Search Engine Optimisation Web Log (BLOG)
Editor: Matt Paines

| This News Blog is dedicated to bringing news, information and innovations targeting the Search Engine Optimisation industry.

What's the difference between engines?

We are one of the only search engine optimisation companies currently in the top 10 of all three of the major search engines Yahoo , Google and MSN for the phrase "search engine optimisation". This puts us in a unique position, given how competitive this sector is, but apart from the obvious benefits it also gives us an exceptional understanding of the differences between the engines.

Before discussing the differences there are some significant similarities. They all hate Web Spam, and are all on a mission to eliminate it despite having varying levels of success thus far.

MSN is the new boy. MSN has a preference to on-the-page factors, although its filters haven't quite worked out how to deal with site-wides, reciprocals or blog spam. However their results are reasonably good because of their focus on content.

Google on the other hand is vigorous with its filters, they are very good at identifying site-wides and reciprocals but blog spam is still causing them a problem. They are good at identifying true links, placing more weight to older and trusted domains. With Google it is also easier to pick up a sin bin penalty through "over optimisation". New domains rarely score well for competitive terms - but can score for less competitive terms in the short term. Google also has perfected some very aggressive page duplication filters.

Yahoo is straddled between Google and MSN. It devotes a high degree of reward toward on-the-page content but it also has a significant link dependency. It's filters are not as rigorous as Googles and still suffers at the hands of blog spam and reciprocal links.

M.P