Differences in SEO for Google, Yahoo and MSN

We all know that Google is the King of all searches made on the internet but the others surely can never be avoided. Though Google may have more than three quarters of all global searches to its benefit, the remaining volume is controlled by the others. Even the remainder is a very very huge number.
Considering the year 2009, the statistics for searches on the various search engines are :

• Google : With 73.68% of the global search volume.
• Yahoo : With 15.53% of the global search volume.
• MSN : with 5.69% of the global search volume.
• ASK : with 3.76% of the global search volume.

One can never underestimate any of the search engines, neither MSN(Bing) nor Yahoo. Ask for instance has its low time with the least searches compared to other engines, but it definitely has its strong, loyal user base. As Search Engine Optimizers, we cannot simply avoid or ignore it.
Lets see the differences in Optimization required for the three search engine :

Google boasts of its own Pagerank feature which neither Yahoo nor Bing have. Though Yahoo had come up with its own Pagerank feature a few years ago, it was lately scrapped.
The biggest most noticeable similarity of Yahoo and MSN are that they rely largely on ‘meta’ tags. They require the keyword and description to be unique for every page of a website. The case is a bit different with Google though.

• For MSN, keywords are the most important items. Yahoo gives priority to the Keyword Density (Ratio between the total umber of keywords with the total amount of text). Working too hard for Yahoo, say stuffing keywords in the body text, title, etc.. can get you penalised or blacklisted by Google. After all, Google has to be given maximum priority. Thus, playing with keywords needs a great deal of experience and out of the box thinking.
• The most important thing for Yahoo is again Keyword Placement. i.e. how keywords are placed in the title and URL, you get this right, then expect a very good placement in the Yahoo SERPs.
• Google noticeably, very largely depends on backlinks (links to your site on other sites). The number of ‘quality’ backlinks you have, the anchor text attached to these links, the relevance of the placement of these links, the Pagerank of the pages on which these links are placed, etc.. decide on how good you will rank on the Google SERPs.
• The last, most common and non-exploitable fact is, Search engines always consider your domain age. The older your domain, the more trustworthy your site is considered and more the respect you get and better is your placement.

Get all these facts right, and your sure to optimize well and consistently for not just Google but all other search engines too.

Posted in: