Differences in Search Optimization for Google, Yahoo, and Bing
August 25, 2009 by Pablo Palatnik
This is just a quick post about a post that was posted by Ann Smarty on Search Engine Journal pointing out some key findings (not 100% actual) based on research by Cuil finder Tom Costello. Basically, he analyzed some keywords and their top rankings for each in the respective big 3, Google, Yahoo, and Bing. One thing people are always curious about is why they place different in all search engines, it’s obviously an algorithmic difference.
Here are some key findings illustrated by helpful chart:
While Bing doesn’t seem to use any new signals to evaluate the site relevance, its algorithm does have some differences:
* Bing gives stronger emphasis to keywords in URLs;
* Bing seems to give more weight to capitalized terms;
* Bing prefers pages from large sites.
You can see a nice chart here.
Let’s take a look at a quick query and see what differences we find. I’m doing this real-time and just choosing a keyword out of my head which with one query only you can’t determine much but, let’s check it out.
The keyword I’ll use for this purpose is DUI LAWYER FLORIDA.
GOOGLE:
First URL: www.duiattorneyflorida.com (keywords in URL)
PageRank: 4
Title Tag: Florida DUI Attorney – Criminal Lawyer Florida (keywords in title tag)
Meta Tags: Heavy keyword density on both keyword and description tags.
YAHOO:
First URL: www.dui.com/florida/lawyers-attorneys (keywords in URL)
PageRank: 3
Title Tag: Florida DUI Lawyers and Drunk Driving Defense Attorneys | DUI.com (keywords in title tag)
Meta Tags: Heavy keyword density on both keyword and description tags BUT tags are mis-used.
BING:
First URL: http://www.floridaduilawyer.net/ (keywords in URL)
PageRank: 2
Title Tag: Florida DUI Attorney @ The Ticket Clinic | Lawyer for DUI in Miami, Ft … (keywords in title tag)
Meta Tags: Heavy keyword density on keyword tag / regular description tag.
It seems both Yahoo and Bing place more emphasis on Keyword placement in URL keyword match as the #1 result in Google has the highest PR but not an exact keyword match. OF COURSE, there are a lot more factors we can get into for ranking but this was just for the purpose of a quick analysis of the first results in 3 engines.
Comments (8)
[...] Read the original post: Differences in Search Optimization for Google, Yahoo, and Bing [...]
[...] the whole story here: Pablo Palatnik aggregated by [...]
[...] link is being shared on Twitter right now. @wvgrrl, an influential author, said RT @wbw_Jeff Palatnik [...]
I think Bing is really trying to evolve it’s algorithm to compete closer with Google. Since everyone focuses their marketing efforts on their platform Bing wants to pull some of those effort to their search tool.
I would agree with you but as of now, I’m not really seeing that based certain projects we’re working on, I see a closer relevance to YHOO than Bing in terms of ranking factors but that could also just be a coincidence in certain projects.
That would be the smart thing to do on Bings part. BUT, I’m not too sure Bing is concerned with SEOs really. If anything, they will take a much closer look at Googles Adwords platform and Adense which is the real money maker.
[...] link is being shared on Twitter right now. @wvgrrl, an influential author, said RT @wbw_Jeff Palatnik [...]
This is great in terms of google. Nothing appears to irritate on them compared to this.Interestingly, this is exactly was warned about some years prior at the last big hack con about seo some number of years ago in ‘95.
Thanks for sharing the chart. It is always good to know why the search engines are displaying totally different results. Knowing more than just Google is good when the other search engines are starting to gain some market share.