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Last night Yahoo shocked the world by introducing something that looks cool, useful and unique - Yahoo Axis.
Yahoo Axis is a browser/extension/search tool that changes the way people explore and search the web. The best way to describe it is to show you some videos.
How It Works:
Here are some commercials:
Pretty cool, don't you think?
Will you use it? That is another question.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
We know Google Images deploys framebuster busting techniques to prevent sites that use framebusters from sending the user directly to the site.
Yahoo does something similar.
For example, this picture of a flower on Yahoo Images is from flowershopsflowers.com/nature-flowers, which has framebusting JavaScript on the site.
Yahoo breaks the framebuster and places in the window below the image a message that reads:
Loading the page might take you away from Yahoo! Image Search (Not recommended). Continue Anyway
This message really upsets those who use the framebusting script. These are webmasters who specifically dislike that the search engine is showing a higher resolution version of their image on the search engine as opposed to sending the user to the site to view and download the image.
Here is a picture:
A WebmasterWorld thread has some users calling this out right stealing:
I can't believe that Yahoo image search is stealing my images
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Today is the last day you will be able to use Yahoo Site Explorer.
Yahoo announced late on Friday that they are closing it down today, November 21st. They said:
With the completion of algorithmic transition to Bing, Yahoo! Search has merged Site Explorer into Bing Webmaster Tools. Webmasters should now be using the Bing Webmaster Tools to ensure that their websites continue to get high quality organic search traffic from Bing and Yahoo!. Site Explorer services will not be available from November 21, 2011.
This comes with no surprise. Yahoo notified everyone that it would happen this year but since today is the day, it is some what of a shocker that it has finally happened. It is basically the last nail in the coffin for Yahoo Search.
Site Explorer was launched in 2005 as one of Tim Mayer's babys at Yahoo. I personally am very sad to see it go, but I am sure it upsets Tim a bit more.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.
Update: As of Tuesday, November 22nd, it is now closed and here is what the closure page looks like:
Well, it is done - Yahoo, everywhere you go with the exception of Korea, even on mobile or desktop, will be fully powered by a different search engine - Microsoft Bing.
Yahoo Search is not providing their own algorithmic search results anymore, like they haven't being doing so in the U.S. in Canada since August 2010. Country after country, Yahoo has been handing over their search technology and search engine to Microsoft.
The other day, Yahoo declared the process is now complete, with the exception of Korea. Why not Korea? Because of "a three-way integration between Yahoo, Microsoft and Daum, remains, and is expected to complete by the end of the year."
That being said, this was the plan and the plan has been implemented.
Paid search is still not fully transitioned over. It is in the U.S., Canada and many other countries, but not every where, not yet.
For some reason, I remain sad about all of this.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Note: This story was written earlier this week and scheduled to be published today.
Yahoo announced they have made the transition from Yahoo powered search results to Bing powered results in the Asian markets.
These markets include Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam but exclude Korea.
Yahoo also said the transition for the organic results in Greece, Poland, Romania, Switzerland (German, French and Italian languages) and Turkey are complete.
I am not sure when the paid search side will be transitions, there have been issues on that front - from what I understand.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
A WebmasterWorld thread reports that Yahoo may not be fully listening to the robots.txt directive to block their spider, Yahoo Slurp.
The thing is, Yahoo spider isn't all that active these days - because Bing is now powering much of Yahoo and thus BingBot is most active.
The webmaster said:
Depending on the Host and UA, the official Yahoo! Slurp apparently does whatever it wants to. Note the subtle differences in the subdomains and UAs...
This morning, the only Host to read/heed robots.txt was:
b3091154.crawl.yahoo.net [67.195.112.189] Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)
These retrieved graphics by the pageful, over 60 total:
b5101137.yst.yahoo.net [98.137.72.218] b5101139.yst.yahoo.net [98.137.72.228] Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp/3.0; http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)
I am not sure if this is a widespread issue or something that is just a smaller bug.
