Web Marketing Stuff » Yahoo

Try Yahoo Pipes to Aggregate, Mashup and Utilize Web Content

Chris — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:41:35 +0000

It’s not often (especially lately) we thank Yahoo for making the internet cooler but I’d like to today. Introducing Yahoo Pipes (beta), fyi..without the beta it wouldn’t be considered cutting edge. Yahoo Pipes may be the coolest way to actually manage and create your own information stream and useful tool for getting information you really want from a variety of sources. Here’s the video that describes what it is and how it works:

Yahoo Pipes Video

The great thing about it is you can share your Pipes, meaning after you’ve created a great filter and data pipe others can use it or clone it to make it there own and/or tweak it to do what they need it to do. It’s worth doing a search for SEO or your own industry and seeing all the ways others are starting to use Yahoo Pipes.

A typical business could use this (especially the cloning) to stay on top of their industry and get ideas about future products, where people are talking about their product etc. and it would much more powerful than Google News Alerts (but they are great too). If you have other uses for Yahoo Pipes, please share.

What do the Search Engines consider relevant for the term Search Engine?

Chris — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:31:46 +0000

With all the searches being performed every day and the fact that we now use search engines for everything I thought to myself, what do the search engines recommend when searching for a search engine. Google’s search term “Extraction” tool says that the term “search engine” gets an average of 2,240,000 searches per month. Here are the results:

Google says Altavista is #1. It’s been a while since I’ve thought about Altavista but if Google says they are the top for search engine then who am I to get in the way?:

Google Search Results for the term "Search Engine"

Yahoo says they are the top search engine but even Yahoo acknowledges Google is right there. Again, dogpile and Altavista must have something I didn’t know about because the two top search engines (in my humble opinion) have both now pointed me to Altavista for a good search engine. Another thing I love is the Also Try section….nothing but Google:

Yahoo search results for the term "search engine"

Next let’s look at MSN’s Live.com. Again, dogpile and Altavista at the top and Live.com doesn’t even crack the top 5. Even Microsoft acknowledges the fact that others know search better than themselves:

Live's search results for the term search engine

Lastly, Ask.com sure gives themselves a ton of credit for being a search engine but look at number 2 Altavista.:

Ask search results for the term search engine

So the conclusions I’ve drawn from this exercise are simple. #1 - I don’t give Altavista near enough credit as a search engine and I should change that. #2 – I should never ask a search engine for a search engine or I’ll be led astray. #3 – Live.com really is bad.

Happy Holidays!

Learning SEO by using Yahoo Site Explorer

Chris — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:04:22 +0000

For a new web marketer Search Engine Optimization can feel overwhelming. Everywhere you look (and read) there are new strategies, old strategies, strategies that help in the short term but could hurt you in the long term….maybe or maybe not and there are always companies willing to help you do it. Taking some simple initial steps helps take away the “overwhelming” feeling and pretty soon you realize you know enough about SEO to be dangerous and successful with your online ventures. Using Yahoo Site Explorer is a great first step.

I always say that SEO is like a High School Popularity Contest (think high school musical for a minute). If everyone else says you are cool, you’re cool. The football team’s quarterback is loved by all and even if you’ve been at the school a single day, because everyone else refers to Mike as the quarterback, you know Mike as the quarterback. For websites, a fundamental rule of SEO is: what other people call you is what you will most likely rank for. This is also where link building falls into play.

Blog posts about your product or service tell the search engines that people like your product (and your site). Newspaper stories with a link to your product (on your site) tell the search engines that a trusted news source is describing your site a certain way. Other sites linking to your site using words like “San Francisco Dentist” or “San Francisco Family Dental” (called anchor text) tells the search engines that you are a San Francisco Dentist. Then search engines do their magic and when someone looks for a San Francisco dentist, they will look at what others are describing as a San Francisco dentist site, does that site have the content of a San Francisco Dentist site and how many other trusted sites recommend it as a San Francisco dentist site. Now that we are all clear on “popularity” and how it relates to SEO, let’s talk Yahoo Site Explorer.

You know your competitors. Go to Yahoo Site Explorer and insert their domain name (ie: www.jjcarlosdmd.com ranks #1 in Google for San Francisco Dentist) . Click on the “inlinks” section (below):

click on the inlinks button

Now you can identify many of the incoming links to this site (see below):

You don’t know which ones are making a difference and you don’t see how their internal linking strategies (the process of linking words on your site to subpages also in your site) however you are able to export all the incoming links and identify sites that you need to work with or advertise on to get the same credit.

Yahoo Site Explorer doesn’t solve all your problems but it is a great and easy to use tool to help get your feet wet with SEO and link building. Enjoy!