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A directory is a web site that focuses on listing web sites by individual topics. A quasi table of contents. A search engine lists pages, where a Directory (such as Looksmart or The Open Directory Project lists websites).
I've often described a directory as a human compiled list of sites/links/pages. Up til a year or 2 ago, Yahoo certainly met this definition to us (WebmasterWorldmembers). When they started using a SE type algo to present results from their dirctory in se style fashion, they blurred the line a bit.
I contend that when they made the change to All Google, All the Time [webmasterworld.com] last month, Yahoo effectively became another Search Engine, as far as we're concerned. And especially with the statements that Google is not necessarily their "exclusive" search provider, you can't say they're just a G clone.
The directory is still there, but the traffic come from the "Web Matches" search option. They've got a ton of content & areas so to a newbie or non web professional, they're a portal or a destination unto itself.
But what are they to a webmaster/seo professional? A SE? A directory? Both?
rmjvol
In addition to SE and directory, I'd add the following two thoughts:
Yahoo! is still a vehicle for traditional web advertising (e.g., banners, etc.).
Yahoo! has potential partnership opportunities for web sites that offer products/services of interest to Yahoo! users. (See Yahoo! Finance or Shopping, for example.)
I can think of at least 4 different ways I get my traffic from Yahoo! ... :)
Portal
a.k.a. cyberstation -or- hub
A Web site that serves as a starting point to other destinations or activities on the Web. Initially thought of as a home base with links to other sites in the same subject area, portals now attempt to provide all of a user's Internet needs, in one location. Pioneered by Yahoo!, portals aggregate other people's content.
For example, portals commonly provide services such as e-mail, online chat rooms, games, shopping, searching, content, newsfeeds, travel information, stock quotes, horoscopes, weather, and so on.
Portals grew out of the technology inherent with the Internet and are an excellent example of how to take advantage of "user loyalty" via sticky content.
Certainly, back in October of '96 [web.archive.org] Yahoo was the start point for most internet surfers because of their Directory, but they continued to add features like chat in July of 97 [web.archive.org], and web based email in October of 97 [web.archive.org] to anchor their position.
Finally their first major home page facelift arrived in February of '99 [web.archive.org] which charted their clear direction of devoting more and more of their prime front page real estate to features other than the directory.
If you continue to look at their site design development from 2000 [web.archive.org] through Today [yahoo.com], you can see that this has been anything but a dramatic shift... they've been moving in this direction all along.
Hindsight is 20/20 eh? ;)
Do the rest of you see the same thing? If this sticks, it would appear that Y! has largely reverted to the model they had before the new Google contract. They must be worried about losing a LOT of $$$ for paid listings. If so, I am very surprised they didn't anticipate that.
Added: I just did some more checking. What I mentioned above appears to be almost perfectly the case in the adult listings...up to Position #20. Interesting!
I launched a site a few weeks ago that is listed in the Y! directory, yet does not show up in Google (yet, as it should be picked up in the next crawl). So therefore, I think it may be a cross reference of the 2. But to counterpoint myself, I did a search and company that comes up #1 in the Y! directory listings, does not come up in the the top 40 listings of the Y! web matches. SO, again I don't know if your experience is isolated or may be my example is isolated?!?
I *think* Y! wants the default first page to be all their own stuff.
If they're trying to justify that $600 adult fee, the $300 commercial fee can't be far behind.
rmjvol
