PBNJ Marketing Blog

If you haven’t heard, Microsoft and Yahoo have been approved on a search and advertising deal announced last year. In a nutshell, Yahoo has agreed to use Microsoft’s algorithm for their search product. What does that mean exactly? Do I still optimize my website for all three search engines or do I just focus on Google and Bing? That seems to be the question of the hour according to many SEO professionals.

The project itself is in its infancy and there are a ton of details that need to be figured out. What elements will Yahoo keep for its search experience? What apps will they keep? Facebook and Flickr are huge apps for them so they will need to be integrated. As all these questions come up, one thing is clear, Yahoo will be powered by Bing but the user experience will be all Yahoo.

Even though we are talking about the “Big 3” en search engines, there are other contenders that are just as important. Did you know that YouTube is ranked number 2 in search? It would probably be a good idea to incorporate a video strategy to your search to capture some of that traffic.

So what other search engines are contenders? I have included a list below according to ComScore but among those listed, you will find Ask.com, AOL search (It is powered by Google but not necessarily provides the same results), craigslist even social media’s MySpace and Facebook.

Search is no longer up to the “Big 3” as people will search from the sites they spend the most time on. A well rounded search strategy needs to be more than just optimizing your website for Google, Yahoo and Bing. Incorporate social media and a video strategy to enhance search traffic to your website.

Do you have a search strategy? If so, who are the players that you optimize for?

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