Low traffic in MSN & Yahoo

**Fraser** · 12-08-05

It's so annoying to see your sites in great keyword positions in yahoo and MSN which you know would be worth a fortune if it was google but instead only get about 10 visitors a day!

**stevesa** · 12-08-05

Tell me about it, we have just gne up by a factor of 3 in the amount of pages indexed on Yahoo, and traffic has risen by about 50 uniques a WEEK, if it was google then we would be on 50 extra an hour!!!

**Rich** · 12-08-05

Yep! I have some results that I can't believe how little traffic they get from Yahoo. Having said that they still make a very good income and I will miss them when the slip.

From seeing how large the teir volumes are on related affiliate programs, its clear that there are other sources of traffic that are much larger.

Are Yahoo users a bit less savy than Google users and so click PPC ads more?

**Wardy** · 12-08-05

Yes it's very annoying. If only google was msn and msn was google

I still find it quite shocking at the lack of traffic from msn especially on some good terms, shows how far G is infront in terms of users!

Cheers
Wardy

**stevesa** · 12-08-05

well we run PPC on both Overture(Yahoo) and Google, and we get 1/3 more traffic from google than Yahoo so i dont think thats the answer---would love to know tho, because my main target for the company is the amount of free traffic i produce and with google its no problem, in fact it makes me VERY nervous as its 60+% of our free traffic and i want to reduce that reliance/increase our other sources of free traffic as we all know how fickle the SEO can be, especially with google's "tweaking" every 6-8 weeks, so if anyone has any idea's then im open to all imput, but Rich, i am just in the middle of trying something at the moment that i suspect will have a major boost to traffic from Yahoo so i will keep you posted when the next yahoo update happens
Steve

**Shane** · 12-08-05

yahoo has more intrusive PPC advertising compared to google when there are 3 sponsored at the top and this in combination with lower search volumes means less traffic arrives than google yet more leaves via PPC route

now it looks like google is going 3 sponsored at the top too I think that the same will end up occurring on google too over time where natural listings will end up getting less traffic.

what's next top 5 sponsored !? ..

**stevesa** · 12-08-05

Agreed Shane, they are all going the way of Ask, and we all know how many refers we get from the free listings from them, bit concerning really!!!

**KieronD** · 12-08-05

Agreed, I have some number 1 and 2 positions in Yahoo! and MSN for some really meaty terms. However the volume of traffic coming from them is just rubbish. If only I could replicate my SEO success *cough* on Google!

**Darren M** · 12-08-05

Same here. Google and MSN love my sites, I've got number 1 and 2 positions on both and the traffic is still just a trickle.

I'm starting to use MSN more than google these days for my own searches, the results seem more relevant to me. I've never liked Google's pagerank system. I always find myself drilling down to the 2nd or 3rd page and then find what I want on a PR1 site.

**stevesa** · 12-08-05

UKOffer, Google is a completely different ball game to Yahoo and MSN, i am also number 1 for a meaty search term on MSN, however this accounts for 3% of my free traffic a day, but Google is another ball game, if you can crack that, then hold on to your hats ;-)