Apologies for not blogging for quite a long while now. There’s been so much happening behind the scenes that I’ve not had the energy to then get on and write up blog posts too. However, all is not lost. Due to the fact that I have been very much hands on in the trenches so to speak, I’m still able to offer up some personal observations from my own experience about how things are panning out with regards to rankings in search and various other important matters that concern all of us as internet marketers.
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First off though and briefly. You may remember I wrote a post a few weeks back about shark fin soup. I read a long article in a local Malaysian paper just the other day which had me really pissed. No names to name here but fact is that folks are still totally ignorant and stuck up their own assess where animal cruelty is concerned. These particular individuals being interviewed in this article were indeed Chinese – wealthy Chinese from Hong Kong, who may be a different kettle of fish (pardon the pun) than other Chinese living in other countries (my girlfriend is Chinese so I had to take care how I worded that). And their main point was that westerners are too much in love with animals to realize the real truth behind the matter of shark fin soup. One very dumb assed lady went on to say how many fine health attributes shark fin soup offered and how she loved eating shark fin soup because it was a way of showing off her wealth. A restaurant owner in Hong Kong made it clear that although the demand for shark fin soup was dropping in Hong Kong because the younger generation were more aware of the negative side of it, its the westerners to be blamed for their lack of real knowledge behind what goes on when the sharks are being “harvested”. He went on to say that us as humans should be killing all these sharks or they would kill us. OMG! Are these people real?
Okay, before I blow up in a temper tantrum, onto other matters.
I’ve been studying my own rankings in Yahoo and Bing just a little more closely since writing up a post a while back about Yahoo Search using Bing software to perform internet searches from now. Not that there has been too much to study – I don’t appear to have many rankings in Bing or Yahoo.
However, one thing I have noticed is that Bing and Yahoo S do use the same meta as do Google, which will not come as any surprise to many people. With Google, if you are using WordPress as your platform of choice, you can use plugins such as All in One SEO and Platinum SEO to enter the meta that you want to show up when people are searching. The meta being the sentence or two that you enter into the box just below where you write your post. This is very important actually because many folks do read that part before clicking through to your website. So its worth making an effort with. In Bing and Yahoo S, they use the same meta – about 25 words in all, which is about 160 characters, which is the same as Google. This does not mean you have to use all 160 characters. I think that many people make this mistake – its far better to make the meta short, punchy and highly relevant. If you can do that in 130 characters, then that’s great!
Another thing I have noticed is that for sure – Bing and Yahoo S are ranking exact match domains (emd’s) like Google do – fairly fast and high too. In fact, I would go so far as to say that B and Yahoo S appear to be putting more emphasis on the exact match domain. Having said that however, I have some emd’s that are ranking well in Google and not well in B and Yahoo S. I don’t know why that is, but these domains are fairly new so maybe they need a bit more time.
On another point however, I have noticed that Bing and Yahoo S are actually ranking webpages faster than previously. For example, I purchased an exact match domain about 6 weeks ago and its already ranking top page – about 9th, in Bing, albeit not in Yahoo where it is mid second page. Its a fairly competitive niche – well okay, not overly competitive. But put it this way, I’ve been backlinking to this website every day now for the past 6 weeks (albeit gently) and although the emd is rising nicely in Google, its still just outside top 10 ranking (11th today). Where in Bing its in 9th. This appears to be something new because Bing used to be much slower than Google when ranking new websites. It appears they are catching up.
Something else I have noticed. Bing and Yahoo S appear to rank keyword rich domain names more quickly than do Google. By keyword rich I mean using a combination of keywords that make up your top keyword phrase – the one you want to rank for most. Thus for example – say my top keyword phrase was “jelly fish aquariums”. That is not going to be available as a dot com, dot net or dot org domain name. So I may choose this: www.jellyfishaquariumsonline.com
If I had this domain in Google it appears that it would take quite some time to rank and it would not react like an exact match domain name which still gets faster rankings in search than does a non emd. But it would appear that in Bing and Yahoo S, they rank it almost as if it were an emd. Now I cannot say this and be 100% sure but yesterday I found that a domain I am currently trying to rank in Google is ranking well in Yahoo and Bing. In fact, this term gets over 22k global searches a month according to Google stats and its in a hotly contested niche. This particular web page is now ranking 4th in both Bing and Yahoo S (dancing a bit this morning but still top 10) while its trailing down mid 3rd page or so in Google. Very interesting indeed!