The main question is, should you care of Yahoo is crawling your site when Bing is? That discussion is also taking place in the forum thread. The answer is, it depends.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
No one is really surprised by last night's news that Yahoo announced "leadership change" including firing Carol Bartz over the phone. I mean, she had only 33% approval rating and the stock rose 6% on the news of the firing.
Yahoo said:
Yahoo! Inc. under which the Board of Directors has appointed Timothy Morse interim Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately, replacing Carol Bartz, who has been removed by the Board from her role as Chief Executive Officer.
The Board has also named key senior Yahoo! executives to a newly formed Executive Leadership Council tasked with supporting Morse in managing the Company's day-to-day operations until a permanent chief executive is appointed, as well as supporting a comprehensive strategic review that the Board has initiated to position the Company for future growth.
Bartz emailed everyone via her iPad saying:
I am very sad to tell you that Iâve just been fired over the phone by Yahooâs Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward.
Carol took over as the CEO of Yahoo in January 2009 after Jerry Yang replaced Terry Semel as CEO in 2007. It has been a rough road for Yahoo, very rough.
I am still so sad about Yahoo, so sad. But will I ever forgive Bartz for pulling Yahoo out of the search space, at least in terms of building backend search technology? I doubt it.
It is hard to see what future Yahoo has but I do hope the next CEO, not the interim, has a clear future for Yahoo.
If Carol did anything well, it was fire a lot of people and cut a tremendous amount of costs.
Do you think Yahoo will have a solid future from here on out?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
It is official, Yahoo's european properties are now powered by Bing for organic search.
As of this morning, August 3rd, Yahoo France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the UK are powered by Bing.
A year ago, Yahoo US and Canada switched over to Bing and now Yahoo US, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, UK, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, New Zealand, Peru and Venezuela are now all powered by Bing.
This is just the organic results, not the paid results. Yahoo US, Canada and others are powered by adCenter for ads, but not the European properties. That comes later. Microsoft said:
With regards to the paid search transition of Yahoo! traffic into Microsoft Advertising adCenter outside North America, both companies continue to focus on meeting marketplace and product performance benchmarks we have agreed. We are making good progress, as echoed by independent third parties such as Efficient Frontier and Marin Software. We have recently extended our testing efforts to gain the learnings necessary to provide international advertisers and partners with a quality transition experience.
Once these tests completed, we will be able to provide an update on our global rollout plans for search marketing. We remain more than ever committed to providing advertisers and partners with ample notice prior to the transition of their market, and working with them to plan and prepare for a smooth transition.
I first reported this at Search Engine Land as coming on Monday.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Yahoo Site Explorer, which went live in September 2005 is now going to be shut down by the end of this year.
Yahoo said:
In an August 2010 blog post, we said we would continue Site Explorer with a focus on new features for webmaster community, even after the transition to Microsoft platforms is complete. We listened to your feedback, and along with the team from Bing Webmaster Center looked jointly at the roadmap for the webmaster tools. Having two webmaster portals for a single source for organic results does not add enough value. Once organic results are transitioned to Bing in all the markets, we plan to shut down Yahoo! Site Explorer and Microsoftâs Webmaster Tools will be the source for Bing and Yahoo! webmaster site and analytics data.
Horrible news for many SEOs who have come to rely on Yahoo Site Explorer as a free, comprehensive and search engine backed competitive analysis link tool.
Sad news for me, being that Yahoo keeps failing on search. But we know. Tim Mayer, the equivalent to Yahoo's Matt Cutts back int he day, was personally responsible for setting up this beloved tool. So it is so sad to see it being shut down.
Microsoft Webmaster Tools, which isn't bad, is suppose to pick up where Yahoo left off. But I doubt Microsoft will offer a competitive link analysis tool within their webmaster tools. Google doesn't, Yahoo did, I doubt Microsoft will.
Yahoo has posted a detailed FAQ on this on their blog. Here are some of them:
When will Site Explorer shutdown?
We are working with Microsoft to transition organic results in all markets to the Microsoft Search platform. Site Explorer will shut down once all markets are transitioned. This is expected later this year. We will keep updating you with progress of the transition at our Search Blog.
Will the Site Explorer APIs be shut down?
