What is the difference between Yahoo and Bing’s algorithm? If you follow SEO news, you might think that the two companies are one in the same, since Yahoo took over Bing just a few years ago. In fact, Yahoo Search even claims to be powered by Bing. However, being “powered” by Bing or by Google really doesn’t mean anything. Practically every minor search engine out there is powered by Google. If you were to compare Gibiru (an anonymous, uncensored search engine) with Google (just plain old Google) many of the same results would be identical.
This points to the fact that just because a search engine “powers” another one, doesn’t mean that the new search site is above manipulating the results to its favor. Most search engines have human editors in addition to a unique algorithm. So, many of the algorithm differences will be subtle, if not completely unnoticeable to human eyes. Nevertheless, user experience documents some more than subtle differences between Google, Bing and Yahoo. Google is gaining a reputation as favoring back links, while Yahoo seems to put more relevance on title tags. Yahoo also has that reciprocity thing going on, rewarding sites that pay to get listed on Yahoo Business, and that earn other Yahoo-exclusive links, like Yahoo Answers, Yahoo News and so on.
Bing is often said to reward quality content first, while Google tends to pay more attention to site reputation. There are also some reports suggesting Bing has a higher success rate than Google when it comes to users finding what they want, suggesting that Bing probably has more relevant results than Google does.
In any event, as you may know, all search engines change their criteria and algorithms so often, it is sometimes impossible to keep up with all the changes. In most cases you are safe by going after three C’s – content, context and consistency. Write high quality articles, and make sure you are not wasting it on low quality links. At the same time, always remain consistent, so that you can outlast the competition and any fading search engine trends.
