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SEO For The Big Three
By Dave Davies (c) 2005

Ranking your website highly on one of the "big three" search
engines (Google, Yahoo or MSN) is a daunting task let alone
ranking your website highly on all three. Three engines, three
algorithms, three different sets of rules - and yet there are
websites out there that have first page rankings across them all
– how do they do it?

While all of the major search engines use different algorithms,
the end goal of all three is the same: to provide the searcher
with the most relevant results available. It is this one common
thread that makes it possible for an SEO to rank a website
highly across all the major engines. While there are a variety
of factors at play and an even wider variation in the weight
each of these factors are given – the possible variations that
can produce relevant results are limited.

For example, if inbound links are given 0% weight then
insignificant sites will rank highly for high-competition
phrases. Many reputable companies such as Microsoft could lose
rankings for their own names so links must and will always hold
value. On the other hand, if links were to hold 100% weight
then sp@mming the search engines would be a simple matter and so
there are a limited number of possible variables in between
these extremes that this factor can have, no matter which engine
we are optimizing for.

That said, there are still three main engines with three
distinct algorithms despite common requirements. To clarify how
to optimize for all of them it's easiest to discuss them
individually first. Due to the way their algorithms work, it
is best to expect rankings on MSN first, followed by Yahoo! and
finally Google (I am assuming that the phrase is at least
moderately competitive). For this reason, we will discuss them
individually in that order.

SEO for MSN

Proper SEO for MSN requires that a site be structured well with
a distinct theme throughout and many inbound links. The
advantage an SEO has while optimizing a site for MSN is that MSN
tends to pick up and credit new content and inbound links very
quickly. That means that with the right tactics in place, one
can rank a website relatively quickly on this important engine.

While MSN has the lowest number of searches performed on it,
ComScore's report back in July revealed that MSN searchers were
also 48% more likely to purchase a product or service online
than the average Internet user. A very important statistic for
website owners that sell online.

To rank highly on MSN one needs to build a solid sized site
(exactly how large will depend on your industry – look at the
size of your competitors' sites for an idea), a relevant theme
throughout the site that focuses on your primary keywords and a
good number of links. MSN doesn't (at this time) employ an
aging delay on links such as the one employed by both Google and
Yahoo! so the effects of the site and inbound links can be
picked up very quickly and with good SEO efforts one can rank
well within a few months on MSN for competitive phrases.

SEO for Yahoo!

Until recently Yahoo! acted very much like MSN, but now it's
leaning a bit more towards Google. Ranking a website well on
Yahoo! requires a solid-sized site with unique content and a
very good number of links.

While PageRank is a Google factor, Yahoo! does have some type of
page value factor at play. Many moons ago Yahoo! was playing
with a PageRank-like calculation called WebRank. They even went
so far as to put out a beta toolbar testing it. This indicates
that there is a factor at play in the Yahoo! algorithm similar
to Google's PageRank – they just don't advertise what a specific
page's value is.

Yahoo! is placing a fair amount of emphasis on the age of links
though not in the same way that Google is. We will get to
Google shortly, however to understand what to expect from Yahoo!
one must understand that when you get a link to your website it
won't deliver its full value for a number of months. While the
exact number of months in unknown, it appears to be around 8
before it delivers its full weight, though it will hold some
weight from day one and this weight will increase as time passes.

To rank well on Yahoo!, you must optimize your site similar to
what you would do for MSN and you must build a large number of
inbound links and have patience as these links age. You will
not see a sudden spike 2 weeks after a large link-building
campaign. You will likely have to wait 3-4 months to notice any
significant effect.

SEO For Google

Virtually every webmaster and website owner is primarily
concerned about attaining Google rankings because of the
significantly higher number of searchers using it. Provided
that you are building your website following the best practices
of SEO (i.e. unique content, a sizable amount of content, and a
good number of incoming links), then your rankings are sure to
follow. However, because of the aging delay it will likely take
longer than for MSN or Yahoo! Google considers the age of your
links, your domain and even the individual page to be factors,
and the longer your page has been online the better.

Essentially, ranking a site on Google requires that you take the
same actions as for the other two, continue your link building
efforts on an ongoing basis to ensure that you end up with
more-and-more links, and that you update your content and add
content on a fairly regular basis (through the addition of a
blog for example).

Tying It Together

The logical process for a new website or one at the first stages
of SEO is to first target MSN. At this point, you can focus your
attention on continuing to build high-quality, relevant links to,
and content on, your site which will continue to increase your
value on Yahoo! and Google.

Analysis will be required to determine exactly what weight you
will be giving to different areas. For example, if your onsite
factors are optimized for MSN, then you know that you will need
to make up for this in the offsite factors for Yahoo! and
Google. If you figured you would need 100 links to rank on
Google, then you will now need to up that number to account for
the fact that you have optimized your site for a different
engine.

During the analysis process you will likely want to use a tool
to speed up the process of keyword density analysis and
competitor link analysis. At Beanstalk we use a tool called
Total Optimizer Pro (http://www.totaloptimizer.com/) though
there are others out there (note: I have yet to find one that
does what this one does as quickly and easily).

Conclusion

I am hoping that none of you read the title and were expecting
to rank on the first page of all three major engines next week.
Ranking highly on all three major engines takes time, patience
and a good few rounds of tweaking to get the perfect balance of
onsite and offsite optimization. Of course, as you can gather,
done properly it's well worth the effort.
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Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning,
Inc. (http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/). Dave writes with years of
expreience in SEO and optimization tactics. Watch Beanstalk's
SEO news blog (http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/blog/) for details
on the publication of a 4-part series on ranking your website
highly accross the "big three engines" in January of 2006. Dave
would like to thank TopNet Solutions for the development of
Total Optimizer Pro (http://www.totaloptimizer.com/) - a
comprehensive SEO tool that provides a blueprint of how the
top 10 got there, so you can too.
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