What about search numbers and how to they pan out in comparison to Google?
Well, again I don’t have too much experience as of yet so this is just going on a couple of sites that I have been analyzing stats for. It does look like Bing does for sure receive just under a quarter of the search that Google does. I’m not sure about Yahoo S as of yet. Thus if Google are receiving 67% of market share in terms of searchers using Google to perform a search, then Bing do indeed appear to be sitting around the 14 to 16% mark. If you combine that with Yahoo (sometimes rankings in Yahoo S are exactly the same as in Bing) then we can presume that this would tally up to currently around the 30% mark of market share. Still not nearly as high as Google but its still a decent amount of searches going on, particularly with highly searched terms.
Another thing I have been noticing with both Yahoo S and Bing is that they are placing more emphasis on ranking article directory submissions than what I noticed before – a lot more! So again, we are looking at ezinearticles (which still seems to have lost some favor with Google) and Buzzle.com and ehow articles. I’ve often seen all 3 of these ranking in top ten in both Yahoo S and Bing where for the same search in Google they are no-where to be seen.
I don’t know about you but this is enough for me to pay more attention to both Bing and Yahoo Search. They appear to be playing a more predictable game than previously. Its still too early to be absolutely sure about much of what I have discussed here so some of it is conjecture. But if indeed what I am seeing is factual then it means that we as SEO “artists” and internet marketers have much more to work with than in previous times when it was for sure much more of a guessing game to get the rankings than it was in Google. Google has been much more predictable than that of Yahoo Search and Bing, at least until now.
Now all that remains is to watch Bing and Yahoo Search market share grow and grow which it appears to be doing slowly but surely.
What’s coming up?
I shall be discussing more about the projects that I have been involved in and intend to get involved in. One of those is about a young man who is full time at college. About 14 months ago he came to me when I was doing the Warrior Forum challenge and said that he needed help real bad because he had spent all his money on a glossy website (in the dating niche of all things, which is so highly competitive it would make your eyes water) that he had no cash left to get traffic to his site. And his site was dying a death because no one was finding it. How often have you heard that sort of thing? Anyways, to cut a long story short. Roll forward 14 months and this young man told me the other day that he hopes to sell the same site for upwards of $200,000 US dollars in the next 2 to 3 months because he’s managed to get some really good rankings.
More on that and a number of other things which are equally as exciting to come!
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{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
I have started targeting top page searches on Bing after I heard Bing will be integrated with Xbox 360. I have also found out it is easier to rank on the front page with Bing and Yahoo, why I do not know,
That’s interesting Rory. Bing and Yahoo S are less inclined to have your webpages penalized for fairly small infractions of the “law” so to speak, where Google will jump on you from a great height if they sniff you out as being one who does not wish to play their game on their terms and conditions. Those high rankings I mentioned in the post here – they were short lived unfortunately. What seems to have brought them about is some blog comments that went viral (due to a plugin used on some of the sites that were commented upon, apparently)and thus provided for a small avalanche of backlinks to the site for that particular kwd phrase. In Google the rankings have not moved a single slot – up or down. But in Bing and Yahoo S, as mentioned, they were both ranking the same page on the same site at number 4, which came from no where. This fairly typifies things when you compare what you can do with Bing and Yahoo S in comparison to Google – they are far more forgiving for any transgressions and far more lenient in providing you high rankings for really bombing your site with tons of backlinks.
Thanks for your comment Rory!
Joseph
Its worth noting that indexing in Google is still far faster than in Bing and Yahoo Search. Take for example this post. Its already indexed in Google and ranking top spot for the title – within 12 hours (probably a lot less). But its still not indexed in either Yahoo Search or Bing.
