Google Ranking Factors - SEO Checklist

more or less, all the search engines have the same ranking factors, but for yahoo particularly, Onsite optimization is quite important. Title tag, meta description and keyword tag way more important in case yahoo, than it is for google (Google gives a bit lesser importance to such onsite factors). Also, directory submissions are quite important for yahoo.

The search engines figures that when one web page links to another web page, it is effectively launching a election for the other web page. The more ballots that are throw for a web page, the more important the site must be. Also, the value of the site that is launching the election determines how important the election itself is. The search engines calculates a page's significance from the ballots throw for it.