Yahoo Search Ranking Factors

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One of my site is ranking well in Google search engine from last few years. But the same site could not make it into Yahoo top 100 for the same keyword(s). I have always used the regular SEO methods and have focused more on the Google side to optimize my site.

But, around 3 months back I thought of optimizing my site for yahoo as well, so that I can get a good ranking there. My work for the last 3 months has paid me back. I am able to achieve the top 5 ranking from my keywords in Yahoo.

So, what did I do to get my site up in Yahoo SERPs? I am not going to put them exactly on what I did, but I am going to put down some general Yahoo SERP guidelines, which in my opinion, works for Yahoo SEO. Let me call them “Yahoo Search Ranking Factors.”

Correct HTML - Yahoo puts more emphasis on correct HTML. So make sure your site is W3C compliant.
Fresh Content - Yahoo likes fresh content more than Google. So, make sure you are regularly (at-least one a week) updating your site.
More Links From Yahoo Sites Try to get more links from Yahoo sites like Yahoo directory, Yahoo buzz, Yahoo answers, Mybloglog, Delicious.com etc. Google is “just” a search engine while Yahoo is a full fledged portal. Yahoo loves links from its own sites.
Yahoo uses meta keywords tags for categorization of your site. Yahoo says that they do not use meta keywords for ranking, but I have seen my site ranking for a misspelling of my keywords on Yahoo just because while writing my keywords I added a misspelling. So, I don’t agree on that Yahoo.
Yahoo gives more weightage to on-site SEO factors like title, headings, keyword-in-domain etc., than Google.
Yahoo prefers a keyword density little higher than Google. Proper heading & structures are required too.
Links from article directories like articlemarketer.com, isnare.com, ezinearticles.com etc. seems to have mattered more.
More weightage to age of the site than Google.
Yahoo considers click-popularity also in SERPs.
Your category in yahoo directory also matters.