Great to read your post and hear from you again. Also, it’s great that you only post when you’ve got something good to say.
Weather is still pooh over here for a scouser living in shropshire.
That bad infact, that we’re thinking of moving over to where you are
I’ve started noticing that Bing’s results are almost identical to google’s especially if the competition isn’t great. But, I think almost everyone in the UK uses google.
Cheers for now, John
Hey John, yes – I’m a guy who only speaks when there is something worthy of speaking about
I hear that its become cold again over in the UK on the whole. Same old story really – summer lasts for all of about 3 weeks and you never know which weeks its going to land on. Mind you, here in Malaysia its too hot to do much through the day other than stay in doors so you are limited to going out before 8am and after about 7pm at night.
I like using Bing when I remeber because they have those stunning photos on the search page
Hope business is doing well for you John!
Joseph
If that wasn’t enough there is another search engine out of europe with an enormous viewership (especially in Russia) that is competing with Google, Bing & Yahoo.
http://www.yandex.com/
The way that they rank sites is even more interesting. They have a group of people that try to figure out what type of sites people want to see most in a certain niche. Then they set the algorithm so that the sites which are most like the one that they designed will rank highest.
Tom
Hey Tom, yes – yandex.com – sounds a very interesting way to progress regards to ranking sites.
Then there is the Chinese one – baidu.com I have no idea how that one works though, but it seems good old Google want a large slice of that pie whilst the Chinese authorities are trying their best to keep them out! No doubt good ol’ Googie will find a way – they always do in the end.
Was dancing around all over the place Chris but I’m seeing us back in at 4th place in both Yahoo Search and Bing. Very good going for a highly searched kwd phrase such as this one, is what I say!
Hi Joseph,
glad to hear from you again. I was missing your stories
I know Yahoo and Bing are very far from Google but at some point the online market and the marketers will have to expand beyond Google. I mean, Google is doing what Microsoft did in the beginning: acting like a monopoly. And internet geeks don’t like monopolies at all.
Currently we all play Google’s game because it’s the best deal for us. But if they keep “bullying” the people in the business, new ways will arise. It will take time though.
Enough ranting.
I’m looking forward to hearing more about that dating site.
Cristina
Cristina – stories?? LOL! Stories indeed my dear!
Back in the day it was all about Yahoo Search, but those days are somewhat long-ish gone. You kinda think that with Microsoft’s massive clout and their obvious real desire, its only a matter of time before both Bing and Yahoo eat up a big chunk more of the share that Goog currently dominates. But as Tom said in a previous comment – there is the likes of Yandex to think about, Baidu in China and I think Majestic SEO are building up their own search engine – if memory serves me well enough. With all this real tough competition around, I doubt that the US government will ever have to step in to break up the monopoly that at one time not so long ago Google appeared to be gaining. Nevertheless, you make good points and its going to be interesting to see what materializes here.
The dating site. Its merely been a case of focusing in on what was originally wanted – high rankings for a number of kwd phrases. The gent in question (Scott) managed to stike up a deal with a fellow internet marketer who had specialist knowledge in the dating field (which happened just before we were going to do a joint venture together using the same website – bummer!!). I’ll post up news of that as and when there is any – he said he wanted to sell within 2 to 3 months time. Its my opinion (unvoiced) that he should hold on for a bit longer and pump the rankings that much more. Seems to me that just a few higher rankings in this niche could be make the difference of a good few thousand here and there.
Catch up with you in a bit Cristina!
I like your “Stories from Asia”
Maybe the US authorities won’t do anything against Google. I was more thinking about the competition eating a big bite of the cake and therefore offering new ways to do business.
Maybe I’m the only one who thinks it’s insane that hundreds of marketers fight for the three first positions on Google for every keyword (not even that when Wikipedia or Amazon are in the game).
Eventually there will be a saturation.
Oh, those stories. I have a few of those to tell but not enough time to write up.