The APIs were scheduled to be shut down at the end of last year, but the timeframe has been extended for the YDN Site Explorer API up until September 15, 2011. Note: For BOSS Site Explorer APIs shut down information, scheduled for July 20, 2011, please see this April 2011 blog post.
Will Yahoo! continue to crawl my website?
Although the organic results will be powered by Microsoft Search platforms, Yahoo! will continue to innovate on the search experience beyond the services delivered by Microsoft. In order to provide Yahoo! users with an amazing search experience, our slurp crawlers may continue to selectively crawl websites to help support these efforts.
Goodbye Yahoo Site Explorer!
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
In 2009 Yahoo made a big splash in the industry by saying they will only hold on to search data for 90 days. It was a very short amount of time to retain search queries but Yahoo did it.
Now Yahoo is reversing that decision and upping it from 3 months to 18 months.
The LA Times first reported this saying:
Yahoo Inc. said it would begin keeping records of its usersâ search engine queries for at least 18 months, abandoning an earlier policy under which it kept data for only three months.
"Over the past several years itâs clear that the Internet has changed, our business has changed, and the competitive landscape has changed," Anne Toth, a policy executive at Yahoo, wrote in a blog post. "We have gone back to the drawing board to ensure that our policies will support the innovative products we want to deliver for our consumers."
This is interesting because Microsoft has a 6 month policy. So here, Microsoft will only have 6 months of search history whereas Yahoo will hold onto it for a year or so longer. Microsoft and Yahoo are search partners.
I guess Yahoo has little to lose and a lot to gain from this policy change. At least that is the way I see it.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
I remember back when Yahoo bought AlltheWeb. Most Webmasters and SEOs were a bit upset, because AlltheWeb was one of those upcoming search engines who really could compete with Google back in the day.
So Yahoo acquired it back in 2004 when Overture, which acquired AlltheWeb in 2003, was acquired by Yahoo. Very early 2004, Yahoo was shopping for search engines to buy, so they no longer have to be dependent on Google's search engine. They were expected to use Inktomi which they acquired earlier, but then they bought AllTheWeb and Alta Vista. They made changed to both engines and released their own flavor of Yahoo Search soon after, surprising some webmasters.
AlltheWeb had one of the largest web indexes back then and was loved by Webmasters.
Now, well, those investments are gone. They outsource their search technology to Microsoft and will redirect the technologies they acquired in 2004 to Yahoo Search, which is powered by Microsoft.
The funny thing, they are doing this on Microsoft's birthday - April 4th!
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo made big news in search yesterday by announcing the launch of Yahoo Search Direct. It is like Google Instant but within the search suggestions box.
Now saying Yahoo is copying Google here is not fair. Why? Because Yahoo had Yahoo Instant Search back in 2005, about five years prior to Google launching Google Instant.
That being said, Search Engine Land has a nice number of articles on it that sum up what it does. Before I do that, here is a brief feature list:
Search Engine Land Stories:
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorldand Google Blogoscoped Forums.
Currently Yahoo Search in the UK is still running off the original Yahoo index and algorithm.
As you know, Bing is powering Yahoo's organic and paid results in the US and Canada. Last week, Yahoo and Bing announced they migrated over the organic results in Australia, Brazil and Mexico to Bing.
So what is next?
A WebmasterWorld has some speculation that Yahoo UK is next. Some webmasters and SEOs are noticing that the Yahoo UK results have "two different indexes" on refreshes. By that, if a person searches once and then again, they are seeing two completely different set of results. In addition, when they compare one of those sets, it seems to match up with the Bing results. This shows me that Bing and Yahoo are heavily testing the UK migration and it might be next up on the list.
Are you ready for Bing to power Yahoo in the UK? I assume so, at least by now.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yesterday, Yahoo announced a very cool new search keyword tool named Yahoo Clues. I did a pretty detailed write up on it at Search Engine Land, so I will try not to repeat much of that here.
In short, this is a keyword tool that shows you data for only the most popular queries. Yahoo said the tool is also updated about every hour. The tool shows you demographic data, such as gender and age, income levels, geographic location and related keywords.
