It seems Yahoo has updated the algorithm used to determine which Yahoo Answers questions get posted to the main SERPs. So what’s changed?

Before the change, the results on search.yahoo.com were directly related to the search results that where given on answers.yahoo.com/search. For example, “what color is the sun” would include only answers that where returned here and in the same order but minus certain listings. The difference being Answers search results included listings that could be open or closed and may not have had a best answer while the main Yahoo SERPs included only listings that where closed and had a best answer chosen.

Yahoo has premiered a few new features today. In addition to adding a social component to Yahoo Answers, they premiered the new My Yahoo.

The Yahoo Answers social network allows you to make friends with other Answerers. Although it’s like Yahoo’s other social networks, according to Search Engine Land, the Answers network can’t import your contacts from other Yahoo social networks.

Although the director of product management for social search, Tomi Poutanen (what a fine Finnish name!), says this choice is deliberate, he also notes that they’ll be adding this capability in the future.

See also PC World‘s and Yahoo‘s own coverage.

StumbleUpon is popular, delivers interested and qualified traffic and is relatively cheap for their paid inclusion program. But like other social media, StumbleUpon isn’t the easiest way to promote your site. In fact, it may not even be valuable to promote your site. As StumbleUpon warns in their advertising FAQ:

Some content doesn’t work well with StumbleUpon. A hard-sell offering little introduction or supporting information will seem out of place to StumbleUpon’s community members. Remember that they’re using the service to find something new, something different. Pages that contain little more than a list of ppc or affiliate links also will not perform well.

Is it worth is to promote your site via paid inclusion on StumbleUpon? The cost is $0.05/impression. The conversion rate will obviously depend on what a conversion is for your site.

Digg reports they’ve reached an impressive 1 million user accounts. (If you’re a Diggr and planning on being in the San Francisco area “mid April,” possibly April 19, you’re being invited to a party in that post, so check it out.)

Digg doesn’t mention, however, how many of the accounts are duplicates, suspended or inactive. Michael Arrington (and some commenters on the post) openly admits that at least 10 of those 1 million accounts are his. Time for my favorite smiley: :\ .

Reddit’s also in the news today, finally beginning to see some of the same bad press that Digg made famous (and then buried). Paul McNamara at NetworkWorld calls them a meritocracy and points out that, at the time of his writing, 14 of the 15 top items on Reddit were calling for Bush’s impeachment.