| Yahoo
is not the Internet Powerhouse that it used to be. Although
the second largest human-edited search directory (DMOZ.org
is first), Yahoo has been losing the search wars to Google
for the past 3 years.
In order to
stop the backslide and gain back some market share, Yahoo
has switched over to the Overture search technology and
Inktomi search technology (cutting ties with Google). Yahoo
has implemented the Overture Site Match program which spyders
a site and displays the listing in the main body of the
Yahoo search results. With the Overture Site Match program,
website will also be listed with Alta Vista, Alltheweb and
About.
Yahoo still
offers its Yahoo! Express program where a fee is paid for
inclusion into the Yahoo directory. In the Yahoo! Express
program, websites are reviewed by a human-editor who may
rewrite the site's title and / or description when including
it in the directory and this new information will also appear
in the search results as well.
It is unclear
at this point of the relationship of the search results
for the Yahoo directory listings versus those generated
by Overture displayed in the main body of the search results.
Another service
Yahoo offers is the pay-for-performance listings, which
reside on top of the main listings when viewing the search
results. These listings appear in the sponsored search results
listings at the top of the page. Position in the pay-for-performance
listings are determined by the bidding on specific keywords.
Some recent
reports say that Yahoo will reclaim much of its lost market
share from Google with these changes by taking as much as
20 - 30 percent directly from their competitor.
For non-commercial
sites Yahoo still gives the option of free inclusion to
its site. One must still sign up for a Yahoo account, but
the process is pretty painless.
Yahoo has also
unveiled its new free email service with 100mb of storage
and 10mb attachments. Google may be beta testing GMail but
Yahoo is first in offering mega storage for free email.
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