[...] How do Yahoo! Answers get to the top of Google Search?… � Wikinomics [...]

Denis, Thanks for the post. I don’t have an answer for you, but I’ve often wondered the same thing. I wonder if the same relevancy happens if it weren’t hosted by Yahoo!? I’d like to hear more of your thoughts on user-generated Q&A sites. Are you aware of http://stackoverflow.com which appears to have much higher quality answers? There is a decent YouTube video by the stackoverflow guys talking at the Googleplex.

Great post.

No answer on Yahoo, but I hope someone can post on it.

Out of curiosity, I checked http://www.bing-vs-google.com to see if there was much difference on the search “how to defuse a bomb”. The results were similar, except for one – the wikipedia entry on “bomb disposal”, which did provide relevant info, was the second hit on Bing, but doesn’t turn up at all in the first ten pages of Google results.

From my opinion, Google love the review, forum and “ask” or “how to” articles.

Or maybe yahoo bought the top position as and invincible advertising *LoL*

Denis,

Just like everyone, I’m perplexed on why such unreliable answers for bomb disposal exist on a reliable platform such as Yahoo and why it’s appearing at the top of Google searches…

I did notice that Yahoo answers had quite a bit of advertising in the side bars, so it may have something to do with pay per clicks sponsored by the marketing department.

On a related note, for anyone actually looking to solve a problem, I highly recommend http://www.wikianswers.com. It’s similar to wikipedia in that it draws on the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ to collaboratively come up with a best answer that can be improved and modified over time…to the inquiry of “how to diffuse a bomb”, wikianswers seems to be way more sensible in its response; “First of all you don’t. Leave it to an expert. There are many different types of bomb which require different techniques and skills, but it is not a case of, cut the red wire not the blue one.”

Unfortunately, it appears as #9 on Google search :S

Thanks for the link Rex – will be looking into it soon.

While the answer remains elusive, I’ve just realized that my best solution might be to post the question on Yahoo! Answers – at bare minimum it should get me to the top of the google search rankings .

While Wolfram Alpha wasn’t the benevolent skynet I might have hoped for, it is pretty good at fact-based questions like the baby weight one. The problem is that the questions need to be worded in just the right way, otherwise the system can’t produce an answer.

It is worth noting that WA’s 7lbs average baby weight accords perfectly with the 6-8lbs #1 rated Yahoo! Answers answer.

To Denis.
Denis, Google search engine is based on another idea. That is the answer. It is not an artificial intelligence. You cannot ask it questions. All you can is to type a phrase or word, that may appear in the body of some sites. And it cannot provide you with the best answer. It is up to you, to find and choose between the options that Google provides you with.
“and provide a top link to a site that not only fails to provide a good answer”
It happens because of SEO (search engine optimisation). Companies and other small and medium businesses use all methods to make their sites appear on the top of pages of search engines.
For more you can read here:
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-02-04-n60.html

Yeah, I totally agree with you on this one. It always seems that Yahoo answers is resting snuggly at the tippy top of Google these days, even when the answers aren’t the most informative. I thought Google and yahoo were enemies…but guess not! -Sheila

,[...] http://www.wikinomics.com is another must read source of information on this issue,[...]

Might have something to do with the domain being Spider Friendly, constant spiders updating the index files for Yahoo!, practically zero 404 files, robot.txt files operational and correctly graphed, the algorithm data cache is superior, continuous usage and mainly, the major keywords used in practically every link within answers.yahoo.com. Keywords such as who; what; when; where; why, proceeding or followed by repetitious keywords and the actual keywords or tags are all loaded within the Yahoo! Answers domain directive actions, showing that a question, a search engine gives you a site for answers.

Thankfully, answers.yahoo.com on Google’s top suggested resulting inquires isn’t as perplexing as it seems being it’s giving you an answer at a domain that beings with “answers.” The Google Spiders can’t give you what your looking for. That’s why it’s called a search engine, you search for it. Also, the Advanced Options can eliminate answers.yahoo.com from showing any results. It
s perplexing to me on how some people know how to breath….

Google search engine is based on another idea. That is the answer. It is not an artificial intelligence. You cannot ask it questions. All you can is to type a phrase or word, that may appear in the body of some sites. And it cannot provide you with the best answer. It is up to you, to find and choose between the options that Google provides you with.
“and provide a top link to a site that not only fails to provide a good answer”
It happens because of SEO (search engine optimization). Companies and other small and medium businesses use all methods to make their sites appear on the top of pages of search engines.

Just like everyone, I’m perplexed on why such unreliable answers for bomb disposal exist on a reliable platform such as Yahoo and why it’s appearing at the top of Google searches…

I did notice that Yahoo answers had quite a bit of advertising in the side bars, so it may have something to do with pay per clicks sponsored by the marketing department.
http://www.tompako.com.pk/
regards,

Google doesn’t give Yahoo Answers the top search, however Yahoo Answers is one of the many top search sites as a choice, while offering plenty of other popular sites which result in other questionable solutions. If you want to complain about Yahoo Answers, here is an idea, stop using it. Really? Is it that hard? I am not a fan of Yahoo Answers, which is why I don’t use it. How It Works is addicting, even Wikipedia, but still not every place is going to be 100% correct 100% of the time.

Last thing, I Google’d your question. Came up with Babycenter.com with a very informative week by week chart until and after birth. Using Google isn’t rocket science. Write something else I can laugh at. Please. I’m desperate to laugh at people.

I,

I believe you may have missed the point of the post, which is rather simple. Google is considered to have the best search engine. In turn, you would expect it to yield good results when you do a search. I have found, as have many others (some in these comments, for example), that Yahoo! Answers often come out on top of the Google rankings for particular searches, even if those answers are terrible and the question has had limited activity on the Yahoo! platform. That is weird. It has nothing at all to do with me using Yahoo! Answers, which I don’t. Nor an inability to find a good answer on the web, which I did.

On an interesting side note, I’m sure you noticed this post was from July 2009. I find it interesting that when I do that same search now (January 2010), the Yahoo! Answers link does not appear on my front page.

To Denis Hancock

By no means was I intending to drop a bomb on your lap, when your article is true and informative again opening the creations of the web. How I got to this article, blog or whatever, is entirely unknown to the actual exacts what what is certain is from a google search. What is clear, is I read it and all the other comments. Which is where my laughter starts.

“Write something else I can laugh at. Please. I’m desperate to laugh at people”

Seemingly thought right, however worded wrong. Rather, “Write something else so I can laugh at people in the comments.”

Either way, the negativity is poised towards the people who use Yahoo Answers and feel it is inaccurate…. because it is. That was my target.

I can’t stand it when yahoo or wiki answers appear in search results!! I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’d be better off making up an answer to any question I have than to depend on what’s posted to any of the “answers” sites.

I discovered your page today because I was searching for some way to block Google from displaying Yahoo Answers pages, which uniformly contain incorrect information (in fact, it seems that the more highly-rated the answer, the more likely it is to be wrong).

It’s like having Fark come up for every single search — less than useless.