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Yahoo's Back!
by Shawn Campbell
http://www.redcarpetweb.com/
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!
Shawn Campbell
shawn@redcarpetweb.com
http://www.redcarpetweb.com/
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