It is insane Cristina, I agree and it just keeps getting tougher to get to the top. But at the same time, as a (very) general rule, the pickings are getting to be richer too as more and more people come online and more and more people spend money online too. But yes – there has to be better ways cos it does seem kinda dumb when you think about it for while. But let’s take supermarkets for example – in the offline world. They all squabble against each other too – cut pricing and snapping up property in various countries in order to beat out their compeition for prime spot. In some ways you could argue its the same, and they’ve been doing that for a much longer time than in the online world. Makes good sense to figure the far less saturated markets – foreign languages, or domain names that pertain to other countries such as dot ca, dot au, or dot my for example. Still will have to fight a bit, but its a whole lot easier if you have any wherewithal.
Supermarkets have more chances because there are different strategies. For example, they can offer a good customer-oriented service with high range of prices targetting people with medium-high income or they can offer lower customer service standards and therefore afford lower prices for people with less income of big families.
You can’t do that on Google’s rat race. Your strategy is not customer-oriented but “Google-oriented” and based on your product itself, not on your product’s quality.
It’s true that there are more people spending money online every day, but doesn’t make any difference for those who are not in the first page of Google because the “new customers” are funneled instantly to the 3 first websites on the ranking.
Sorry for the rants
“with less income of big families” is wrong. I meant “less income or big families”
Cristina, here was me thinking I was the main culprit on this blog for ranting against Googlitis – I welcome your rants, believe me!
Wow, Joseph, look what I just saw (I wasn’t looking for it):
http://www.techspot.com/news/44393-ftc-preparing-broad-antitrust-probe-against-google-.html
Cristina,
this comes as very good news cos there is no doubt in most internet marketing minds and other’s besides that Goog do abuse their advertising ability. Just by reading some of the SEObook posts by Aron Wall (I believe it is) shows you that time and again Google are pouring huge resources into doing so. I remember a few months ago they (Google) purchased an insurance type website which had apparently gained its rankings by using tons of spammy backlinking methods and was thus very, very highly profitable. There was a huge outcry among its competitors in that niche and Google were forced to take the site out of the search results. No doubt its back now though because Google found a way around the problem. That’s merely one example of very many. Perhaps slightly off topic but perhaps not – they were set to use this site as a basic foundation for pouring advertising revenue into AdWords.
On another note, your points over the past couple of days about all this stuff regards that its all about ranking top 3 and not much else has made me think more about it (although it is something I do ponder from time to time and I wonder whether it really makes sense to be working in SEO). I was watching Wimbledon last night and thinking about what you had said and comparing. And I was thinking that to get to the very top of tennis or any other sport you have to be the best in your game. Is it not the same here in Google you might ask? Well, I guess maybe not because there are many under-hand tactics being used that Google (the big boss) seemingly turns a blind eye to – in the big niches anyhow, such as credit cards and insurance among others. I mean, let’s take the top ranking site for car insurance which has a massive 823,000 global searches a month (exact) and the AdSense for that is 32.25 UK pounds, which would be around 50 US dollars. Of that amount the website owner would get around 15 dollars for a single click. Imagine if the click through rate was 10%.
Let’s presume the site at the top gets 40% of all searches being made for this kwd phrase in Google. That would equate to an income of around $495,000 US a month! Half a million dollars a month from one keyword phrase!!. Now you have to wonder just how far people would go to secure that top spot, don’t you. I can’t believe its all about survival of the fittest here, not when this sort of money is at stake. Makes you wonder what’s going on behind the scenes…
Thanks for sharing this news Cristina – well worth monitoring the progress!
Jo
Hi Joseph!
I was beginning to worry about you! Thought you had fallen off the face of the planet. =)
The article you mentioned about shark fin soup, yeah, that would have me fuming, too. Overwhelming ignorance is, well, overwhelming!
