Instructions for Getting Indexed and higher ranking in Yahoo directory. Tips and techniques to get listed in Yahoo.

Learning to Alphabetize - The ASCII Hierarchy

A search engine is a database, and databases have rules. Have you ever noticed that when you rename a file to start with an "!" it moves to the top of your file list in Windows 98? The same holds true for some search engines, certainly Yahoo!, which ranks alphabetically as well as by myriad other criteria.

The ASCII hierarchy dictates which symbol, yes, "symbol," will lead the pack. The highest ranking symbol is a space. This invisible symbol ranks highest in the hierarchy of the ASCII
alphabet.

Here is your new alphabet. Learn it well.

The ASCII Hierarchy:
1. space 13. , 25. B 37. N 49. Z 61. f 73. r 85. ~
2. ! 14. -26. C 38. O 50. [ 62. g 74. s
3. " 15. . 27. D 39. P 51. \ 63. h 75. t
4. # 16. / 28. E 40. Q 52. ] 64. i 76. u
5. $ 17. : 29. F 41. R 53. ^ 65. j 77. v
6. % 18. ; 30. G 42. S 54. _ 66. k 78. w
7. & 19. < 31. H 43. T 55. ' 67. l 79. x
8. ' 20. = 32. I 44. U 56. a 68. m 80. y
9. ( 21. > 33. J 45. V 57. b 69. n 81. z
10. ) 22. ? 34. K 46. W 58. c 70. o 82. {
11. * 23. @ 35. L 47. X 59. d 71. p 83. |
12. + 24. A 36. M 48. Y 60. e 72. q 84. }

Above are the symbols and letters in their ASCII rank. There are of course more characters in the ASCII character set. However, the above are the ones you'd be more likely to use and are in ranked order. While we're certain you can read the chart above, let us point out several connections which may not be obvious at first.

Capital letters rank higher than non-capitalized letters. "MORTGAGE" will rank higher than its lowercase equivalent, "mortgage." Yahoo! specifically asks you not to use text in all caps in your site description, but you can at least capitalize the first letter.

Where appropriate, replacing letters with certain symbols puts you at the head of a list. It may be inappropriate or blatantly offensive to a search engine's rules to randomly include an exclamation mark ahead of your company name, or worse, doing the phone book trick and adding "AAA" to your site name (especially if that's not what you go by on your Web site).

But what if your product or site really is named "@ DVANTAGE!" or something similar? You're ahead of any competitor named simply "advantage." What if your Web site is all about $ales $uccess?

So long as the name appears to be used in trade [throughout the Web site] with the ASCII character, we shouldn't have a problem with it.

- "Rose," Surfing Manager at Yahoo!

Remember that Yahoo! does not rank your site by keyword weight on the page itself, popularity of your page (number of other sites linked to you), or by anything other than the quality and content of your submission to Yahoo!. Keep in mind that while using a symbol may improve your ranking within a category, it will also hurt your chances of having people find you based on a keyword search. People are much more likely to search for "sales success" than for "$ ales $uccess."

Alphabetically - sometimes:

Yahoo! does rank sites alphabetically within categories - this we know for certain. What you may not know is that when Yahoo! returns matches for keyword searches, after the categories are returned, Yahoo! returns Web sites within each category, and only the sites within those categories that are most relevant to the keyword search. This means that Yahoo! looks at the prominence and frequency of keywords in the site title, description and URL.

You'll notice that there is no alphabetical advantage in sites returned in response to a keyword query that appear within a category. Yahoo! only gives an advantage to sites within the selected category when the person visits that category, not when search results are listed in response to the keyword search.

WARNING! Yahoo! has corrected sites that use overt ASCII hierarchy tricks such as leading with an exclamation point or other non-alpha character. If you do this, you risk a delay in your site being listed, and it will most certainly be corrected by the category editor. If your site is legitimately named something that starts with a symbol, such as "$ ales $uccess," and when the Yahoo! staff member visits your site they find that usage throughout, you may be allowed to use this approach and gain an advantage.

You should consider renaming your site if your company or products are alphabetically challenged as in the case of a sheet music dealer named "Xylophones Sheet Music." Consider renaming the page "$ 1 Xylophone Sheet Music." Don't use the classic Yellow Pages trick of prefacing your page name with "AAA." Yahoo! staff will see right through that and adjust your feeble attempt to spam its directory.

SPECIAL NOTICE: Some Web sites that contain timely news or information can sometimes get indexed very quickly - if you ask for it! For instance, Yahoo! has a "very specialized movie surfer" who specializes in getting movie sites listed as quickly as necessary for release dates.

If you are promoting an event or some product with an expiration date and you must get your site listed quickly, you should consider contacting Yahoo! and seeing if they will help. The Yahoo! staff is awesome (especially "Rose") and are very committed to making Yahoo! a terrific product. They will help you if they can.