Member Avatar for Dani

I have pretty good rankings in google for my keywords. I have a lot of pages spidered by google and a good number of backlinks using my keywords of choice as anchor text. However, I'm still having a problem getting good rankings in Yahoo!, MSN, and Overture. I was always under the impression that the same general criteria (backlinks, etc.) played a similar role in all of the engines. What can be done to raise my rankings in the non-google engines? TIA!

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Dani AI

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This thread dates from 2004 but the problem you describe is timeless: engines can reward different signals, so strong Google visibility does not guarantee the same placement in other engines. Given ’s description, treat this as three parallel tracks to work through — on‑page relevance, technical discovery/indexing, and link signals — and prioritize the ones that are fastest to test. Bing’s current guidance lists relevance, quality/credibility, user engagement, freshness, location and page speed as key signals to consider. (Bing — How Bing ranks your content). (bing.com)

A compact, practical on‑page checklist (fast wins, useful across engines):

  • one unique, descriptive <title> per page with the primary phrase early;
  • a clear H1 that matches user intent;
  • short, helpful meta description (for CTR);
  • one focused topic per page with useful, original text (avoid thin/duplicate pages);
  • human‑friendly URLs and internal links that use varied, natural text;
  • add structured data where it genuinely helps presentation.

These are canonical best practices from Google’s SEO Starter Guide and apply broadly. (Google SEO Starter Guide). (developers.google.com)

Technical items that commonly explain engine differences: verify and use webmaster tools, submit an XML sitemap, check robots.txt and canonical tags, fix crawl errors, ensure HTTPS and reasonable page speed, and confirm mobile friendliness. For Bing you can submit sitemaps and watch indexing reports; for both Bing and Google use their consoles to inspect URLs and review coverage. (Bing Sitemaps guidance, Google Search docs). (blogs.bing.com)

Link work and measurement: focus on earning relevant, editorial links from sites in your niche and keep anchor text varied — avoid mass, automated or paid link schemes (Google will act against link schemes). Use Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to track impressions, clicks, crawl errors and backlink sources; iterate on the pages that have good impressions but low CTR or high bounce (title/snippet or UX fixes often move multiple engines). For faster indexing in Bing consider their submission/indexing options. (Google on link spam, Bing Webmaster Tools overview). (developers.google.com)

Summary: run the on‑page checklist, verify indexing and sitemaps, then build a small number of high‑quality, relevant links and measure. Small, measurable changes (titles, meta, one improved page) are the fastest way to test whether a particular engine is responding to a change.

Recommended Answers

All 13 Replies

Member Avatar for mikeandike22

Yeah in google when i search my site the link i posted about my site here comes up but in msn your site does not show up as relevant at all.

Member Avatar for Dani

I guess I just always figured that if you try for the google rankings, the others will just naturally follow. But now I'm stuck and willing to invest in non-google SEO - I just don't know what I'm doing wrong or where to start.

Member Avatar for mikeandike22

yeah msn is probbaly going to be the new thing. I think that which ever engine (google or msn) comes out with some of the services that yahoo offers like geocities then they will come out on top

Member Avatar for dazzlindonna

Look to your on-page optimization. That may be what is lacking.

Member Avatar for mnemtsas

Yahoo (and the old MSN which I think uses the yahoo engine) focus much more on on-page optimization rather than themed anchor text links.

Member Avatar for Scribbller

Besides yahoo is reluctant to add sites which do not pay them to be placed. Moost of the sites on yahoo are the ones which were added quite a while back.

Member Avatar for Dani

Well I am definitely in Yahoo's index. If I do a search for keywords that are specific to my site, i.e. "daniweb" or "computer i.t. forum" then I rank #1. But other than those two, I have yet to see myself rank for anything at all. :(

Member Avatar for Antonbomb22

yeah i do personally feel MSN and Yahoo do not play the ranking game fairly by putting those who dish out money to be #1 then those who truely deserve it

Member Avatar for harishankar

Google definitely seems to be the best ranking system. No coincidence that google is also the most popular search engine today.

Yahoo! and MSN, in my opinion are not playing fair. It's very obvious when you search for your website even by its name and it doesn't show at all in their search.

Member Avatar for TheGunOwner

I know MSN is much more orientated to anchor text.

Member Avatar for Scribbller

Well msn is still in beta stages so you can only hope that by the time final comes out they will have a better ranking algorithm but from the look of things google sieems to be the best bet. Yahoo can bring you alot of good targetted traffic but in small volume.

Member Avatar for CompRev1

hello,
new to the boards here, but have been reading posts here for awhile and have learned alot. I started a computer company last year and have been doing great and i am trying to expand towards the internet more but having troubles finding my site in the search engines. Well tell me what you think, still have some tweaking to do but its getting there.

www.computerrevolutions.com

thanks,
Travis

Member Avatar for seobook

msn and yahoo are actually far easier to do seo for than google is.

msn is like candy from a baby right now. bulk low quality links from a wide variety of sites using mixed keyword rich anchor text links really helps you do well in MSN and Yahoo!.

I usually register new sites at about 100 directories. plus you can ask some of your buddies who are linking to you to use better anchor text and the like too

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