Which Search Engine Is Slower At Ranking New Sites?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

(Aaron Wall) Can you rank a new site in Yahoo! for terms like insurance without getting it nuked in Google? What makes Yahoo! so much slower at ranking new sites than the other major search engines?

I find this question interesting coming from Aaron Wall. In my experience, I’ve seen MSN Live slow on the uptake in ranking new sites for Search Engine Optimization. Occasionally, I’ve seen Yahoo! slow in accepting new sites. But I rarely see Google take to a new site very slowly, aside from its famed “Sandbox,” that is.

I’m sure Aaron Wall has reasons for pointing out that certain sites are getting listed at Yahoo! slower than they are at other sites, but it isn’t like that for every site. None of the search engines have the same set of algorithms. They all put different weight on certain elements and on any given day it could be different than it is today. I think that, probably, Google and MSN Live update their algorithms more often than Yahoo! does. But I’ve noticed that if you get listed in Yahoo! then your chances of getting recognized for more links is greatly increased, giving you a huge boost in your link popularity. MSN was not even reporting links until just recently and I’ve seen sites that are three years old have a bit 0 in that column for MSN Live and have more than 1,000 links counted for Yahoo! while showing up with more than 100 at Google (Google is much more strict on links than either MSN Live or Yahoo!).

Bottom line, it is difficult to say that any of the search engines are faster at ranking new sites as it relates to Search Engine Optimization. I’ve found that Google is lightning fast at crawling new sites if the the webmaster has other sites ranked as well. This may be due to the webmaster knowing what he’s doing and targeting his new sites for fast ranking, but I think it also has something to do with Google favoring new sites from experienced webmasters if those webmasters have sites registered under the same name at Whois. Yahoo! and MSN Live take turns being last. I’m not sure why. Although I am sure every Search Engine Optimization professional has something to add on this topic.