The somewhat unique part of this tool is the "search flow." It shows you the most likely preview query and next query on Yahoo after searching for that term. So for those iPhone normally search for these searches prior to search for iPhone:
And this is what they search for next:
The chain here is important.
For more on how this works, see the help documents and the video below.
Forum discussion at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld.
I really don't know why I am so upset, but I am. Probably not as upset as all those Yahoo Search engineers who are out of a job or as upset as Jerry Yang but I am really upset.
Yahoo has been testing letting Bing power their search results then ramped it up last week. Then yesterday, officially flipped the switch in the U.S. and Canada. Yahoo no longer powers the underlying organic search results on Yahoo Search, it is now Bing who powers it.
Shashi Seth of Yahoo said, " I am proud to announce that the transition of organic search between Yahoo! and Microsoft is complete." Bing's Satya Nadella said, "Today I am happy to share that Bing is powering Yahoo!’s search results in the US and Canada." Yea, I am sure he is happy.
The paid results are next and that will likely be done in the next month or so, in my opinion. We are still waiting to hear on Site Explorer, BOSS, Search Monkey dates for transition or future plans.
I am sad. Yahoo was powering their own results. They dropped Google, bought several search companies (AllTheWeb, AltaVista Inktomi +) and launched their own Yahoo Search. That is done, no more, gone!
To make things worse, they are embarrassed that Bing is powering them. Why? point font at the bottom of the page? Heck, with Google, they had a fancy Google logo on the bottom or top of the results.
I am just sad!
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint Forums.
Update: So Yahoo responded to this blog post, without linking to it, saying they will always be a search engine. I tweeted it and got this response back from an SEO that I found to be dead on:
.bbpBox22093206978 {background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/4877276/back5.jpg) #339933;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
@rustybrick Funny - when Yahoo uses someone else's data, they're evolving. When I do it, I'm a thin affiliate.less than a minute ago via TweetDeckDr. Peter J. Meyers
dr_pete
Two more quotes, these from Danny Sullivan, who I am glad agrees with me:
.bbpBox22097768415 {background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/1636162/flag-flickr.jpg) #9ae4e8;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
i'm among the "irresponsible" with "innuendo" that yahoo's not search engine. it's not. it offer search made by others [bit.ly]less than a minute ago via Seesmic twhirlDanny Sullivan
dannysullivan
.bbpBox22097866969 {background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/1636162/flag-flickr.jpg) #9ae4e8;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
at least i'm not the one who said yahoo was never a search company. that was yahoo CEO carol bartz [selnd.com]less than a minute ago via Seesmic twhirlDanny Sullivan
dannysullivan
Yahoo announced that Bing will be powering Yahoo Search on the organic side later this week. Right now and for the past month, Yahoo has been testing Bing powered search results on Yahoo. Yahoo said, the full transition is happening later this week and they will let us know when it is complete.
You will also know the transition is complete when you see the "Powered by Bing" logo on the bottom of the Yahoo Search results.
This is only for the United States and Canada Yahoo Search results, the other results won't change over until 2012. This is also only for the organic side of things.
Also, you should know the organic results between Yahoo and Bing, the ranking order, will be exactly the same when this transition is complete. Yahoo may add some makeup to the results, but the ranking order will be exactly the same.
On the paid side, Yahoo is testing the account migration tool now and hopes to release it to everyone in the upcoming weeks.
I'll follow up this post on the webmaster side of the things. Specifically, Yahoo Site Explorer, BOSS and SearchMonkey.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yesterday, Tim Mayer of Yahoo tweeted that he is no longer at Yahoo.
.bbpBox20261684895 {background:url(http://s.twimg.com/a/1280874693/images/themes/theme1/bg.png) #9AE4E8;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}
Finishing up my first day post-Yahoo: Was very busy today- need to make time for a long bike ride tomorrowless than a minute ago via webTim Mayer
timmayer
Tim Mayer, if you don't know him, was like the Matt Cutts of Google but to Yahoo. I first sat down to chat with him one on one at a PubCon in 2004. He is a great guy, well respected in the industry and as Danny described he practically worked at every search engine out there.
