I think it’s safe to say that most of us have our SEO targets set on Google (and PPC for that matter). And it’s pretty appropriate seeing that Google owns such a vast majority of the search engine market. But if we want to be truly savvy Internet marketers, we can’t ignore the fact that the Microsoft/Yahoo merger has finally come.

Is there anything we can be doing to SEO for both Google and Yahoo?

A recent report done by SEO Chat revealed quite clearly how the two search engines differ in ranking.  They compared 2 domains and how they indexed in each search engine.  Domain A ranked #1 in Yahoo, but it didn’t make the top 200 in Google. Domain B ranked #1 in Google, but was #135 in Yahoo.

Based on these results, it’s obvious that Google and Yahoo are doing something different.

The report was pretty lengthy, but I’ll sum up the important stuff for you.

1-    Both sites had similar domain ages and similar keyword use in their title tags, homepage, and internal links.  So both search engines worked pretty similar on that front.

2-    Domain B had many more root domain links and a much higher link quality profile, which is highly favored by Google, thus it ranked #1 in Google.

3-    Domain A had a much higher total count of links, most of which were only counted by Yahoo, thus it ranked #1 in Yahoo.

But WHY?

The site that Yahoo ranked #1 had a much higher total count of links because Yahoo counts the overall links pointing to the website and not just the unique count of root domains as Google does.

In fact, many of the links that Yahoo was counting came from 7 other mirrored domains owned by the same person.  So the reason they aren’t ranking in Google is because Google bans that kind of activity in creating redundant content.

Our Repsonse?

Well, you could easily mirror a few domains and build a very large amount of interconnected links to impress Yahoo and get a top ranking, but doing this would most likely get you banned by Google.  That’s not a very good idea considering Google is the leader in search engines.

At this point, it’s still in our best interest to cater to Google’s need by focusing on link quality, content quality and root domains (and much more). And I’m sure in some cases, doing these things will get some good rankings in Yahoo as well.

Do you have any tactics that help you rank well in both search engines? OR Do you think ranking #1 in yahoo with ease is worth getting banned in Google? Comment Below!

I talk a lot about how Facebook has become a true rival of Google when it comes to advertising, and they really have.  Well, let’s not forget the others that Facebook has left in the dust.  Specifically, it’s Yahoo that just put up the white flag of surrender to Facebook and they decided to work with them instead of against them.

Yahoo recently refocused their mission and stated that it wants to be “a central hub for people’s online lives” especially in the realm of social media. BUT they know that Facebook has the market seriously cornered.

So how did they decide to go about this new mission?

They are joining forces with the people that previously put the smack down on them and they’re deepening their integration with Facebook.  This means that Yahoo users will now be able to view their Facebook news feed right from the comfort of their Yahoo homepage.  They’ll also be able to connect their accounts so they can view and share info across both networks.

Yahoo got SMART and added a feature to the new integration effort in response to recent Facebook privacy policy mess-ups.  Yahoo now has a central dashboard that allows users to control the privacy settings on the info they share from external accounts like Facebook.

For now, I can’t think of a better move for Yahoo.  Facebook has a huge amount of momentum rolling in the Social Media realm, and for now there really isn’t any stopping them.  Deciding to use Facebook’s brand to push their own is pretty ‘ninja’ if you ask me.

Yahoo can stop struggling to create it’s own social media world and just ride the wave of Facebook, since it’s definitely big enough.

With that said, I’m not sure this will save Yahoo’s from becoming a total ‘has been’. What’s your opinion? Comment below and let me know.