blinkie: 

[bargainbloodhound]

These pages seem to also be ranking higher in Yahoo again, so authority seems to be more important than keywords in the URL.

    * Yahoo Directory

I wonder if that means sites in the Yahoo directory will also be ranking higher?

[mandy]

A search company's mandate is clear: help people find exactly what they're looking for as quickly as possible. For well over a decade, search companies have taken the approach of focusing almost all of their efforts on making their engines smarter, with better indexes, better ranking and faster servers.

While these are all hugely important efforts, making the engine smarter is only half of the equation. The other half of the search equation is making the query smarter -- and this was our focus in the design and development of Yahoo! Search Assist.

Recent research conducted by Harris Interactive* indicates that consumers are suffering from "Web Search fatigue." The study revealed that while the vast majority of the population uses a search engine to find information on the Internet, only 15 percent of people find what they're looking for with their first search. Typically, people need to conduct three to four searches to find the right result...

full article: http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000494.html