Today, it's a long post instead of several quick ones. Admittedly, I'm experimenting with my blogging habits here at SEOmoz, so drop me a line if you've got some great ideas (or something you'd rather not see more of).

It can often be exceptionally informative for a search marketer or SEO to conduct comparitive searches at the major SEs now and again, particularly when targeting a new market segment or attempting to discern why rankings don't match expectations. A simple look through the top 5 listings for a particular broad or specific subject can provide great insight into what the search engine's relevancy and quality guidelines are.

As an example, I'm using 2 very distinct terms to see and analyze what ranks well at the major SEs. The first is the single word "blog" and the second is the more descriptive "biography of edward hopper". One is highly commercial in nature, although not neccessarily a highly competitive, targeted term while the other is decidely non-commercial and much smaller in appeal.

Let's examine the results for "blog" first:

Google:

  1. www.blogger.com
  2. www.typepad.com
  3. www.rnc.org
  4. www.lessig.org/blog
  5. www.johnkerry.com

Yahoo!:

  1. www.blogger.com
  2. www.typepad.com
  3. www.globeofblogs.com
  4. portal.eatonweb.com
  5. www.blo.gs

MSN

  1. trademark.blog.us/blog
  2. en.wikipedia.org/en/blog
  3. www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/blog
  4. lessig.org/blog
  5. googleblog.blogspot.com

Teoma

  1. www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/blog
  2. www.blogger.com
  3. www.movabletype.com
  4. www.blogarama.com
  5. www.blogwise.com

This simple analysis reveals several distinctions the search engines are making. Yahoo! & Google both seem to be considering broader anchor text and links when creating their rankings, while Teoma & MSN are pickier about both the sources and the link text. This assumption comes from how one might link to the sources listed by MSN and Teoma - most likely with the text "blog", while Yahoo! and Google's list surely have greater diversity and length in their anchors. This data could also be interpreted as a trend in thematic recognition of links by Teoma and MSN, while Google & Yahoo! consider more varied sources as relevant linkers to the site.

Of specific interest is how Google & Yahoo! provide little contextual or informative information in their top SERPs about what a blog is, how it functions, etc. while MSN & Teoma both do - from my perspective, their results on this search are superior, as the average searcher using the term "blog" is probably not seeking to visit a political blog or a blog aggregation site, but more likely wants to either find out what a blog is, or create a blog for themselves.

Let's move on to "edward hopper biography":

Google

  1. www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper.html
  2. www.nothinbutprints.com/artistbios/edwardhopper.shtml
  3. academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/jvsickle/jv-hopbi.htm
  4. www.1st-art-gallery.com/artists/ Edward%20Hopper/Edward%20Hopper%20Biography.html
  5. www.bookrags.com/biography-edward-hopper

Yahoo!

  1. www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper.html
  2. www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/hopper/
  3. www.nothinbutprints.com/artistbios/edwardhopper.shtml
  4. www.askart.com/artist/h/edward_hopper.asp
  5. academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/jvsickle/hpbio.htm

MSN

  1. www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper.html
  2. www.popartuk.com/art/edward-hopper/bio.asp
  3. userhome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/jvsickle/jv-hopbi.htm
  4. www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/hopper_edward.html
  5. www.impressionistartprints.com/hopper_artprints-posters-biography.htm

Teoma

  1. www.kgny.com/biographies/edwardhopper.html
  2. askart.com/artist/h/edward_hopper.asp
  3. www.artycity.com/biography/EDWARD-HOPPER.htm
  4. academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/jvsickle/jv-hopbi.htm
  5. www.artchive.com/artchive/H/hopper.html

Despite my initial assumption that this query would be non-commercial, the results are highly commercialized, with most results coming from sites selling reproductions of Hopper's art. We also find a great deal more congruity between the search engines for this term, with 2 results being mentioned in the top 5 of every major engine. Google and Yahoo! appear to be the most "gamed" for this query, with commercial results taking up 3 SERPs at each, while MSN & Teoma have more informational results overall. This query is more difficult to dissect in terms of ranking factors without a great deal more time spent analyzing the link structure of each site, but we can assume that topic-specific links are more relevant to both Teoma & MSN than at Google or Yahoo!

This type of analysis can be boring and even highly time-consuming, but there is no better predictive method for understanding the SERPs than comparitive analysis, even at the surface level. This type of practice is what converts an SEO's knowledge of how the rankings work into a practical application that can be used again and again to identify what factors are helping or hurting a site's ranking at the SEs.