I'll admit it - I'm a snow wimp. I took one look out my window this morning at the five frozen inches in the street and called the WebPro offices to say I wasn't coming into work. Once I got my car scraped off I started feeling peppy though, and I'm glad I came in because I've got a fantastic issue for you today.

We open with an article by Dan Thies who tells you the low down on Yahoo. They made some serious changes a little less than two months ago, and our SEO friend has some thoughts now that he's seen the results of their decision. Read closely - this is a search engine story everyone should know about.

Inktomi, who at my last reckoning supplied secondary results to MSN, Excite, and Overture, is a mysterious little engine. Read "All About Inktomi" if you'd like to know more about this lesser-known search engine.

I found an article in PCWorld that claims that almost 93% of shoppers use Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL searches to find what they're looking for online. If you'd like to learn more, read Four Key Sites Direct Most E-Shoppers.

I hope you find this issue useful.

Garrett

Is A Yahoo Listing Still Worth The Cost?
By Dan Thies

In October 2002, the Yahoo! portal changed the way it delivers search results. In the past, the most prominent results were exclusively culled from websites listed in the Yahoo directory itself. Since October, sites listed in the Yahoo directory no longer enjoy this privileged status.

The Google search engine now drives the primary search results on Yahoo. While this is certainly an improvement for users of Yahoo search, it's a disaster for many businesses that counted on their Yahoo listing to deliver substantial traffic.

Controlling Search Engine Spiders Whatever your reason is for wanting to keep the spiders under control, the best way to do so, by far, is to use a "robots.txt" file on your website. Click here.

This change has also led many site owners to question the value of a listing in the Yahoo directory. In this article, I will outline the pros and cons of maintaining, or paying for, a Yahoo listing. In the process, I will delve into more details of the recent changes.

Argument #1: Yahoo Listings Mean Link Popularity

Pro: Even if the Yahoo listing itself delivers little or no traffic, other search engines will rank your website higher if it's listed in Yahoo. Because Yahoo is so important, a link from Yahoo counts more than a regular link. Thanks to its higher "PageRank," Yahoo means even more to Google.

Con: Yahoo listings do not deliver nearly as significant a contribution in this area as you might think. You can verify this by doing a "backward links" search on Google for any Yahoo-listed website. The most important links are listed first, and the Yahoo listing is rarely even on the first page of links for top ranked sites on Google.

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Argument #2: Listed Sites Look Better In The Search Results

Pro: Websites with a Yahoo listing show up in the combined Yahoo/Google results with their title, description, and category from the Yahoo directory. This may boost the response when the site appears in the search results. This applies when the URL listed in the results is the same as the URL in the Yahoo listing.

Con: Results listed with Yahoo information include a link to the site's category, which may prompt surfers to pass over your listing and go to the category. Sites without Yahoo listings have the more inviting "search within this site" link, which leads to more results exclusively from your site.
Read the Full Article Here

All About Inktomi
By Jim Watson

Inktomi is a behind the scenes search engine, powering some of the largest
search services on the web, including MSN, Looksmart, About, and others, as
well as a number of regional heavyweights. Dozens of other
major web sites use Inktomi Enterprise Search to power their on-site
search engine.

In short, Inktomi is a major player in the web search arena, despite its
low profile, operating largely behind the scenes...
Click here to read more

Name: Beth Mares
Name of your company: Mares Educational and Consulting Services

What's your web site's competitive edge?
People like it because it answers practical questions and hard questions that are often neglected in favour of feel-good airy-fairy stuff.

Why do you read WebProNews?
To make sure our website remains accessible via the search engines.

URL: www.psychotherapists.ca

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