| 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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