Tim was responsible for launching Site Explorer, the No Yahoo Directory tag, spoke at many conferences, hosted a radio show on WebmasterRadio.FM and so much more.
I guess since Yahoo is out of the search game, there is no purpose for him to be there now. But it is sad to see him not with a search engine. Well, he may be at a search engine, but he didn't say which yet.
We asked the question, what if Matt Cutts left Google? Well, what if Tim Mayer left Yahoo? Well, there is no Yahoo Search anymore - so I guess there is the answer.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
We see stats on image search usage, comparing Google to Yahoo to Bing to even sites like Facebook or Flickr. But which sends webmasters the most traffic? Google Analytics doesn't make it very easy to filter search referrers but image search engine, but those that rely on image search as a traffic source keep close tabs to that metric.
Zeus, a forum personality that I have come to respect in terms of any image search topic he posts, wrote a post at WebmasterWorld.
Google recently redesigned image search leading to webmasters complaining that they may receive less traffic. Zeus said that is happening and due to that, Yahoo is sending him more traffic via Image Search than Google. Zeus said:
We all know that google images has made some unnecessary changes to there layout and here the last weeks time Yahoo images has taken the first spot in my stats for the first time ever, in just a week.
Has anyone else seen the same?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
As announced but as expected and seen already, Bing is, on occasion, powering Yahoo results - so they can test Bing powered Yahoo results in the live results.
You have a pretty good chance of seeing Bing powered Yahoo results. As I mentioned at Search Engine Land, up to a 25% chance of seeing Bing organic results on Yahoo. And for the first time, I personally see them matching. Here is a screen shot, side by side, showing them matching exactly, even the images:
The red portion is the only portion of the "organic" section that is not the same. Why, well those are not really "organic" results, they are news injected results.
The Bing Search Blog also posted this morning, emphasizing:
For webmasters, it’s important to be familiar with how the Bing crawler interacts with your site. After the full algorithmic transition is complete, you only need to optimize for one crawler (Bing), as we will provide Yahoo! with results from our index.
Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.
This doesn't change my opinion about Yahoo's not being in search but I do love Yahoo as a portal and a home page. Yahoo, to me, was always that perfect home page and it seems like although they gave up on search, they are going back to their pre-search days, as a destination portal.
From the Yahoo Corporate Blog, Yahoo shows off their new marketing message. Take a couple minutes to watch their message in a TV commercial format and tell me, do you like it? I do.
Yahoo! Tile Video @ Yahoo! Video
Forum discussion at Google Blogoscoped Forums.
March 1, 2010 was Yahoo's 15th birthday. 15 years - wow! Yahoo has a special doodle up for the day, a birthday cake. Here it is:
Yahoo has several blog posts about the birthday. One from Jerry & David, the founders, plus they posted a Twitter challenge for the birthday.
Happy Birthday Yahoo!
Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.
Hat tip to Michel.
Yahoo is trying to convince everyone that they are still a search company. Honestly, if you do not power your own search results, if you do not crawl the web and own the ranking algorithms, you are not in search. Ask.com is more in search than Yahoo, in my opinion. Well, let me step back just a second.
When the Microsoft & Yahoo deal goes through, Yahoo will not power the search results on Yahoo Search anymore. They will power the look and display of those results, as far as I know. But in my opinion, if you do not crawl the web and index content and then power those ranking algorithms - you are not in search - you are a aggregator of some sorts.
If I said Ask.com isn't in search because they use structured data, for the most part, then the same applies to Yahoo.
Do you agree? Here is a poll:
Will Yahoo Really Continue in Search?(online surveys)
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Not to be outdone by Google, Yahoo also added real-time Twitter results for "buzzing" keyword phrases. I tried to replicate any results on Yahoo, but I was not yet able to see them. Maybe it is still rolling out.
The industry is discussing the Yahoo roll out at WebmasterWorld.
Meanwhile, sometime mid-afternoon yesterday, the real time results Google previewed a couple days ago, went live in the main Google search results. SEOs and Webmasters are now playing with it, looking for ways to exploit take advantage of it. There is discussion on it going live at WebmasterWorld.
