Yahoo’s Mayer: “Our Search Share Has Declined” But She’s Optimistic About Opportunities

Yahoo is making progress in a number of product areas under CEO Marissa Mayer, but search isn’t one of them — a fact that Mayer herself admitted during today’s Q3 earnings call.

Yahoo’s US share of the search market was just 11.3 percent in September, according to just-released comScore numbers — that ties Yahoo’s all-time low set back in July.

On the conference call today, Mayer essentially stated the obvious about Yahoo’s position in search:

“It is true that, over the past several years, our search share has declined. In terms of the search alliance, we’re trading share with Microsoft.”

But Mayer and Yahoo CFO Ken Goldman both put on an optimistic outlook for the future, saying they feel good about Yahoo’s opportunities, particularly in mobile search.

Earlier in the call, Mayer also touted some of Yahoo’s ongoing work in search. She said the company launched more than 100 search experiments in Q3 “to refine and enhance the search experience for users and advertisers.” She also talked up

• Yahoo’s new search results page design and new mobile (iOS) search experience
• Yahoo’s new search ad formats
• two new search distribution deals with IAC Mobile and AVG International
• the recently re-launched Yahoo Answers, saying that property has “seen a nice rise in engagement since the launch”

Mayer said the company will try to reverse its continuing declines in search: “We’re endeavoring to gain share. We’re designing new functionality, differentiating functionality. We’re doing direct display units that bring the content right to the user in search results.”

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