Yahoo! Web Site Optimization Strategy

Yahoo! got its start in the early '90s when two Stanford Ph.D. candidates, Jerry Yang and David Filo, began making lists of their favorite web sites for their personal use. As the list grew, it became necessary to organize and sort the sites. Originally they called it "Jerry's Guide to the Web" after cofounder Yang, but the slang nickname for it - "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle." soon became known by its call letters... Yahoo!

Soon after its public launch Yahoo! began forming partnerships with search engines to improve its search results. Among the search engines that have supplemented Yahoo!'s directory through the years are AltaVista, Inktomi and Yahoo!'s current provider, Google.

In recent years, as it's grown ever more rapidly, Yahoo! has begun taking longer and longer to review new sites. To remedy this problem it now offers the Business Express program, which allows sites to pay for expedited reviews.

Yahoo's directory is, without a doubt, the most difficult search database to get a web site into. This is due to several factors:

• It's a human-edited directory, not a search engine, so it has a long processing time.
• It has extremely strict criteria for acceptance - make a mistake and start over.

Yahoo charges a submission fee, of $299 USD, and an annual renewal fee (again $299 USD)for its directory listings. It's search results are derived from Google, unless the query matches a directory category, or unless you specifically search for a result within a category. Our web site is found here within the search engine optimization services section.

Yahoo! pulls its results in the following order:

1. Overture: top 3 results per page.
2. Google: Search Results.
3. Yahoo!: Their own directory results.

In December 2002, Yahoo! purchased Inktomi. This will likely result in Yahoo's search results being pulled from Inktomi's database when its current contract with Google ends. However for now, when considering your web site optimization strategy for Yahoo! just remember that it's Google you are optimizing for, and Yahoo! delivering the results.

On July 14, 2003, Yahoo! Inc. announced it was buying Overture, in a $1.6 billion deal announced Monday. This agreement brings not just Overture, but also allows Yahoo to Integrate Inktomi, FAST, and Altavista into one massive, powerful search engine database.


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