Search engine news w/e Sep 26, 2003

• Sep. 26, 2003

This week we touched on new developments in Yahoo and MSN. The first article was on Yahoo and preparing for the changes that are to come. Second, MSN has updated how it displays the overture listings on its results page, and lastly Yahoo has revamped its Yahoo! Shopping and incorporated this into the main results as well.

First with Yahoo!, we know that Google will not be providing the results for the web pages results in Yahoo! forever. Yahoo! purchased Inktomi and have started testing it in various regional Yahoo! engines. To make sure you are prepared for the inevitable change it is important that you make sure you are in the Inktomi database, and it is always important to include your website in Yahoo''s Directory. Yahoo! still provides a website with a strong foundation for websites with their link popularity. You can check HotBot (it is still around) and see how you perform. HotBots default results come from Inktomi, this can you an idea of what to expect. Please remember that the results will not be the same as Yahoo will have their own algo to work on the results.

Next we touched on MSN and how it updated its results. The main difference here is that MSN is now showing all Overture listings. Before MSN would only show those listings that would have high enough traffic/click throughs. Also, MSN will be altering the Overture listings depending on the amount of clicks each listing gets.

Lastly, Yahoo! has re-launched their Yahoo| shopping incorporating a new design and including new feeds for shopping resources for consumers. Yahoo! Shopping is incorporated into the regular Yahoo results with the Products tab located on the far right of the displayed tabs.

MSN and Yahoo! have been continually working to improve their services for their users to claim the top spot and steer users away from Google. Google is testing out some new features for searching by location. It is apparent that to improve the search results for the user, having available a search by location will help the user and the small to medium size businesses greatly as the regional businesses only want to focus on their immediate area. To see the this demo go to http://labs.google.com/location

Gerard Manning
Searchengineposition, Inc.
Search engine marketing company