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Archive for the ‘Yahoo!’ Category

Yahoo! is plunging headfirst into having Microsoft’s Bing take over their search services. Yahoo! ad programs and webmaster tools will be transisitioning to Microsoft’s services. Are we ready? Yup. This is no surprise. Yahoo! has been falling flat on their face for some time now.

Yahoo! Transition Center – Home

Now that Yahoo! is serving up Bing results, the question is, are you Bing-abled? Together Yahoo! and MSN’s Bing comprise about 30% of the market. Being optimized for Google only is no longer an option. Ever since the talk of MSN and Yahoo! merging, I’ve been paying attention to having my customer’s sites MSN friendly. It was a guess that is paying off. Now that it’s official for ten years, how is your site doing?
SEO: Optimizing for Bing is a No-Brainer Now | SearchViews – Daily insights on Search Marketing, Social Media and SEO by Reprise Media.

It’s officially announced (even though anyone watching already knew).

Yahoo! Search Blog » Blog Archive » Weather Report: Yahoo! Search Index Update

Still, it’s nice to have the official word that Yahoo! is updating things.

Many people are upset with Yahoo! and here’s another strike against them. It seems that many are experiencing a decline in responses from ads placed on Yahoo! searches. What is your experience? Join the forum at…

YSM traffic seems to be down 50% today

The big 3 announced support for internal duplicate content. If you have a site with more than one way to get to a page, there is a new method for declaring the correct page. Simple to do in Miva Merchant, and probably other programs, the tag doesn’t have to be followed of course. Perhaps in the future the search spiders will restrict themselves. Think of it as a 301 redirect.

There are already Wordpress and other plugins to automate this process (I told you it was simple) and there are bound to be others jumping on board. Not earth shattering and some are skeptical, but well worth a read.

Google, Yahoo & Microsoft Unite On “Canonical Tag” To Reduce Duplicate Content Clutter

Yahoo! sent an email message to their Search Marketing advertisers to let them know about changes to their Terms And Conditions & Program Terms. Here are the archived terms and conditions. A comparison of the two yields nothing too shocking other than a reinforcement of the six month old change where Yahoo! can create or change your search ads for you. And you have to pay the bill when they do. There’s a discussion at Webmaster World about this topic.

And why does Yahoo! continue to lose market share? Mmmmm. Point weapon at foot and pull trigger.

Jerry Yang steps down as CEO to better the company. Smart move on his part. Not that he’s a bad guy, it’s just that a CEO needs to be detached emotionally from the company he’s managing. Anyone out there interested in applying for the job?

Techmeme: Jerry Yang’s Entire Memo to His Employees on Stepping Down as CEO (Kara Swisher/BoomTown)

Geo-target and language at Yahoo Search Marketing is now a few days old. Have you visited your PPC account to view the new options? Many appreciate the changes however it appears that you can’t combine the options. Small marketing companies appear to benefit the most, but I can also see some very valid reasons for any sized marketing campaign.

Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog » You Can See Them From Here

A 25% increase just before the holidays. Merry Flippin’ Christmas to you too Yahoo!. They are also changing phone support to email only. There are a number of other posts across the boards along similar lines. Is Yahoo! burying themselves into a hole? Are they strapped for cash? Are they raising funds to fight the entity that is Google? Is so, shouldn’t we get shares in their stock?

All kidding aside, every company has had price increases. You must decide is this advertising is valuable for your own company. If you are still obtaining value for the dollars spent, live with it or cancel your ads. You’ve probably increased your prices this year as well. (Ok, maybe not 25% unless you sell petroleum.)

Yahoo: Product Submit Seasonal Rate Adjustments

10x the minimum to get into Yahoo! Product Submit. It used to be $25, but many members are receiving email messages that the minimum is $250. There goes the incentive to take a gamble and try it out. I can understand $50, but this is too high a minimum for the average home seller that wants to test the waters. What’s your opinion? Discussion at Webmaster World….

WOW.Is Yahoo Crazy?