Following Yahoo to a Wealth of Traffic
By Mark Daoust (c) 2006
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Consider Yahoo the first major casualty of the search engine wars. Yahoo has
admitted (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/060124-073511) that they cannot
reasonably expect to take away any significant amount of the search market share
from Google, so they have chosen to be happy as the second most visited search
engine on the Internet.
On the surface, this may seem strange. Why would Yahoo ever publicly announce
that they are 'throwing in the towel' in the search engine war? That would be
similar to Pepsi recommending that people drink their product only if Coca-Cola
is not available. From a business standpoint, it is absolutely ridiculous and
makes absolutely no sense.
But be careful to not read into this too far. Yahoo may have tipped their hat to
Google as being dominant in the traditional search engine market, but this does
not mean that they are giving up the fight for Internet users' attention. In
fact, for some time now, Yahoo has been moving towards a market which is quickly
emerging as being just as powerful as search engines currently are.
Yahoo Moves to Web 2.0 Style Websites
In a few of the articles published here at Site Reference we have mentioned Web
2.0 (http://www.site-reference.com/articles/
Website-Development/Web-2-0-Fad-or-the-Future.html) and how Yahoo seems to be
following this development trend, but we have never looked into why Yahoo is so
fascinated by Web 2.0.
As most of you probably know, Yahoo launched My Web 2.0
(http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/), a public bookmarking service, along with
acquiring Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/), a well-established public
bookmarking service. Yahoo also launched Yahoo Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com/),
a service which relies on a community of users to answer questions that the same
community asks.
There is a common trend with all of these services - they all rely on the input
from a vast community. Del.icio.us works well because it relies on thousands of
people deciding which websites are important rather than relying on one person's
(or one algorithm's) opinion. This is the entire idea behind a folksonomy
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy) driven website - that when enough
votes are tallied, the general public will decide which websites are important
to specific topics, and which websites are not worth taking the time to
bookmark.
An Alternative to Search Engines
Search engines provide a very simple service: they unite web users with a
website that matches their current interest. It just so happens, however, that
services like My Web 2.0 and Del.icio.us (public bookmarking services) have the
ability to do the exact same thing - and possibly in a more effective and timely
manner.
Suppose you want to find new resources for SEO. You could spend your time using
the keyword "SEO" in Google (http://www.google.com/search?q=seo&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)
in a regular web search, but the results for such a competitive
term tend to remain fairly static over time. An alternative would be to look at
what people are tagging as "SEO" at a
service like Del.ico.us (http://del.icio.us/seo). Here you are presented with an
entirely new list of pages that are (for the
most part) relevant to what you are looking for, and are certainly filled with
fresh, up-to-date information.
The information at a public bookmarking service is not necessarily always going
to be the most complete, but it is the information that web users, as a
collective unit, have determined to be worth visiting. In this way, public
bookmarking services are more effective than search engines in filtering out
which content is important, and which content is not worth reading (or even
outright spam).
Add the fact that these results are available in RSS form and you suddenly can
be presented with the hottest information on your topic that the web has to
offer. I personally subscribe to feeds that look at "Google", "Yahoo", "SEO",
and other topics that are relevant for my day to day life.
Obviously public bookmarking is not evolved enough for every industry. As it
stands now, most of the quality information that you can get through a service
like Del.icio.us relates to more technical fields, such as programming or
photography. But as more people bookmark their favorite sites, the more a
service like Del.icio.us will grow useful.
What Does This Have To Do With Yahoo! - And How Does It Help Me?
Traditionally, when there is a market that is worth exploring for traffic,
Yahoo! has been there. When Hotmail was released, Yahoo answered with their
email program. When Monster.com became popular, Yahoo acquired HotJobs. With
every major traffic generating innovation, Yahoo seems to get involved.
This raises the question - if Yahoo is content with remaining in second place in
the search market, and at the same time being active in the Web 2.0 market by
buying social bookmarking sites, launching their own social bookmarking service,
launching Yahoo! Answers, etc., shouldn't we as website owners look to these
services as a way to promote our businesses?
Everyone knows that you should optimize your website for the search engines, but
how many people take the time to optimize their websites for bookmarking
services? Not very many people consider trying to work their way up to the top
of these websites, but they are actually missing out on a significant source of
traffic.
Darren Rowse of ProBlogger (http://www.problogger.net/) talked about how much
traffic he received from getting to the front page of Del.ico.us (http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/01/06/7-ways-to-guarantee-getting-to-the-top-of-the-delicious-popular-page/).
In the end, he saw 8,000 visitors in one day from that front page exposure and
garnered a number of external links from it as well. Imagine just how much
traffic a website could receive by constantly being near the top on a website
like Del.ico.us.
Getting to the top of public bookmarking sites is not easy (just as SEO is not
easy), but the reward is significant. Unlike SEO, getting to the top of a public
bookmarking service is truly a viral way of marketing your website. Not only
will you receive the benefit of being exposed in a very public place, but those
who have put you there will talk about your website on their sites, and grow
your business virally.
Who knows - public bookmarking may just overtake traditional search as a source
for your traffic.
Interested in improving your website's market position?
Just complete our Request for Proposal Form
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Connecting
the customer with you is our goal by optimizing your website to the best
Keywords and Phrase people use to look for your goods and/or services. We
have the tools to determine what those words are by actually looking at what
people used.
We will tailor your website to rank higher in any search engine, but we
specialize in the biggest engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Our
Client's smile as they watch their website raise in search engine rankings
for the Keywords and Phrases that drive business to their virtual door!
the
Internet the work we have done to optimize your website for
the
best keywords and phrases in your market area will ensure they will find you
regardless whether they are using Google, Yahoo, MSN or any search engine! 