Search engine results - Google vs. everyone else

[redsox9]

Hi, y'all:

I know that a thread of a similar nature has been posted regarding SEO but this diverges from that path. Having been established now for more than a few years, I often go to the different search engine sites to see where pages at my site rank, e.g., my player pages.

I've noticed that these pages usually pop up in the top 25 on Google but they don't even appear in the top 100 or 200 on other search engines like Yahoo!, AltaVista, Lycos, Hotbot, etc. I would guess that each one uses their own bot software to find and rank pages and I'm not overly concerned with my findings, being that Google appears to be the search engine of choice these days. Still, has anyone else experienced this? Do your pages appear higher on one search engine versus another?

Morbid curiosity, if nothing else... :rolleyes:

[Schelly]

Oh absolutely. You need to tailor your monthly SEO duties to each engine independently.

:)

[felgall]

You can even be ranked in two different places on Google for the same page as the search engine uses dozens of different mirror servers scattered around the world and it takes time for any changes to make their way across all of them.

http://www.webrankinfo.com/english/tools/google-data-centers.php will allow you to do a lookup on 17 specific Google servers at the same time so that you can compare results across that minute fraction of the collection of servers that Google run their search engine on.

[redsox9]

Interesting but I'm still curious if anyone else has seen this phenomenon, i.e., pages based on keyword searches are ranked higher on one search engine than others. Again, Google has given me some great page rankings but most of the other major engines barely have me cracking the top 100 or 200.

:confused:

[terrakeramik]

I have the opposite problem, i.e. I rank in the top five on MSN and top 100 on Yahoo, but not in the top 1000 in Google, for some of my keywords.

You're correct that Google is the search engine of choice, but more and more of the people I talk to are starting to use other search engines b/c of concerns about the quality of Google search results. There are some interesting blog posts on this topic (search on technorati under Google search, SEO, etc.).

You may also want to check out http://www.googlerankings.com to see where your site ranks for your keywords vs. Yahoo, MSN, Ask. You'll need a Google API key (free) to run the query.

[torb]

I've optimized my site for Google only. I know it's quite arragant, but honestly I don't have the time to optimize for all the search engines out there.

I get #1 on Google and Yahoo! but I'm down on something like 300th on Altavista, 50-something on MSN and 4 on Alexa.

[redsox9]

Hi, terrakeramik - Thanks for the suggestion on the rankings page! I'll check that out. I should probably also do a little more work to improve my rankings even from where they are now; I've used probably only a handful of tips on SEO but maybe spending a little extra time on that this year will help the bottom line.

:)

[2161]

My company name is #5 on Google out of 1,290,000 results.
Top 2 spots on MSN out of 71,736 results.
I have spots 1 and 5 on Yahoo out of 334,000 results.
Spots 3 and 4 on Lycos out of 113,200 results.

I am sure that will end Saturday after my domain name is switched to Bluehost.

[indy2kro]

Yes, other search engines are important as well, but they'll not be able to reach even 10% of the traffic Google brings .. in my case not even 1% .. so while you should keep in mind they do exist and can bring some visitors, if you want traffic, I still think you should focus on Google.

[97th FLoor]

All engines have different algorithims,

Google is based largley off of Trust/age of the site, then Links with varying anchor text across different ips. First you have to get the trust in Google by getting other trusted sites to link to you, and sometimes waiting a couple months. Then it is a matter of getting the right back links with the keyowrd varied in the anchor text. (essentially every keyword has different criteria based off of the sites currently rankings)

Yahoo is based mostly off of links, title tags are big with them too. But you want to rank in Yahoo right away get a bunch of links low or good quality and have them all have the exact keyword phrase for the anchor text. (also if you care about yahoo rankings don't sign up in the Yahoo directory as they change your title tag to that of your URL name and you will most likely lose your rankings, but yahoo directory will help you gain trust and rank better in google)

MSN and the others are always changing, but they are mostly looking at links with exact anchor text as well as title tags, you can cram a bunch of keywords on your page to rank better in msn too, but you don't want to lose quality for your visitors for the love of msn it isn't worth it.

Hope that helps.

[kaskudoo]

97th .... thank for your input - one question on my side:

we are a small business and we rank fairly well right now in all major search engines (site live since a year)
we have some links coming in from our clients, newspaper articles and such, but how would we go about telling those guys how to correctly link to us?
i mean, most publishers and other small business can barely create a hyperlink - they don't know about alternative descriptions, tags and titles....

just wanted to know your opinion on that - sth. that bothers me a little, although not much, as long as i am listed on the first pages ;)

[Hercules]

Before I had ever heard of SEO 95% of search engine traffic came from Google, even now with some SEO still over 90% comes from Google.
So I wouldn't care much about the other engines as long as you rank high enough in Google.

[agcssautomotive.com]

I am pleased to say that I am top 1 on all google server, on altavista, and on yahoo. But Im not even present on MSN, who needs them anyway, lol..

[terrakeramik]

I am pleased to say that I am top 1 on all google server, on altavista, and on yahoo. But Im not even present on MSN, who needs them anyway, lol..

Just curious - what keyword? I tried "automotive software" and your site is not in the top 50 on google search results. Also, you may want to start building some backlinks because your google page rank is zero. That'll help your position on google search.

[97th FLoor]

, but how would we go about telling those guys how to correctly link to us?
i mean, most publishers and other small business can barely create a hyperlink - they don't know about alternative descriptions, tags and titles....

That is why I have a job :) Really though in Googles perfect world we would all link to each other properly, but as you stated that isn't the case.

You will need to do it yourself by finding links linking to your competitors that will also link to you, get in some really good directories. If you niche isn't that competitive you should be fine with that, if it is you will need to get more resourcefull.

If you know someone is going to do a write up on you ask them to lik to you that way, or give them a boiler plate pre-coded with a couple good anchors to add to the bottom of the article.

Hope that helps.

[agcssautomotive.com]

Just curious - what keyword? I tried "automotive software" and your site is not in the top 50 on google search results. Also, you may want to start building some backlinks because your google page rank is zero. That'll help your position on google search.


agcss automotive of course! Thus far I have one page visible from the outside, that states Im under construction. Once I go online it will spider me and I'll be in the top.

Nah, automotive software isn't the right term.

[felgall]

Well anyone who knows the domain name doesn't need a search engine to find it. The idea of the search engines is so that people who don't know your name can find you.

[Hercules]

I'm number 1 in Google if you search my domain name.
LOL

[felgall]

Anyone who isn't number one in the search results for their domain name either has a domain name made up of really common words and a site that is about something completely different (in which case they chose the wrong domain name for their site) or their site hasn't been found by the search engines yet (no incoming links at all and not submitted to the search engine).