Yahoo Site Explorer Is It Worth It? Is It Different The Google's, Compare & Contrast...Should it be deployed... Options

[DJKay]

Hi Gang,

Hope you all are well.

We are currently optimized most profoundly towards Google. I know from years of testing that most of our sales come from folks who find us on Google. As a result, we are very focused on Google--web master tools, google base, knol, web analytics (we use others as well to make sure things are kosher), feedburner, etc. We don't advertise on MSN or Yahoo anymore because its just not worth the investment.

I am looking for opinions on Yahoo Site Explorer. I know it can be counted on for a better reading of backlinks, but what about other things. Anyone use it out there using it along with Google stuff? Your thoughts?

The reason I am asking the question is that we are a small company, our time is precious. We are a b to b technology company that has long sales cycles, so our focus is lead generation. Of course, Yahoo Site Explorer does not cost us anything, neither would MSN's comparable product. I am wondering if it would help us get a better handle on beefing up organic traffic from them.

Part of me is concerned that we are so google dependent for organic traffic, so I am thinking it may be worth it to try to develop more organic traffic from the other search engines. (we are getting some, but its not a huge 4% Y; 2% MSN)

Of course, I don't want to do this at the expense of our Google traffic which I know converts at a higher rate. I think it might be useful to focus some resource time just on Yahoo, but not a ton.

Your thoughts?

[adibranch]

you may be confusing something.. yahoo site explorer doesnt do anything, its just a reporting tool similar to google webmaster tools. You use it to submit your sitemaps, get site info, remove url's etc etc. It wont affect any rankings in either yahoo or google.
As a matter of course, if you're the type of person who uses google WMT, you'll also have a yahoo site explorer account and an MSN webmaster tools one for the same website. They all really do the same thing, ie give reports and tools..

With regards your traffic, your stats are fairly normal from the three search engines. As for trying to improve yahoo.. dont. This may cost you some google placings. Let it improve along with your google results, monitor it, but dont fret it, and think of it as a freebie (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[DJKay]

Hi,

I know that Yahoo site explorer and msn's similar product don't give you an advantage in terms of organic ranking.

If what you are saying is that my results are similar to other sites and that I will in a sense, cannibalize organic traffic from Google, what value does messing around with site explorer and msn's product really have? i.e. if your seeing the rankings of your kwps on yahoo & msn, what is the point?

Why should I spend time putting our site maps in there? It then means that I need to train my staff in it as well and get it on our regular work plan. (for example I have my web person regularly do broken link checks and regularly use web master tools to fix any 404 errors that are within our control). Do they offer better features? From the articles I have read, they are mostly the same.

It just does not seem to me to be of value if you are already optimized & focused via google. Thoughts appreciated here.

DJKay

[Jill]

Why should I spend time putting our site maps in there?

You shouldn't. You don't need to for google either. There's no advantage for the average site to do so.

[DJKay]

I did not think so, good! We are pretty busy. I appreciate the sounding board for validating my thinking. Thanks again.

DJKay

[mal4mac]

... I appreciate the sounding board for validating my thinking.

Jill never sounds board.

[rustybrick]

There has actually been some studies, both Google backed and non-Google backed, that show Sitemaps do actually make some what of a difference (not in ranking, but speed to crawl and index).

http://searchengineland.com/google-study-on-sitemaps-18200

I believe the other study was at http://www.seo-scientist.com/ but I cannot find it now.

[DJKay]

Sure, that makes sense. Our site is crawled pretty regularly. We have new content posted out every few days. Our site is over 14 years old and its pretty well indexed. All of our xml feeds are in the engines.

Like I said, can't see using the yahoo & msn tools...just a waste of time. And yes, I am sure that Jill is very busy and does not get bored.

Good article. Thanks, DJKay