It’s been some time since Yahoo! and search were discussed together in the same sentence and, in that space of time, many of the trends regarding SEO in 2011 I wrote about back in 2010 have become part of many webmasters’ every day life.
Yahoo! this week unveiled a new search product called Search Direct which it will make available, as time goes on, with all its global search properties. This is yet another result of the power of the real-time web and the pressure the trend is putting on major online companies.
In brief, the real-time web is the way we are heading. This is because we are addicted to interaction, accessibility and speed. Facebook created the first taste for it with its Wall and the comments system. Twitter has made it global and pithy and Google Instant has us all addicted to the one-finger search which itself is affecting optimization techniques as it affects end-user behaviour.
Yahoo’s Search Direct is the latest offering in this direction. Ever since Microsoft started supplying Yahoo! search results search on the web has been a two-horse race with Google so far ahead as to be practically a dot in Microsoft’s search horizon. Search Direct is powered by Microsoft so, new as it may be, it is unlikely to be a game changer in search and it is also unlikely that it will impact on your SEO work.
Right now (and I hope it changes in the near future) it is not even very good. A quick search for my name, for instance threw up some results I expected but omitted others which I would have thought would be the first point of call. Google, on the other hand, covered everything and also threw in some suggestions which had I been searching for me would have made the search easier, faster and given me more results.
This makes Google the instant winner (pun unintended) in Instant Search. It is still early days though and you never know, Yahoo! might improve which means that we’ll have again a little more competition in search. Either way you only really need to optimize for one search engine and that is Google. Google’s search is so far ahead of the game that everyone sooner or later follows them.
The Panda update which happened in March resulted in some instant winners of the search engine ranking game and some instant losers. In the resulting fall-out many were quick to cry ‘foul’ as Google’s algorithm punished Content Farms (and they...
06-10-2011 Hits:2599 SEO Tips
When it comes to SEO and your website many a search engine optimizer will argue that there should be no difference in what you should do. SEO is an activity which you should be engaged in all year round, not...
14-04-2011 Hits:758 SEO Tips
Google is one of the main backers behind the initiative to get every British business online. Partnering up with BT and Enterprise UK, Google has invested much in a campaign to get business to appear on the web...
14-04-2011 Hits:258 WEB View
Working in SEO you soon have a familiar pattern to your life which defines, also, how you work. Mine begins with coffee (vital to get my brain going) and a query of the Google database where I see...
14-04-2011 Hits:280 WEB View
Beyond those online businesses who instantly want “to be found on the first page of Google” for their website there is, apparently, an entire other class who are only just finding out about the benefits which SEO and the online...
14-04-2011 Hits:692 WEB View
I remember the day back in 1997 when I first discovered chat rooms. The possibility of being able to sit at my desk, struggling with a deadline and with a few clicks (and those quaint modem connection tones) be speaking...
14-07-2011 Hits:872 WEB View
With the official, global roll out of Google’s +1 Button Google launches its assault on the social web.
07-06-2011 Hits:1301 SEO Tips
Social marketing or social tagging, as it is more popularly known as, is the practice of promoting your website content through the different social networks which have sprung up to help share news and content through the web using, as...
14-04-2011 Hits:1202 SEO Tips
The most successful marketing is no different to the most successful business model: you get across the message why you are different and provide a compelling reason for your potential customers to do business with you.
14-04-2011 Hits:1328 SEO Tips
Every week you will get an email newsletter with my personal recommendations on social media marketing tips and crucial SEO advice to help your business succeed faster, at a lower cost.
Subscribe to HelpMySEO via 
email.
I’ve led the discussion on how social media and SEO are changing the processes we use to work and live, online, with the publication of my book ‘The Social Media Mind’. I combine experience in journalism and blue-chip corporate management with a penchant for explaining complex issues in simple terms. Contact me for media interviews, presentations and panel discussions
