Search Engine Optimization

read part 2….

In this article we will cover advanced search commands to be used in search engine optimization research. The commands can be used on both Google and Yahoo, however Yahoo is preferred search engine when it comes to research, since Google distorts its data on purpose. In this article we are using Yahoo by default.

Open Yahoo in a new window in order to follow this article.

Intitle:

When you search intitle:keyword Yahoo will only show results with your selected keyword in the title. Use this command to estimate online competition. For example a simple search for “mortgages” gives 487,000,000 results. If you do a search with “intitle:mortgages” the number goes down to 12,600,000 results. (you can do the same on Google). If you have a keyword that consists of several phrases you can use quotations to do exact match: intitle:”search engine optimization company”

Inurl:

This operator filters results by URL names and shows results that have your keyword in the domain name or in the URL filename. Check inurl:search engine optimization on Yahoo and Google to see this.

Inanchor:

Inanchor: is a powerful command that lets you see websites that have external links with your keyword pointing to them. For example search for inanchor:cheap vacation packages on Yahoo – you will see www.orbitz.com/App/PrepareVacationsHome as the number one result even though keywords don’t match the title nor the text.

Use this command to identify competitors that specifically optimized for your keyword, and then use Yahoo Site Explorer, Majestic SEO, or Linkscape to analyze their link.