Yahoo! has a new product called Yahoo! Answers. People from all over
ask questions about a huge range of topics. Once you register you can
give your best answer to the questions. You are given points for each
question you answer.

Should be person who asked the question select your answer as the
best, you are given additional points. The point system is a method of
moving you up the 7 levels that are used to gauge not only how active
you are, but also how well your answers are accepted.

When you post an answer, you are also given a box to note the source
of your information. This is where you would link to the website where
you obtained the information for your reply and also back to your website.
Yahoo! Answers can be used for any topic, so everyone can participate.

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On a recent search for website managers at Google, I found that the #2 position we maintained for over a year had been taken by another site. Searching through the first 100 results, I did not see Website Managers at all. That got me looking to see what changes I recently made that could cause such a negative effect, also known as the “Google Slap”, which penalizes websites for various reasons.

Monitoring your website position in the search engine result pages (SERPs) is an important aspect of Internet marketing. Periodically searching for your primary keywords on the major search engines will keep you informed of where your site is in the lists.

You could move up or down the SERPs on any given day. Some search engines change more frequently than others. Google appears to change much more frequently than Yahoo, ASK.com, and MSN.com, who all still list Website Managers high on their results.

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topsites are similar to reciprocal links pages; They require a link back to the listing site. There are many differences between topsites and links lists, although they are both intended to increase website traffic

topsites show the number of hits to the linked sites, allow for others to rate them and rank them according to the number of hits the sites receive. The hits are not all from the topsites list, but include visitors who found your site from other sources too.

The more visitors you get to your website, the higher you will move up the topsites list. Generally, the sites on top of the list will encourage more people to click the links and visit those sites because they are more popular. That creates sort of an domino effect where popular sites continue to get more traffic than the others. It also helps get those sites listed higher in the search engine results pages (SERPS).

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