Although the basic principle of operation of all search engines is
the same, the minor differences between them lead to major changes in
results relevancy. For different search engines different factors are
important. There were times, when SEO experts joked that the
algorithms of Bing are intentionally made just the opposite of
those of Google. While this might have a grain of truth, it is a
matter a fact that the major search engines like different stuff and
if you plan to conquer more than one of them, you need to optimize
carefully.
There are many examples of the differences between search engines.
For instance, for Yahoo! and Bing, on-page keyword factors are of
primary importance, while for Google links are very, very important.
Also, for Google sites are like wine – the older, the better,
while Yahoo! generally has no expressed preference towards sites and
domains with tradition (i.e. older ones). Thus you might need more
time till your site gets mature to be admitted to the top in Google,
than in Yahoo!.