Yahoo Clues, App Search & Other Products To Shut Down April 1

Marissa Mayer is tightening Yahoo’s belt.

Since taking over as Yahoo’s CEO, she’s spoken repeatedly on the need to zero in on being part of its users’ “daily habits.”

Today, the company announced the shut down of seven products that don’t fit that “daily habit” mantra. Included in the group are a couple search-related products, including one under-the-radar keyword research tool that we (and others) have written about fondly in the past.

Yahoo Clues will be shut down on April 1st. It was poorly named and was primarily positioned as a search trends product, but for SEOs it was an interesting keyword research tool. Clues launched in late 2010 and was expanded about nine months later.

It provided a snapshot of keyword searches over time, plus great demographic information about keyword preferences between male and female, different age groups and by location.

I don’t know how widely used it was by search marketers, but in my experience, every time it was mentioned in conversation or blog posts, people had good things to say about Yahoo Clues.

Yahoo App Search is also shutting down on April 1st. This was a fairly standard search product with apps sorted by category and various filters available to searchers. Search results sent users to the appropriate app store if they wanted to buy/download something they found. It launched in 2011.

Also on Yahoo’s chopping block:

• Yahoo app for Blackberry. This will no longer be available for download as of April 1st, but the existing will continue to work — unsupported — after that date.
• Yahoo Avatars. This won’t be supported after April 1st.
• Yahoo Sports IQ. This is shutting down on April 1st.
• Yahoo Message Boards. Also shutting down on April 1st, but the message boards that within individual Yahoo sites (like Finance and Fantasy Sports) will remain active.
• Yahoo Updates API. This won’t be supported after April 16th.