Both Rae at OutSpokenMedia.com and Danny at Search Engine Land covered how the results can be exploited and get a be "mad."
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld (Yahoo) and WebmasterWorld (Google).
Yahoo announced they have added a developing news box that includes news articles, pictures, videos and also tweets.
Starting today, you can see relevant photos, videos, and tweets about a breaking news story on the Yahoo! News Shortcut. Many of you are already familiar with the existing Yahoo! News Shortcut, which displays headlines on our Web search results page when you look for news stories. The enhanced shortcut with these new tabs will now display for many breaking or major news searches.
Here are some screen captures:
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Greg Sterling always does a great job with the financials, and he did so with the Yahoo (YHOO) earnings details. Yahoo Q2 Revs: $1.57B, Down 13 Percent But Profit Up 8 Percent from Search Engine Land has those details.
In short, revenue was down 13% but profit was up about 8%. Some thought Yahoo would layoff an additional 5%, but those reports were wrong.
We are all anticipating some Microsoft/Yahoo deal happening sooner then later, so time will tell. The Yahoo home page news failed to excite and the earnings report was not too positive. No wonder 60% feel Yahoo won't make a come back.
Microsoft (MSFT) is to announce earnings tonight, while Google (GOOG) already announced higher earnings. The real impressive company, to me, is AAPL.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
The other day, I spilled my guts out about missing the old days of Yahoo. I honestly wish Yahoo was on their way to a full recovery and become a strong competitor to Google or even not compete with Google, but just become stronger then it was a year ago. But it doesn't seem to be happening and it is sad.
I decided to feel out our readers, and ask them if they feel Yahoo has a shot and making a come back? Here are the results:
Question: HowWill Yahoo Turn Things Around?
:: No said 45 respondents or 60%
:: Yes said 25 respondents or 33%
:: Other said 5 respondents or 7%
Most of the "other" answers were "I doubt it" type of responses. Yahoo, prove us wrong, please!
Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo is reportedly releasing SearchPad today. We covered the preview of this earlier, where webmasters called it a big scraper tool - what search engine isn't. ;-)
What is it?
Search Pad is a note taking application built into Yahoo! Search that automatically assists you in saving websites you visit and taking notes as you search. Search Pad helps you collect, edit, organize, save, print, and email your notes for immediate or future use.
Search Pad is helpful in completing tasks and making decisions that require collecting information over multiple search sessions such as making a large purchase, planning a vacation or gathering information on a health issue.
You can learn all about it and see additional screen shots at [help.yahoo.com].
This can be a very useful tool for searchers, so I am looking forward to trying it out once and never using it again.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.
A few weeks ago, we asked our readers if they like the new Yahoo home page? With 127 responses in, I wanted to share the results.
Most of our readers do like the new home page. 73% said they like the new home page, while 25% said they do not like it. That is a pretty good distribution. Here is the pie chart:
The "other" responses were pretty much in the nature of "I don't care, either way."
Are you surprised by these results?
Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo is frequently testing new home pages. The most recent test was announced a few days ago. The new look looks like this:
Why do I bring it up now? Well, it appears some users are finally noticing the new home page in their daily browsing activities.
A WebmasterWorld thread has several people who said they now see the new home page. Personally, I don't see it. I am not sure if I like it over the current one. What about you?
Take our poll:
Do You Like The New Yahoo Home Page?(polls)
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo announced their first quarter earnings for 2009 and it was pretty bad. Here are the highlights:
Yahoo! Inc. today reported revenues of $1,580 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2009, a decrease of 13 percent from the first quarter of 2008. Excluding the impact of currency rate fluctuations, revenues for the first quarter of 2009 would have declined 8 percent from the first quarter of 2008. The Company’s non-GAAP operating cash flow for the first quarter of 2009 of $409 million exceeded the midpoint of the outlook range provided by the Company last quarter.
Plus, Yahoo will be cutting 5% of the staff, that is an additional 600-700 employees from the layoffs they had earlier this year and last year. Sounds like Yahoo is bleeding to me.
