Re: Yahoo!

From: Michael Martinez <Michael_at_xenite.org>
Date: Tue 28 Nov 2000 14:45:03 -0500

BARBARA SYBAL <gfx_at_gfxinc.com> WROTE:
> Long time lurker here jumping into the fray ...
>
> My site is listed in Yahoo!, but unfortunately it's
> placed so deep into a regional category that I hardly
> receive a blip of visitors from them.

I feel compelled to point out once again that category
is not as important on Yahoo! as most people seem to
believe.

The average surfer treats Yahoo! and any other
directory which offers a query tool first as a search
engine. They type keywords into that query box and go
searching. Many people may sift through the directory
categories, but usability studies have shown that more
people use query tools than use category links and
trees. Category is definitely taken into
consideration by Yahoo!, but there are many searches
where sites rise above category and get placed high in
the search results.

How do they do it? Part of the answer is that their
titles and/or descriptions contain the keywords people
are looking for. Getting your keywords accepted by
Yahoo! is a chore, I know. But that's a very, very
important step in the submissions process.

Directories like plain, simple, short descriptions.
The less you offer them in text the less likely they
are to change what you submit. A simple ten-word
sentence containing your keywords, and a title (matched
by the TITLE tag on your Web site and headers) which
uses one or more keywords MAY make all the difference
in the world.

Try these searches and you'll see what I mean (and I'm
just picking them at random):

marinated chicken
http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=marinated+chicken&hc=0&hs=0

black shoes
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=black+shoes

white cheese dip
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=white+cheese+dip
(Unfortunately, neither of these sites have the recipe)

mary poppins
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=mary+poppins

excalibur
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=excalibur

xenite.org (Note: this is my domain, I'm only using it to illustrate a point)
http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?p=xenite.org

What is Yahoo! looking at? Title, description,
category, and URL. Not necessarily in that order.
Just because you're not in the category you think is
most important doesn't mean the game is over. You can
still help yourself with an on-target title,
description, and URL.

The more of these four factors where you get your
keywords in, the better. Hype wastes valuable keyword
space. It's not possible to submit "keyword, keyword,
keyword" but you definitely want to use those keywords
in your title, description, and URL if you can. That
may, in fact, help you get into the category you want.

Note: Look at the Andre Norton listings for
"Xenite.Org". You'll see I got three sites into the
category. This is very, very rare. That probably
only happened because someone else asked Yahoo! to
create an Andre Norton category several years ago and
Yahoo! told them to round up five Web sites. I happen
to have created the core of the online Andre Norton
community, so I had plenty of sites to submit (all with
unique content). If I had my druthers, I'd druther
have Xena Online Resources listed at the top of the
Xena: Warrior Princess category with a pair of
sunglasses, but I'll take what I can get. People still
find us through Yahoo!

Science Fiction and Fantasy info_at_xenite.org
Andromeda, Dark Angel, Farscape, Lexx, Roswell, Star Trek
http://www.xenite.org/forums/science_fiction_tv/
XENITE.org





Received on Tue Nov 28 2000 - 13:45:03 CST