Weekly SEO news: 14 April 2009
Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.

This week, we're taking a look at the use of keywords in the URLs of your web pages. Google and Yahoo made some statements about it.

In the news: Yahoo and Microsoft continue to talk about possible partnerships, Yahoo gains market share and more.

Table of contents:

We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.

Best regards,
Andre Voget, Johannes Selbach, Axandra CEO
1. Do keywords in URLs improve your search engine rankings?

Should you use your keywords in the URLs of your web pages? Do search engines look at the keywords that are included in the addresses of your web pages and do these keywords have an effect on the rankings of your website?

Google's statement about keywords in URLs

Google's Matt CuttsGoogle's Matt Cutts recently posted a video about the position of keywords in the URL of a web page. He said that keywords in the URL do help a little bit.

He also said that one should not obsess with the order of the words and that you should not use too many keywords in the same URL.

Yahoo's statement about keywords in URLs

Yahoo filed a patent application with the name "Techniques for Tokenizing URLs" that has been published on March 26th. The patent application contains information on how search engines might extract keywords from the URLs of pages.

Search engines look at many different web page elements to determine what a page is about. Most keywords are extracted from the content of the web pages but search engines can also consider the URL of a web page to find related keywords.

Yahoo's patent shows in detail how keywords can be extracted from URLs. That's a strong indicator that Yahoo also considers the keywords in URLs.

What does this mean for your website?

If you want to get the best possible rankings for your website, it can help to include your target keywords in the URLs of your website.

However, it is important not to overdo this so that search engines don't think that you're spamming. To get the perfect keyword density for your web page URLs, analyze your web pages with IBP's Top 10 Optimizer.

IBP's Top 10 Optimizer will tell you if it makes sense to use your chosen keyword in the URL of your chosen web page and it will also tell you how often you should use the keyword in the URL.

In addition, the optimizer will analyze all other elements of your web page that affect the ranking in Google and other search engines. You'll get concrete and custom-tailored advice on how to change your web pages so that they will get top 10 rankings on Google and other important search engines.

Keywords in the URLs of your web pages can improve the position of your web pages in Google's search results. Google also considers a variety of other ranking factors.

If you want to get the best possible rankings for your website, you must optimize all elements. With IBP's Top 10 Optimizer, you can do this as quickly as possible.

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2. Search engine news and articles of the week

Yahoo
Exclusive: Yahoo's Bartz and Microsoft's Ballmer finally talking about search and advertising partnership

"In that interesting plan, Yahoo might take over all of Microsoft’s display and premium advertising business to sell along with its own, while Microsoft would run the search advertising business for the pair.

Such a deal, which plays to each company’s strengths, would bind the two closely together, even though they still compete on many other fronts in the Internet space."



Statistics: Yahoo gains market share

"The biggest surprise this quarter, however, is a possible comeback for Yahoo!, which had been losing ground to Live Search since September. AdGooroo tracked a 10 percent increase in active first-page advertisers during the first quarter, suggesting that Yahoo! may have finally hit its stride. This coincides with a four point increase in advertiser share which appears to be at Microsoft’s expense. It would not be surprising to see strong numbers coming out of Yahoo! this month."



GoogleGoogle machine put to test in first quarter

"Analysts expect a sequential drop in revenue for the first time in Google's history as a public company. The average forecast, according to Reuters Estimates, is for first-quarter revenue of $5.53 billion, a 3 percent fall quarter over quarter, or a 6.6 percent gain year on year."



 How Google stole control over content distribution by stealing links

"Google isn't stealing content from newspapers and other media companies. It’s stealing their control over distribution, which has always been the engine of profits in media. Google makes more money than any other media company on the web because it has near monopoly control over content distribution. [...]

The more content there is on the web, the less money every content creator makes, and the more money Google makes by taking a piece of that transaction."



Search engine newslets

  • Google enhances the snippets for review sites.
  • Your Yahoo stats weren't that bad this weekend: Yahoo's reporting is broken.
  • Google Japan bug showed gibberish results.
  • Baidu launches search site for seniors.
  • Ask.com ad quality scores alliances with "Anchor Intelligence" to cut click fraud.
  • Google in the middle.
  • Google engineer chooses marriage.
  • Perception, not reality, could topple Google in search.

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3. Success stories

"IBP hands down is amazing!"

"I had tried several packages over the eCommerce career and IBP hands down is amazing!

We run a manufacturer direct down bedding online website and compete against the big boys.

We always knew it was important to focus on SEO and like most had a million options on how to do it. We parallel tested two of our websites - one using IBP and one with ****.

The website that we optimized with IBP now has top 5 rankings on most of our key terms and we can not say enough good things about IBP. We made sure to use every service and recommendation they provided and our sales have doubled this year as a result."
Stefan Hunter, www.downlite.com



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4. Previous articles

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