But the thing is, Yahoo beat Wall Street Estimates and the stock is up a bit in pre-market conditions.
In any event, you can read more about this at Search Engine Land or on Techmeme.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yahoo's new CEO, Bartz, is rumored to be pushing out a major reorganization for the troubled search engine in the upcoming weeks. Kara Swisher at AllThingsD, I believe, broke the news about this coming down. You can see some additional coverage on the news at Techmeme.
Greg Sterling summarizes this new management style as "top down" approach, something Yahoo might not be use to. But Yahoo needs change and maybe this will be it.
Supposedly, Bartz is very tight lipped about who she tells her plans. So I suspect both executives and the normal workers at Yahoo are both a bit antsy on what will take place this week.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Yesterday, the blogsophere was abuzz with news that Yahoo will be retaining data for 90 days. At Search Engine Land, Barry explains that "[t]he data policy is not just inclusive of their search data but also their page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks."
The industry has been pretty quiet about anonymizing data since June 2007. But this new announcement, which shortens the length of data retention by more than a year compared to other engines, is a bit eye-opening. It's also perceived as a great move on behalf of Yahoo and one that will put pressure on Google to do the same thing.
Well, it's a great move on behalf of Yahoo if they actually remove all query information after 3 months (and not just IP information). After all, I can't help but think about Thelma Arnold who was identified by her search behavior and not her actual IP location.
What, then, is Yahoo retaining after 90 days and what is Yahoo scrapping? We don't know. Do you?
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld. More blog discussion is on Techmeme.
About a week ago we reported about the news that Yahoo is testing a new home page design. Since then, we have really not heard any chatter about people actually seeing the design in place. I personally see the old design and that is expected because Yahoo is testing out the new design on a test group.
Last night, a DigitalPoint Forums thread started, telling members that he saw the new design. This user was using Internet Explorer and was automatically redirected from www.yahoo.com to m.www.yahoo.com. Clicking on m.www.yahoo.com will not load the new design for everyone, because most users who tried it, including myself, do not see the new design.
Aurora Brown, the individual who saw this new design, posted a screen capture at AuthorityDomains.com:
It is a simpler design, but will Yahoo users like it?
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Reuters reports that Yahoo is doing an overhaul of its homepage, but that not all users can see it yet (like me. I never get the good stuff early). According to the Reuters article, this change is intended to "give users a personalized view of the wider Web."
Here's their screenshot:
I'm not entirely sure who is seeing the new redesign, as Yahoo says less than 15% of users have been exposed to it. Thus far, there's been no forum discussion on the impact of the redesign.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
Go to Yahoo Search and use their search suggestions. All I want you to do is enter in "G" into the search box and obtain the search suggestions.
Yea, Google comes up as a suggestion. This is really a common thing. People go to search engines to find other search engines. In fact, I have seen several clients go to Google.com and type in "google" to get back to Google.com. I am not joking.
The search suggestions typically try to show you the most common searches for your partial search phrase. It is not surprising to me that Google is a popular search at Yahoo. In fact, try typing in "Y" into Google, you will see Google puts YouTube first, but in fact, Yahoo is search more often, according to the numbers:
Again, not surprising.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
David Eaves reports that UK based users who go to yahoo.com are now being redirected from the .com version to the Yahoo UK domain.
David said this is brand new behavior from Yahoo. 24 hours earlier, if a UK internet user went to Yahoo.com, it would keep them on Yahoo.com. Now, Yahoo is sending UK users off to Yahoo UK.
I honestly have a feeling this has to do with Yahoo Now Showing Geo-Location Under Search Ads from two days ago. Yahoo told me that they rolled out that feature last "week with the roll out of a new “geo labels” feature." I would not be surprised if the same geo-technology was applied to this.
I am going to post screen captures of this at Search Engine Land, with the behavior of how Yahoo, Google and Live handle UK users.
Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Barry at Search Engine Land points out that Yahoo India has glue pages, which some people are comparing to Universal Search, because of classic search results on the left hand column, visual information in the center column and bottom right hand corner (in addition to articles), and sponsored results.
