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March 03, 2008

Weather Report: Yahoo! Search Index Update

We're in the process of rolling out some changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms. While we expect the update will be completed soon, as you know, throughout this process you may see some ranking changes and page shuffling in the index. To share your thoughts on this with other Yahoo! Search users, please visit the Site Explorer Suggestion Board.

Update: With this weather update, you might also experience spikes or drops in crawl traffic for the next week or two.


Sharad Verma
Yahoo! Search

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Comments

> spikes or drops in crawl traffic

You don't mean "up and down of ranking"?

Posted by: Japanese SEO | March 3, 2008 06:28 PM

It was noticeable since the beginning of the month.

Overall it is positive. Again, there is a balanced representation of small to medium verse large sites and companies being returned on the SERPs when doing searches.

It would be great if the updates could occur every two weeks - hopefully, this will be the case in the future as it will allow Yahoo to be a resource for latest news and blog entries on the SERPs

Posted by: SearcH◆ EngineS WEB | March 3, 2008 10:50 PM

I see titles being replaced by lowercase anchor-text again.

Posted by: Breakfastman | March 4, 2008 12:59 AM

I also don't see any changes yet. So far result are same

Posted by: epurple media | March 4, 2008 04:05 AM

I'm from Australia but have a .com Domain. Before the changes our keywords were all in the top 10 for Yahoo.com.au (Australia only). Now not even in the top 1000. It appears that Yahoo give a strong weighting to the country domain.

Posted by: Geoff Michael | March 4, 2008 12:50 PM

When Yahoo releases algorithm changes, are they only for yahoo.com or for other country sites as well? yahoo.co.uk, yahoo.com.au, etc.

Posted by: Eric | March 4, 2008 04:11 PM

I'm seeing any changes for me on the terms that I follow for my website...

Posted by: Ryan Ward | March 4, 2008 05:37 PM

I haven't noticed anything different yet either.

Posted by: Liz | March 4, 2008 06:38 PM

Ranking changes are not always good, every time they do it there is a chance that your web site will be forgotten, shifted by some mistake

Posted by: Analysis | March 5, 2008 09:39 AM

Seems anchor text plays a bigger role...Just a thought....

Posted by: Home Furnishings | March 5, 2008 12:15 PM

I was going crazy with all the changes in ranking over the last two weeks. I look after a number of websites and thought there was something wrong. The search phrase business gas supply was going up and down all throughout the month. I wonder whether yahoo can clarify what the changes are and what we need to do not to fall short of the new criteria.

Posted by: Business Gas Supply | March 6, 2008 01:18 AM

I doubt yahoo will serve up the changes. Traditionally they have favored on site optimization but in my targeted keywords the sites ranking in the top 10 that is not what is happening. It seems back links are king

Posted by: jb | March 6, 2008 08:15 AM

Seems like the results just need a fresh cleaning and a few statements to remove some of the spam issues. There is no reason Yahoo should show dead urls so often.

Posted by: Cash Loans | March 6, 2008 10:01 AM

My sites title is gone in the results and replaced by the search keywords. And indeed a cleaning up of dead urls would help too.

Posted by: Eric | March 6, 2008 10:25 AM

Seems anchor text plays a bigger role

Posted by: tod | March 6, 2008 10:38 AM

does not seem to be waited as much

Posted by: LC | March 6, 2008 10:39 AM

I see titles being replaced by lowercase anchor-text again.

Posted by: mr. goodcat | March 6, 2008 10:41 AM

My site went from 3 to 2 but it has been moving between 3 and 1 for a long time now.

Posted by: noprescription | March 6, 2008 04:58 PM

We have noticed a little movement in the results since we have read this post.

Posted by: Atlanta Georgia Real Estate | March 6, 2008 06:05 PM

I am looking forward to seeing the results as we have made some huge changes to a number of pages on our sites.

Posted by: Dan | March 7, 2008 08:40 AM

I am looking forward to the changes to see if they help me and my website.

Posted by: VA Refinance | March 7, 2008 12:33 PM

Your last two updates have allowed URL Link Redirects / Cloaking to screw up the search results. I thought this problem was resolved by the search engines a couple of years ago. What's up?

Example:
href='/url.php?q=power-of-attorney-form&dl=www.legalformsbank.biz/powerofattorney.asp'

Posted by: Unhappy | March 7, 2008 02:13 PM

Unhappy Here Again,

To see all the sites that are using URL Link Redirects / Cloaking for this keyword, use this search term (with quotes).

"q=power-of-attorney-form&"

Posted by: David | March 7, 2008 04:48 PM

I see titles being replaced by lowercase anchor-text again.

Posted by: dany | March 8, 2008 12:51 PM

I am looking forward to the changes to see if they help me and my website.

Posted by: BI | March 8, 2008 12:57 PM

Seems anchor text plays a bigger role

Posted by: jksss | March 8, 2008 12:59 PM

My previous post has been censored.
I rephrase:
Having a custom 404 page ranking #2 for a certain keyword is pretty dumb.
Thanks God is all about customer satisfaction....

Posted by: Guido | March 9, 2008 07:02 AM

Does not seem to be waited as much?

Posted by: karina | March 11, 2008 04:37 AM

Get the information on this book to the people on the web. It can and will change lives. (Self Awareness)http://www.amazon.com/White-Male-Privilege-Racism-America/dp/0979108918/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205328231&sr=8-1

Posted by: Sherry | March 12, 2008 05:36 AM

Great idea guys keep up the good work

Posted by: hgh | March 21, 2008 08:01 AM

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http://www.onlinevaservices.com

Posted by: va refinance loan | March 26, 2008 07:54 PM

I think anchor text is huge.
Nice article.

Posted by: va home loan | March 27, 2008 07:24 PM

I thought this problem was resolved by the search engines a couple of years ago.

Posted by: güzel sözler | April 7, 2008 11:28 AM

I like how the site that is purely spam still appears in search results, but mine no longer does at all. Over the last year I've submitted several reinclusion requests that have resulted in nothing but template e-mails saying to re-review the content guidelines.

Posted by: John | April 11, 2008 10:04 AM

Did you just do another update as of a few days ago.

It appears that the rankings have just shuffled again.

Social sites are even more dominant on the organic SERPs

Posted by: * Miss Universe | April 13, 2008 12:31 PM

"Did you just do another update as of a few days ago."

I am seeing the same thing, from bad to worse. In fact its as bad as I have ever seen Yahoo Search.

Posted by: Blog | April 14, 2008 08:58 PM

I also don't see any changes yet. So far result are same

Posted by: güzel sözler | April 15, 2008 06:09 AM

The results are the same I think, hope it will imporove later.

Posted by: RiledUp | April 19, 2008 01:41 AM

This is good stuff, just bookmarked :-)

Posted by: Webdesign Hamburg | May 1, 2008 01:49 PM

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