Delena
Hey Delena, my feet are still very much planted firmly on the ground
Yes, the shark fin soup article was – well, rather pathetic to say the least! I wish I had the time to reply to it at length but other matters are in need of my attention. The pet shop where I purchased my cat – the lady owner is in all honesty, only interested in lining her pockets, both at the animals that she sells expense and also the customer. I’m trying to find the right authorities to provide for her come-uppance, and in a sense its like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack here in Kuching. Someone told me that I should write to the national papers about it because many people in Kuching recognize her as a wheeler dealer but no one has bothered to try to take action against her. Problem being there that I could end up in court for ruining her business. And that’s contrary to my current reputation – Joseph the business builder as opposed to Joseph the business wrecker, LOL!
Will keep you updated on progress.
Joseph
This whole sharks fin soup issue just reminds me of how easily people are corrupted by power and money. It becomes easy to forget about how important it is to do the right thing.
As far as your Yahoo and Bing rankings, I’m sure you are not too worried about that, seeing as how they still don’t have the traffic volumes as Google.
Joseph,
Very glad to see a new post. I was also starting to get worried about you.
I recently got sand boxed by Google for a new site that was ranking on the first page for a competitive keywords after only a month. My traffic was great, but then I got sand boxed.
Fortunately I am ranking #1 on both Yahoo and Bing for my primary keyword. Yahoo and Bing bring in only 25% of my traffic. So the sand boxing is hurting me a lot.
I have no idea how to get out of the sand box, and everything I have read says all you can do is wait.. What are your thoughts on this? Some people say they don’t even believe in the sand box.
If you are looking for ideas to post about I would love to read your thought and methods of getting around and out of the sand box.
Best regards,
Mark
Hey Nick, thanks for your comment!
Yes – power and money says it all really. Greed really does push the “who cares, because I don’t” attitude. The saving grace right now is that the younger generation appear to be more aware than the oldies who could really care less. Again, it comes down to education.
Yahoo and Bing. I have one significant ranking right now in Bing in particular – I think my page is in 5th in Bing search. It gets about 10 uniques a day from that which is pretty lowly really but click through is around 11% on the site and the average cost per click is around $1.10, so that’s an extra $34 a month from Bing here. Let’s presume the average Bing searcher is similar in nature to the average Google searcher. That would mean if I managed to get top spot for this kwd phrase in Bing, I’d be seeing around 80 uniques a day which would possibly equate to around $264 a month, so not to be sniffed at. I suspect if I had a top ranking in Yahoo (its currently in about 11th in US Yahoo I believe) then that would probably double up the haul. The same kwd phrase is ranking around 50th in Google so its obvious to see that what works in Bing and Yahoo does not necessarily work in Google too well.
Hi Mark, ah – no need to worry, I’m still banging away at the keyboard day in and day out
Sorry to hear about your “sandboxing” after ranking so high so fast – that must have come as quite a blow to you. I just sold a site that is 6 weeks old and had a number of top 10 and top 15 rankings in Google – buyer beware as they say
Actually, no – I trust this site will stick and will indeed get higher rankings over the coming weeks and months if the buyer knows his SEO. Reason for sale? It was not converting on AdSense as well as I would have liked is about all, but there is also potential for affiliate stuff which may do far better than AdSense and I just did not want to take the time to fiddle around with all of that.
Some people say they don’t believe in the “sandbox” – okay then – let’s call this effect something else – penalizing. I believe in it because its happened to me too often not to.
Rather than write a post on it Mark, I can give you some ideas here – and its not just based on my experience – a friend of mine who got hit by Google because he went too fast and too strong on the backlinking a bit too soon, managed to get his site re-ranking within about 5 weeks. Not higher than before but still on first page for his main kwd phrase. He just sold the site for $1,200. The key here being that although he bitched about it a whole lot (as we all do), he never gave up on the backlinking and just slowed it down.
What were his main backlinking types? It probably does not overly matter, unless you are using spammy stuff such as mass forum profile links which could keep your site penalized for ever and a day (even though Matt Cutts previously denied that).
Article directory submissions still work well regardless all the doom-sayers. BMR posting for sure works well, at least for a while. The old 40 Day Challenge methods work very well here too – using a very strong set of buffers to gently backlink to your site.