Here's a screenshot for a search for trees. Click to enlarge.
The idea is pretty cool and sticky (pun intended) and the results page is definitely more aesthetically pleasing than the standard 10 blue links. It kind of reminds me of the current Ask.com format:
Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.
Last week Yahoo added a nifty feature to Yahoo Local Search. For example, let's say you are looking for the nearest ATM machine. You can type in ATM, and then your zip code. But you won't be shown the nearest ATM within an X mile radius always.
Yahoo let's you plot the diameter of the circle and drop the center of that circle anywhere you want. Yahoo will then refine the local results based on the radius you selected and the center of the circle. Here is a quick video demo:
It doesn't seem like this tool is without bugs. A WebmasterWorld thread reports a blackhole issue.
I went looking for pizza places in Manhattan and noticed certain places disappeared even if you move the circle a hundred yards or so. You'd suddenly find black holes in the middle of Manhattan where there were, according to yahoo, no pizza places. Budge the circle over an eighth of an inch and the same pizza-free streets would suddenly fill with pizza joints, so there's still some work for them to do.
In any event, a unique and interactive solution to searching locally.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
WebmasterWorld members report that Yahoo has announced its new crawler, Slurp 3.0. Now, when you analyze your weblogs, you'll be seeing Slurp 3.0, though it recognizes the same user-agent and robots.txt as before.
More importantly, they are invalidating all other Yahoo Slurp IP addresses and using brand new ones for this update. IP-based rules will need to be changed.
Search Engine Land provides more information, where Barry writes that the new IP addresses will still reverse DNS lookup to crawl.yahoo.net.
On WebmasterWorld, your work is getting more complicated, according to Wilderness. There are still 11 different spiders and 5 user agents to keep track of. But Barry explains this clearly: "If you set directives for "Slurp" or "Yahoo! Slurp," those will remain working, but if you specified "Slurp/2.0," then you may have an issue."
It is kind of funny, in that Yahoo's spiders are having the same old problems that Yahoo's business unit is having. Remember the Peanut Butter Memo, where Yahoo talks about their lack of clarity between all their business units and properties. It's all too familiar once again.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.
Note: "Me" in this case refers to Barry. I'm only here to report about Slurp 3.0. ;)
A HighRankings Forum thread asks when did Yahoo stop grouping search results from the same domain together? We reported on an issue with Google not grouping certain results a few weeks ago, but it is rare to see Google not group results in many cases. But Yahoo doesn't seem to be grouping any results from the same domain together, at least not today.
For example, a search on george bush at Yahoo shows three results from the White House web site, and two right next to each other, but none of them are grouped together:
A search at Google on george bush groups a few of the results together, when the domain is the same, including the White House results:
So where did the indenting go Yahoo Search?
The thread also talks about missing how Yahoo used to number the results, but that is an older topic.
Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.
Yesterday I reported that one of the many Yahoo announcements were that Yahoo was going to test running Google ads on Yahoo Search USA.
According to a Search Engine Watch Forums thread, the Google ads are now live on Yahoo. Note, if you don't want your Google ads to show on Yahoo, you need to opt your ads out on showing on third party search providers. In any event, some advertisers are noticing that their Google ads are showing up in Yahoo sponsored results.
As expected, the ads don't appear as AdSense ads - they simply look like Yahoo ads. SEW moderator explains, "Yahoo seems to be configured as a Google Search Partner, not as an AdSense publisher." In addition, he adds, "Initially (i.e. earlier today) I was only seeing my ad a small percent of the time (i.e. Yahoo was only including it on a fraction of the SRPs for a given search), but now I'm seeing my ad 100% of the time." But the ad is only showing when he stopped showing his native Yahoo ad, i.e. the Google ad won't show for him until he tells Yahoo to stop showing his Yahoo ad.
His conclusion so far?
The net effect is like a pooled ad resource, where Google and Yahoo have pooled ads to run on Yahoo (and maybe soon on both engines?)
Note, this is supposedly only suppose to impact 3% of Yahoo's search ads in the US. It is also suppose to run only for about two weeks.
Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.
