A lot of the work I am completing lately – for myself and for clients – is revealing interesting differences between the top search engines. The big daddy engines, of course, are Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Strangely, each of these search powerhouses responds very differently to new, existing, and updated websites. Here are some of my most recent observations…
Google, as we all know, is the master search engine. With the majority of search hits daily, these guys dominate the search marketing world and most of what you hear about in terms of strategy and keyword targeting is based around making the Google algorithm happy.
These days, Google’s requirements for high page rank (the number or value it assigns to your website and individual webpages) is much more stringent than ever before. Still, PR is something a lot of us do not understand. With little transparency on Google’s part, the question of how to rank high is still largely a mystery although a number of factors are of obvious importance – quality links, quality content, and long-term presence.
On the Yahoo and MSN side, the rules seem to behave much differently. Some of the projects I have worked on recently have had surprising and seemingly inconsistent results in these Google counterparts. One website, for example, miraculously appeared right at the top of MSN for a target keyword without any explanation or clear reason. Very strange.
MSN has a network of tools available on its website, which I highly recommend. These are a nice complement to the Google tools we all recognize and use so often already. Like Google, there is very likely a strong connection between the tools MSN offers and its expectations for high ranking values.
This conversation of “how to get top search rankings for my website” is nothing new and will likely go on for a long time to come. If I have anything unique to add (or at least semi-unique) it’s to say that regular content seems to make a tremendous difference in my work. Google’s primary concern (and the other search engines will follow suit) is and always has been content. Sure, links and on-site optimization is important, but those elements seem to be increasingly arbitrary in the fight for SERPs.
I am a firm believer that the greatest investment of time for the best ROI in website development – whether for your business website or your affiliate marketing system – is always going to be in creating more on-site content.
