We have been noticing reports from several sources of a Yahoo Search index and algorithm update. It is important to note that Yahoo has not yet posted their “weather report” at the Yahoo Search Blog yet.

However Aaron Wall, Loren Baker and several forums have noticed major changes at Yahoo Search.

Aaron noticed two main things:

(1) What Aaron calls a “botch up” in how Yahoo handles sitewide 301 redirects. (2) Yahoo seems to be giving more weight to the words in a domain name.

These are very early reports. Feel free to share your thoughts by Sphinning this article below!

Postscript: It is now official, the Yahoo Blog posted the weather update explaining that this is the first major Yahoo Search update since implementing the Dynamic URL Rewriting Tool. This may explain why Aaron has seen changes to sitewide 301 redirects.

This is the first update after the launch of Dynamic URL Rewriting in Site Explorer. We’ve had millions of URLs rewritten based on your submissions and your sites should have seen smarter crawling from Yahoo! Slurp as a result. You will see further benefits in how your site is represented in the index from this update. Your input improves relevance and coverage for users in search results, particularly in relation to your site.

Related Topics: Yahoo: Search | Yahoo: SEO | Yahoo: Site & Enterprise Search

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz