subject: Yahoo utilises SEO techniques to select news content [print this page] Yahoo utilises SEO techniques to select news content
Following Yahoo's acquisition of Associated Content in May 2010, the company has completed work on their new Upshot blog, which determines which news stories to publish based on search driven data.
The traditional system comprised of editors selecting what they thought were the most important stories of the day. With Upshot however, analysts will examine which keywords and phrases are popular amongst users before passing the information over to the writing team. The commentators will then create and publish articles which correspond to the topics which are of greatest interest to the readers at any given time.
James Pitaro, vice president of Yahoo Media insists that the new process will benefit Yahoo and give it the edge over their competitors due to its ability to aggregate data. The Upshot blog will use Yahoo's comprehensive search data to inform and influence the editorial decisions being made.
With up-to-date knowledge of the subjects users are interested in and are searching for, Yahoo have the capacity to offer more relevant and desirable news stories to their readers. Furthermore, by providing stories which are in keeping with the most popular search trends of the moment, greater amounts of traffic will be driven to the Upshot blog site.
The launch of this new feature tomorrow comes just 2 months after the acquisition by Yahoo of Associated Content. This "content farm" site focuses on publishing large amounts of search driven material aimed at small niche markets. Their contributors create content based around topics which deemed to be high ranking on search engines.
Yahoo have taken this process and applied it on a larger scale. The use of search engine optimisation techniques in the collation of popular news stories by Yahoo is a positive move, and one which will certainly draw in the crowds. By employing a keyword popularity based process, they have committed to providing readers with the content they actually want to find.
