By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2011-01-26 11:52:47 | Word Count: 664
In the last few months it was announced that Bing and Yahoo have joined forces, and now Bing will be providing information for Yahoo’s search results. So, what does that mean for SEO? Does it mean you should change your overall SEO strategy to accommodate the union? Not necessarily. Remember that even with their powers combined, they still hold less than half the market share that Google does. So, if your site is ranking fairly well in a Google search index you may want to take the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it approach.
What Does it Mean?
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Just because Bing is providing information for Yahoo’s search indexes, doesn’t mean everything. Yahoo can still do whatever they want with the information once they have it. That means adding little tweaks like NASDAQ tickers or social media links, or basically whatever Yahoo deems relevant to your search.
That means that the two search indexes won’t really look all that similar. They each add their own flair when it comes to a results page, and they each have their own way of providing users with information. Just because a partnership has been born doesn’t mean they’re Siamese twins now.
However, their rankings should appear a bit more similar moving forward. Yahoo will shift to utilize more of Bing’s algorithms, and the listings will probably be fairly close when it comes to which organic links fall where.
Why is it Important?
The partnership basically means a bigger market share for the two companies. They’re taking a larger piece of the pie away from Google. This means more businesses should stand up and take notice of them, and perhaps stop specifically targeting Google. At least that is their ideal scenario.
When it comes to SEO, depending on your existing traffic you may see an increase or decrease in numbers. For example, if you’re already ranking high in a Bing search index, you should see an increase in traffic to your site. However, if you’re ranking high in a Yahoo search index, you may see a decline in traffic.
But, resist the urge to make any drastic changes. As with all organic SEO data, you should wait until you have a good amount of data before proceeding.
Additionally, changes that may be detrimental to your Google campaign should be carefully considered. For example, longer URLs may hurt you in a Bing search index, but don’t necessarily matter in a Google search index. So, if you shorten things up would that mean you’d be losing your Google market share? And is that something you can afford to do?
Overall though, the algorithms for both Bing and Google are growing more similar all the time. So, odds are if you’re ranking well for one, you’ll probably be ranking fairly well for the other. That means down the line you shouldn’t have to cater your SEO campaign as much specifically to Bing, Yahoo or Google. Clearly, you won’t rank number one on all the sites, but the differences in rankings should be smaller.
Moving forward, your SEO strategy should most likely continue to target Google. That way you’ll attract the larger market share, as well as rank fairly well on Bing and now Yahoo.
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Click here to read the rest of Bing Powers Yahoo’s Search. If you enjoyed this article, you also might like our other stories about SEO 2010.
