In the comments of a recent post comparing Microsoft’s Virtual Earth with Google maps, I was quite rightly taken to task by Dave for suggesting that Yahoo! are not a significant player in map search.
Dave informed me that:
Yahoo’s revenues are way way bigger than Google. Google are a tiny company compared to MS and a small one compared to Yahoo.
and
Yahoo have a better revenue stream than any of the other players in search and are proving just as big a draw for graduates as Google and MS are way behind. This is a battle between Yahoo and Google not between MS and anyone
and he concluded with
Yahoo’s share of the search engine market is almost twice Microsofts and in general with the launch of their new applications growing massively.
http://searchenginewatch.com/img/nrcurrent.gif
Game, set and match to Dave!
I had underestimated Yahoo!’s share of the search market because in my own site statistics for July I received 942 links from Google, 51 from MSN Search and 38 from Yahoo! (and this site is in Yahoo!’s directory!).
Then I saw Mark Jen’s post on AOL and how AOL
might truly be a dark horse candidate for being the “winner� of the current Internet wave
And after all that I got to wondering - who does use Yahoo!? Or AOL? Or any other search/portal site? And why?
Personally, I use Google for quick searches, I use a combination of blog search engines for searches I want to subscribe to and I use MSN Search occasionally for a more wide-ranging search (not just blogs) which I can subscribe to.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
I can’t read your existing post as the link 404’s but while I wouldn’t say that Yahoo! doesn’t matter in map search, I would say that they just don’t matter enough.
Yes they turn over more revenue than Google, but Yahoo! doesn’t have any heat, and Microsoft is the company everybody loves to hate. So you have the darling of Wall Street facing down the company everyone wants to see take a kicking, while Yahoo! sits out in the cold posting solid numbers (Yawn!) and buying fantastic little apps (X1 Search and Konfabulator) which become uncool the moment they touch them.
Yahoo’s problem is that they are run like a grown up business by an adult, Terry Semel, a guy who got rid of the skunkworks culture Google still embraces, but ensured the company didn’t develop the teenage petulance of those in Redmond. (Or in Cupertino, or in Redwood Shores)
Mark,
apologies about the link - I have fixed it now.
Is that a problem necessarily? I mean if they are posting solid numbers, they are doing something right - we saw in dot bomb how not posting solid numbers can be a tad shortsighted even you are cool!
However, this all strays away from the Which Search Engine do you use, and why?
I use google coz I jumped on the bandwagon way back when and now it’s what I’m used to.
I hate to admit it, but it’s the truth… I haven’t done any comparison search engines in a long time!
As for your site stats (and mine) - I wonder how much has to do with optimising sites in proportion to their market share? In other words Google has the lions share of search engine users and therefore a lot of the optimisation I do is aimed at google… any opinions?
Being a solid company isn’t a bad thing, it’s just bad for your coolness factor. In contrast to Yahoo, Google is overvalued, underperforming, and lacks a coherent strategy but they have the illusion of great things going on. I don’t think there’s any Google master plan, but that they are throwing stuff at the wall, or buying stuff that the other guy already has.
As for search engines, AltaVista, followed by Yahoo!, followed by Excite, followed by Google. Simply because at the time those were the search engines that people trusted to get the job done. I chose my search engines by following the eyeballs, the more eyeballs the better the chances are that the results are indicative of what really was out there.
With search I think trust is a big part of it, do your peers trust it? If they do then the chances are you will too.
re: the email you left on Open
just trying out your comments
I think that’s incredibly harsh, how exactly is Konfabulator uncool because Y! bought it. As far as I’m concerned it just meant I could have free access to the software. Likewise Flickr didn’t change when Y! bought it, well I lie it did change, Pro members got more.
If I was in the market to buy shares in either company then I’d go with Y! Don’t get me wrong I love Google, but things like Google News just show they don’t have a clue how to make money out of half of what they have going on.
Harsh, but somewhat fair, and you’re right Y! is a far better investment because they have a proven track record and solid management.
I like Terry Semel, he helped build Warner Brothers and he took no crap from the geeks at Yahoo when he took over. The man has his secretary print out his email for him to read, he uses the blank side of the page and a ballpoint pen to respond, and he still has a nose for running a technology business.
That being said, Y!’s brand hasn’t been hip since the late nineties and it tends to infect their acquisitions over time. Yes flickr is a raging success, and I expect X1, (Which I rated as the best desktop search add-on long before Y! bought it, it’s a champ which beats the heck out of the still buggy MSN Desktop Search and that piece of nonsense from Google) and Konfabulator to be success too.
The thing is that just like flickr these products will probably only thrive by being as un-Yahoo! like as possible. With Flickr we see where Yahoo is smart and companies like Sun (Who bought Watson) and Microsoft (Hotmail) are stupid, they realise that Flickr is the brand. If they make X1 (Or whatever it’ll end up being called as X1 is still owned by the company they bought the code from) and Konfabulator the brand, then those will do fine too.
Yahoo! “Whatever” appears to be the kiss of death though, there are a litany of also ran products which are pre-fixed with the Y! and they tended to be ignored by consumers.