Search Engine Land’s Guide To Yahoo

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Yahoo was the original search giant, when it first launched back in the 1990s. Google has long since eclipsed it in popularity as a search engine, but Yahoo still has a significant share of search activity.

2011 will be a key year for Yahoo. By that time, if not sooner, Yahoo plans to give up its own search technology and be “powered” by rival Bing, which is owned by Microsoft. This type of “coopetition” used to be common in the search engine industry. Whether it will succeed for Yahoo remains to be seen.

In the Yahoo-Microsoft deal, Yahoo will continue to maintain its own Yahoo brand. Its “editorial results” will come from Bing — and rankings at Yahoo will be exactly like you see at Bing, Yahoo has told us. However, Yahoo may alter the look-and-feel around those results, as well as provide additional information that it hopes will make it more compelling than Bing as a search engine.

Yahoo will also carry paid search ads that come from Bing. If you’re a small company, you’ll buy those ads directly from Bing, using self-serve forms. If you’re a big advertiser, someone that has an account representative to help, Yahoo will work directly with you — though the ads ultimately will still get placed into Bing’s back-end system.

Major Yahoo Services

Yahoo provides more than web search. Below are a few of our popular Yahoo categories, where you can read past coverage:

Yahoo: Our “everything” category, this lists all stories we’ve written about Yahoo, regardless of subtopic.

Yahoo Answers: One of Yahoo’s big success stories, Yahoo Answers allows anyone to ask a question and get back answers from the Yahoo Answers community.

Yahoo’s Delicious: Coverage about Yahoo’s popular web site bookmarking service.

Yahoo’s Flickr: Stories about Yahoo’s popular photo sharing service.

Yahoo News: By some measures, Yahoo is the most popular news site in the United States. Articles about the news search engine.

Yahoo Search: While Yahoo Search is slated to be powered by Bing, Yahoo still plans its own unique search offerings. This category tracks what Yahoo does in web search.

Yahoo Search Ads: Yahoo’s search advertising system, Yahoo Search Marketing (or “Panama,” as it is known to search marketing veterans), is set to close as part of the Microsoft deal. But while it continues to operate, we continue to track it.

Yahoo SEO: Until Bing takes over, Yahoo still has its own unique results, and this category has coverage of tips and advice for webmasters and marketers looking to rank better in Yahoo.

Yahoo Resources

Those interested in Yahoo may also wish to keep an eye on the company’s official blog, Yahoo Anecdotal. Yahoo also maintains the Yahoo Search Blog, which covers search-related topics. The YSM Blog is aimed at Yahoo’s search advertising customers. Yahoo press releases can be found here.

The Full Yahoo List

Below is the full list of various Yahoo search and search-related products that we track. Click any link to see our stories in that particular area:



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