Tag Archives: Search Results

Yahoo Unveils New Search Results Format

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Yahoo has officially announced that the redesign of their search results display that has been in testing mode for the past two weeks has gone live.

The new design boasts a faster load time, search results higher up on the page, a new navigation bar at the top, and a more consistent look with the Yahoo homepage. Yahoo also promises to roll out the top bar you see on the home page and on the search results page throughout more and more Yahoo properties going forward.

Yahoo Search Engine Results

Penguin 2.0 Update Happened around May 15th.

Google Penguin 2.0 occurred around May 15th, and seemed to affect more sites than previous Google Penguin Updates. Feedback from Webmaster Forums supports that more sites have been hit with penalties, although the feedback is that Google is sending notices to webmasters through webmaster tools notifying them of potential penalties.  This is not good news in general, as the consensus of surveys of webmasters show that only about 10% of sites have fully recovered from the first Google Penguin updates, one year later.

Google “Softens” Panda Algorithm

According to Matt Cutts, Google is changing the Google Panda Algorithm to look at some other website factors to determine if a site is a quality and relevant resource.   The exact quote from Cutts is below:

“We are looking at Panda and seeing if we can find some additional signals, and we think we’ve got some to help refine things for sites that are kind of in the border zone, the gray area a little bit, And so if we can soften the affect a little bit, for those sites, that we believe have got some additional signals of quality, that will help sites that were previously affected – to some degree”

This falls well short of a repeal for those whose rankings have been affected by Google Panda.  Content remains King.

Bottom Line:  If it is possible, Local SEO Services is about to become even more complicated.  Link Strategies will be different, and content relevance remains important. Hint: Social Media is a great medium to provide useful information, disseminate valuable information, and ultimately, drive traffic to your site. Social media will not be all about the ROI of Facebook Ads, but more about creating relevance for your website through original and compelling content that will be shared by website users.

Bing Study: The Value of Ranking First

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Any SEO provider and webmaster knows that the value of ranking first in search results is extremely valuable, but a new study by Bing is putting some hard numbers on it: Over 50 percent of Bing users click the first result, and more than 75 percent click there if the first result includes Bing’s deep links.

In a blog post, Dr. Ronny Kohavi of Bing’s Research & Development team, shares the data about the habits of Bing users when they view search results.

Bing Users

Bing says that only about 4-6 percent click the third search result. Only about 2-3 percent of Bing users click on the fourth result down to less than one percent click-through rate on the eighth search result.

The trend tends to change when a user hits the browser back button, prompting Bing to display more results on the first page. About 9 months ago, Bing started to display 8 results on first page on an initial search, and then once the browser back button is used, the number increases to 12 results. Once the user accesses more search results, lower positions are clicked on at a rate of 5 to 8 times higher than the first results page.

Bottom Line: Bing Continues to innovate and create search results that are useful to users in an effort to compete with Google. SEOs cannot afford to ignore Yahoo/Bing, which still comprise 25-30% of today’s search volume. Clients who are new to SEO may find the wins in rankings earlier on Bing/Yahoo, which tends to be a little more forgiving on technical on page issues like duplicate page titles.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, A Santa Rosa, California based Local SEO Services, Website Development and Online Marketing Firm.

Linked In Makes Improvements to Its Search

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Linked In has installed a group of upgrades to their platform, most notably a new unified search feature and a smarter query intent algorithm that are designed to deliver more relevant site search results. These upgrades were announced last week and will be rolled out over the next few weeks to all site users.

Linked In

Linked In had over 5 billion searches last year, and the new search upgrades allow searchers to refine search results by placing additional screens on the results. This, coupled with the search algorithm that tracks the intent of the searcher over time will allow more efficient searches of companies, people, and jobs. An automated notification system will send a notice when saved search results have changed.

Bottom Line:  A Linked In presence for company owners and managers has become a must for social media optimization for virtually every firm out there. The ability to network, recruit new employees, and  be found by the search terms that best describe your business and its unique selling proposition continues to grow in value as Linked In grows and refines its position as the leading business to business social network.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, A Santa Rosa, California based Social Media Optimization (SMO), SEO and Website Development Firm.

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