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February 28, 2007

Yahoo Adds NOYDIR Tag

Finally we get to undo the silly descriptions the Yahoo directory editors foisted upon us.

I mean DMOZ edits were bad, but the Yahoo ones seemed like they were written by someone composing a telegram. I have about 5 or 6 descriptions that are all of 8 words....

So we can now get Yahoo to use our carefully crafted descriptions (well that is another story). The implications of these recent moves are important.

Let's get the Yahoo statements out of the way first. They released this through their blog:

We're adding support for the Meta tag called ‘NOYDIR' that will complement the ‘NOODP' Meta tag, which we already support. If you're unfamiliar, the ‘NOODP' Meta tag is basically a way for webmasters to indicate that Open Directory Project (ODP) titles and abstracts will not be used in search results for their pages. While we continue to pull from various sources to provide the best title and abstract for a given page in search results, we realize that webmasters may still want the ability to exclude titles and abstracts from the Yahoo! Directory. So, as promised, we're providing support for ‘NOYDIR' which will recognize the following Meta tags on your pages:

For pages with this tag, we will not use Yahoo! Directory titles or abstracts for your URL in web search results. This will grant webmasters the ability to participate in the Yahoo! Directory Submit program and benefit from inclusion in the Yahoo! Directory, while maintaining control over URL titles and abstracts in search. This will not have any effect on the Yahoo! Directory Search experience, which will continue to use the Yahoo! Directory and title abstract information.

We are re-indexing content on the web to launch this change, and you should immediately begin to see the changes on Yahoo! US, Yahoo! Japan and Yahoo! Korea. (Other regions will roll-out in the future.) This will be accompanied by the usual ranking changes and page shuffling that is typical of weather updates.

There are two MAJOR points mentioned in this information.

First, we now have the ability to have our description tags used in organic results. The ability to more directly determine how people perceive us is critical for effective marketing as well as AB testing, etc. How the choice of words in the description impact rankings can now be tested directly.

Second, and more importantly, Yahoo states there will be ranking changes from this... a strong indicator that either they will no longer use the directory listing as a major impact on ranking or the description tag is being given more importance or it had impact but the directory listing kept it in check.

Either way there are changes coming and things to play with.... you have to love this industry.

Insights, impacts or comments? Jump in!

UPDATE: The great people in the Yahoo PR Department ran down some answers to a few questions for me last night...

Will using the NOYDIR tag default organic descriptions to the onpage description if filled out? If so how many characters wuill it be limited to?

The NOYDIR tag will take the Yahoo! dir and title out of contention, we could still use the ODP t&d, page t&d, anchor text etc. There are no changes to what organic description guidelines are from before

Does using the NOYDIR tag stop any link love from the directory listing itself?

No, the directory listing link credit will still carry.

Has Yahoo checked how this may impact other search spiders when reading the tag?

No, we also noted this on the comments section on the blog post.

Your blog entry mentions changes coming to the organic results. Does this mean not using the tag will lower sites or will possible more keyword rich descriptions possibly improve some listings?

This is a regular weather update related to a new index launch without any other implied effects...

Posted by Frank Watson at 2:49 PM | Permalink

July 25, 2006

Yahoo Invests In Social Search Research

Reuters reports Yahoo hired Dr. Raghu Ramakrishnan as vice president and Yahoo research fellow. Dr. Ramakrishnan is a well-respected database expert who has joined Yahoo to study "links between computer and human-aided Web search." Honestly, I am excited what this can potentially mean for social search. Yahoo has so many properties that can be tightly integrated with social search; Flickr, Del.io.us, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Video, web search, desktop search, Yahoo Groups and so on.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 9:31 AM | Permalink

January 23, 2006

BusinessWeek on Yahoo and Social Search

BusinessWeek's Ben Elgin takes a look at social search, focusing on Yahoo, in his article: Yahoo's Social Circle.

Ben's article offers a review of recent "social search" purchases from Yahoo including WebJay, del.icio.us, and Flickr.

Elgin writes: These deals are key building blocks in one of Yahoo's biggest bets. By cultivating online communities -- and encouraging people to tap into the collective knowledge of these groups -- Yahoo is hoping to change the way people find information online.

Let's also not forget the introduction of homegrown services like Yahoo 360 (beta), MyWeb, and Yahoo Answers.

He goes on to say: Social search aims to shift power from Web publishers, who create these links, to everyday Internet users by examining their bookmarks or giving them tools to express their opinions.

The article also focuses on those who are skeptics to the whole social search "thing." They include that, at least to this point, "most Internet users haven't even heard of Flickr or del.icio.us, let alone spent time sharing photos online or posting bookmarks of their favorite sites." He also correctly (IMHO) that it takes effort and time (something many people don't have enough off) to make social search work well for both the individual and group as a whole.

Vivisimo/Clusty CEO, Raul Valdes-Perez is quoted saying that the wisdom of crowds might not trump what "raw" computing power can offer.

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