What is different in Yahoo-optimization from Google-optimization?

Careful selection of keywords, incoming links, title tags, header and keyword-rich content are of course going to be as important to Yahoo as they are to Google.

Yahoo cares about page descriptions. Google usually composes its own page description based on the text of the first paragraph of the indexed page. Yahoo wants you to have a unique page description and you should diligently follow their advice.

Specifically, Yahoo advises:

“Use a "description" meta-tag and write your description accurately and carefully. After the title, the description is the most important draw for users. Make sure the document title and description attract the interest of the user but also fit the content on your site. Use a "keyword" meta-tag to list key words for the document. Use a distinct list of keywords that relate to the specific page on your site instead of using one broad set of keywords for every page.”

Thanks for the advice. I've often found though that if you optimize a page for google you will being doing yourself a service within the yahoo community as well. In other words, as long as your google rankings are up, your yahoo rankings should follow. Have most people found this to be the case?

Both are very popular and very good search engines.

Main keywords as anchor tag is more important for yahoo top ranking, also if need top ranking in yahoo, we need good back links from other sites, specially link back from US based sites.

Great advice! Thanks for sharing..

Google places more importance on off page optimization e.g. backlinks etc while Yahoo prefer on-page optimization like keyword density in title, the headings and URL. Keyword density is the major difference between Google and Yahoo.

They are two different and secret algorithms.

I agree with 2FK.

Many SEOs will optimize for Google only and assume that good Google rankings will translate to good rankings on Yahoo, MSN and others. This is true to a degree. I have worked with numerous sites that, when I took them over, were optimized for Google that ranked poorly in others and vice-versa. I focus on Google but also approach the on-page and internal linking factors that Yahoo likes enough to get good ranking there as well.