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Yahoo's Back!
by Shawn Campbell ©Copyright 2004

I was all set to write an article predicting the future of
search engines, when Yahoo dropped Google and replaced it with
its own engine. Now that's big news. In less than twenty-four
hours, Google went from about 79% of the market share to about
51%, almost overnight. And what a welcome relief it is too!
Being #1 in Google was great, but when you had the misfortune of
dropping even a couple of positions you really felt it. Now
there will be more stability; if you drop in Google today, your
hits from Yahoo will remain consistent. 

What is the new Yahoo? 

Last year, Yahoo bought the AltaVista, Fast, and Inktomi search
engines. The new Yahoo results are none of these. Many people
are saying that the results come from a new Inktomi because the
results are similar; but the results are also similar to all the
other search engines out there. In comparing these engines, it
seems to me that Yahoo's results are from a brand new engine.
Maybe they took parts and ideas from all the search engines they
bought - maybe they even took the best parts - , but whatever
they did, the result is something completely new. 

Which search engine is better? 

I will be comparing Google and Yahoo for the terms "music", "art
prints and posters", "Bahamas real estate", "mosquito nets", and
"liposuction". The other search engines all hold less than 4% of
the market share (except for MSN which uses Yahoo's Inktomi), so
I won't be considering them. Here is what I found in the top 10
results for each keyphrase: 

Music 

Yahoo offers a lot of music resource sites. Information about
music from different sources such as magazine, TV and other
music news sites are found 6 times in the top 10 results. It
also offered downloading and file sharing programs 3 times. The
10th result was an audio player program site. 

Google has a lot more diversity. There were 3 music resource
sites (but no magazines), one downloading program, one CD store,
one radio station (Yahoo radio), one music directory, and the
10th result was an audio player program site. Google also had 2
sites in its top ten that were of no value whatsoever; MP3.com
which just has one page stating that they no longer offer the
services that they used to (with links to their parent company),
and music.com, which is nothing more than an email gathering
site for a newsletter (not a single link on the entire page). 

Google's diversity is a big bonus, but the 2 spam/junk/useless
sites really hurt it. The results? Yahoo 1, Google 0. 

Art Prints And Posters 

Yahoo offers 6 stores, while Google offers 5. The other links
are all affiliate spam with no content whatsoever (just links to
stores), with the exception of one of Yahoo's links, which has
some biographical content about artists. So Google has 5 spam
sites, and Yahoo has 3 and a half. 

Yet another round goes to Yahoo. 

Bahamas Real Estate 

For this keyphrase, I found results between Google and Yahoo to
be quite similar. The only differences were sites by actual
realtors and sites that were simply property listings. Both
types of results are useful, with Google having an edge in
realtors. Google had some lower quality sites, but the
information was just as good even though they did seem less
professional. On the other hand, Yahoo did have one site that
was nothing more than a links page from another realtor's site.
Big boo boo. 

This one goes to Google. 

Mosquito Nets 

It seems to me that someone searching for "mosquito nets" wants
either A) to buy them, or B) to learn about them, so I was
expecting to find either stores or information about mosquito
nets. Yahoo showed me 6 stores and 2 informational pages. The
other results were a search result page (not a good result) and
an inner page from a previous result (also not a good result). 

Google gave me 7 stores and 3 charitable organizations (one of
which was a store as well). The other 2 charitable organizations
were a news article outlining what they had done regarding
mosquito nets and information about mosquito nets. 

So even though I didn't necessarily want the latest news about
what a charity did regarding mosquito nets, I think getting the
same site twice from Yahoo (not to mention the search result
page) is the bigger no-no. Google wins this round. 

Liposuction 

I expected to find information about liposuction, liposuction
organizations and either doctors or centers where you can have
liposuction done. What I got was a lot of "how to find a doctor"
sites, with a lot of good information. 

Yahoo results included 3 sites doubled. This is a problem that
killed AltaVista in the late 90's. Hopefully they will have it
fixed soon. Other than the 3 doubled sites, the results included
4 informational sites, 2 sites for finding doctors and one
poorly written article about the history of liposuction. 

Google gave me 4 good informational sites, 2 good "find a
doctor" sites, one recent article about liposuction for people
in the industry, one site with very poor information one written
by a single doctor and one site that was nothing more than a
directory. 

Google gets this round as well. Overall, it looks like Yahoo
needs to fix its doubling of sites and Google needs to clean out
some spam (poor sites). 

And The Winner Is... 

You! Having two good search engines to choose from makes
searching that much better for everyone. It also makes getting
listings better. It also makes marketing better. It also makes
traffic to your site steadier. The only way this could have been
worse is if Yahoo's results sucked, and they don't. They seem
just as good, if not better, than Google's. 

So rejoice, and enjoy a more dynamic world of online searching! 

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Shawn Campbell is an enthusiastic player in the ecommerce
marketplace and co-founded Red Carpet Web Promotion, Inc.
(http://www.redcarpetweb.com/). He has been researching and
developing marketing strategies to achieve more prominent
listings in search engine results since 1998. Shawn is one of
the earliest pioneers in the search engine optimization field.
Contact: shawn@redcarpetweb.com
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