What else do I use? I am in the process of using a service which I’ll discuss more about soon in a blog post. That uses more of the higher Google PR type links and less of them. I use Article Marketing Robot a lot these days, but keep the article submissions on drip feed over a period of weeks to even months. UAW would give the same effect as AMR here. I am also using social bookmarking again after a fairly long lay-off. Its a great way to mix up your backlinking. There’s a tool called Link Juicer which can work exceedingly well – you can read my review of that tool here…
http://www.josepharchibald.com/a-seriously-cool-tool-for-wannabe-backlinking-cheats
I’m using that again and seeing some good effect with some rankings, but also safe in the knowledge that even where its not getting me great rankings its still providing a very useful service for my sites on the whole because it strengthens the variety of backlinks – it backlinks to backlinks, if you will.
Its really a case of not giving up on a site which appears to be “sand-boxed”. Keep on linking to it, but slow up and steer clear of spammy linking. Also, if you enjoy blog commenting and can deal with the fact that quite a few of your comments will never show up, its good practice to try to get some comments from what Google see as high authority sites (high PR) within your own niche. Yes, I know that links from sites outwith your own niche work too, but I think that links from sites within your own niche are quite a bit better.
Facebook style “Likes” are good, and getting Twitter “Likes” or whatever you call them are good even though its no-follow for both. I personally never do well on those even on this blog, but it may do for you if you enjoy using Twitter and FB.
And I do believe that the rel-no-follow type of backlinks are actually good for helping rankings these days too – in Goog as well as Bing and Yahoo.
There you have it Mark – hope this helps and I’m sure it will!
Joseph
Joseph,
Thanks a lot.. that does help.
I was wondering if I should still be building back links or not while I am being “penalized”.
I will admit that being sandboxed has really eaten away at my motivation.
I got ranking so fast by using your 40 day method and having an exact match domain. However I think maybe I got a little carried away with ARM and built links too fast.
Thanks Again for the advise and words of encouragement
Mark
Hey Mark – yes, I’ve heard this happen time and time again when people get going with AMR. Its a very powerful tool and its easy just to boot all the submissions out in one go. Obviously this is a bad idea if your site is fairly new or is lacking in backlinks – you’ve seen the consequences yourself. Best to drip feed the articles day to day safe in the knowledge that by doing so you will be making far better progress than you would if you send all the submissions out too soon. But yes – keep on backlinking to your site and try to dig deep where the motivation is concerned – by doing so you will for sure be rewarded. If you try to see this as all part of the process of achieving top flight rankings it can make the grind that bit easier to bear.
Best wishes Mark!
Joseph
Great post, you have pointed out some superb details, I will tell my friends that this is a very informative blog thanks.
Thanks for your feedback Online Ged. I wonder – what is a “Ged”?
Hi again Joseph,
I have a question. If I’m not wrong, when you get backlinks too fast you might get “sandboxed”, penalized or similar, right?
Then your competitors could build backlinks to your site like crazy (spamming mode) in order to put your site in the sandbox.
Does this make any sense or am I telling you a sci-fi story lol?
Cristina
“SEO Queen” (yeah, right!)
Hey Cristina, what’s happening…
Matt Cutts – the Google guy, actually discussed this in public at some length a couple of years or so ago. And what he said was that the type and number of backlinks you get to any domain would not harm it in any way because you can get spammers hitting your domain real hard – or your competitors for that matter. However, this is far from the truth. And for obvious reasons. If you have a fresh out of the box domain and you hit it hard with backlinks you will be penalized by Google, where in Yahoo and Bing, you will very possibly be rewarded.
Yes, your competitors can put your site in “sandbox”, but fact of the matter is, if its a domain you really care about, you can bring it out of there fairly quickly. If its a new domain and you have the name of it hidden (its free to do that in NameCheap) then you should be safe from this type of behaviour.
Take care, SEO Queen!
J
a Ged is a High School Equivalent in the US. It is actually called a G. E. D. with each letter being pronounced. There are many classes that offer it and many study guides you can use to study up for it. It is a way for people who dropped out of High School to finish up there education or get back into education and continue on after it. Many colleges will accept a High School education or GED.