Search Engines and Algorithms: Optimizing for Yahoo! Search and AltaVista - Crawling Behavior and Optimization Strategies
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Crawling Behavior & Optimization Strategies
Yahoo places top priority on high keyword density. Some have suggested that keywords in the meta title, or high title density, receiving about 10% weight in the algorithm; keywords in alt tags, meta tags, and meta description receive about 3%; header tags, and outbound anchor link text, and content keywords receive another 3% weight in the algorithm.
It seems at first glance that their algorithm is a complete opposite to the priorities placed in Google’s algorithms, but this is not really the case. In fact, some relate the current Yahoo algorithm to a Google algorithm of 2 years ago. Since the integration of the Inktomi algorithm, Yahoo’s search engine is placing a higher weight on backlinks, however we still show it’s not a driving force of the algorithm like in Google’s.
When optimizing for Yahoo, it’s important to remember that Yahoo continues to be very much about on-page factors like content, keyword usage and density, bold text, and header tags; and not nearly as much about off-page factors, such as inbound links, anchor text, and so on. Yahoo also likes to see keywords in the actual URL of the site or page, but does shows preference for bold and <h1> text.
While Google’s preferred keyword and tag density is roughly 1.5%, Yahoo’s optimal is twice that, or 3%. The higher ranked sites in Yahoo have between 2.7% and 3.3% keyword density. Other keyword factors to consider are in the title tag, with 15 to 20%. The title tag is one of the more important on page elements for the new Yahoo algorithm.
Yahoo is one of the few search engines that still look at Keyword meta tags, although we have certainly seen the priority shift away from this recently, as this element continues to be abused by spammers.
Yahoo does employ a duplicate content filter to search results. However, we usually hear nothing about it, like we do with Google, because it utilizes technology to discern the source of the original content, whereas Google seems unable to decipher the source of the original content. We’ll talk more on that at another time.
While these strategies are currently working for Yahoo, with the introduction of Social Search, and concept searching, it is inevitable that these techniques will undoubtedly change soon.
Yahoo Optimization 
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