Yahoo Rolls Out New SERP, Will People Notice?

In the wake of the firing of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and amid the growing speculation surrounding a possible sale of the company, work continues for the Yahoo rank and file. (The employees must have a kind of PTSD.) But in the spirit of “life goes on,” Yahoo search engineers announced that the company is introducing improved SERPs.

The offer a somewhat cleaner design, with tabs showing related content and navigational filters that allow sorting by date and related searches.

All the changes discussed in the Yahoo Blog post aren’t live for me but they appear to be generally incremental or modest improvements. Most of the changes appear designed to provide suggestions for related searches and generate additional search volume accordingly.

Last month comScore reported that Yahoo’s US market share had grown by 0.2 percent. It’s basically “stable” or “stuck,” depending on your preference.

Bartz’s legacy is cost containment; and her chief “accomplishment” is the Microsoft search deal, which Wall Street wanted but which sent lots of engineering talent out the door. While the search alliance has generally been good for Microsoft it has not yielded the anticipated dividends (literally and figuratively) for Yahoo.