Ginger or Mary Ann? yahoo! answers
For those who don’t know, Yahoo! Answers is (quoting their official blog) “a place where people ask questions on any topic and get answers by sharing facts, opinions and personal experiences.”
I hadn’t paid much attention to Yahoo! Answers until Danny Sullivan spoke about it recently at the May SES Conference in Seattle. Danny wrote a great overview of Yahoo’s “social networking” vehicle, but my focus in this article will be somewhat different.
There is a lot of inaccurate information online about search engine optimization. SEO is a very challenging / ever-changing subject for a newbie to understand. The neophyte often does not realize that much of the SEO information on the Internet is incorrect, out of date or biased. Although online resources like forums offer accurate information on SEO (if you search hard enough or have a trusted member answer your question), most are very intimidating for people looking for the basic knowledge that regulars already possess. .
Wouldn’t it be nice if basic (and more advanced) SEO information could be accurately asked and answered in an open and stress-free online environment? maybe yahoo! Answers is such a place.
So, I joined the party and started asking some basic SEO questions:
Will I get better search engine rankings by submitting my website manually or by using submission software?
What is the best way to get my new poker website to the top of Google?
These are typical newbie questions that I asked hoping an SEO expert would clear me up by offering the following correct answers:
- There is no need to submit websites to search engines, and even if you did, submission has no effect on the rankings you may receive.
- Forget this.
Unfortunately, no one at Yahoo! Answers community answered me like this. I came to the conclusion that SEO questions for beginners, asked by me or others I surveyed, attracted responses that tended to perpetuate the already high level of SEO misinformation. People who leave such responses also tend to place a large number of self-service links in their posts.
I got much better answers when I asked more advanced questions:
What was the effect of Google’s “Florida” update on SEO methodology?
I immediately got a relevant answer on the topic with an authoritative link on the topic.
What is latent semantic analysis and how relevant is it to search engine optimization?
A very challenging question and while no one answered it directly, I was at least directed to the Wikipedia page on the subject.
For fun, I asked a few non-SEO questions and learned quite a bit doing it.
Ginger or Mary Ann?
At SES Seattle, Danny mentioned that Yahoo! Responses would be integrated into Yahoo SERPS. But how much strength would they be given?
Someone else who asked the same question when I landed in the Yahoo Top 10. It remains to be seen how long the question will stay in such a high ranking. While I don’t expect a Yahoo! The responses result in a very high ranking for an ultra-competitive ecommerce term, if you are targeting some specific “long tail” keywords I think it would be a worthwhile exercise to answer questions relevant to them. In your answer, you would make repeated use of your terms in a manner consistent with good writing style.
In short, SEOs will need to understand how to best work with Yahoo! Answers as part of your overall search engine strategy. As more SEOs start to get involved in the process, hopefully they will contribute to increasing the quality of the answers that are currently given to people who ask SEO questions.
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