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[cnn.com...]
Will be most interesting to see...
Yahoo plans to incorporate Inktomi's tools in to its search engine by year's end.
I'm not sure how you read that and come up with
Yahoo retains Google until year end
You should have seen some increased activity in your respective logs from an old friend "slurp"...Yahoo was unleashing slurp to increase the depth and breadth of its database...so that it could provide some fresher results than what Google presently does...
We had slurp all over our properties recently and we see this as a good sign for possible fresher results cycles from Yahoo...
My only question is will they integrate a bigger percentage of their directory listings in the results pages? Of course, there is a ton of spammy listings with multiple string keyword domain names that were doing very well before the big change last October...kind of like what you can do over at Looksmart...hideous stuff by our standards..
decaff
The article also says that the new Search version will combine Google's index with Yahoo's customized services
What I've seen with one in particular I watch is nothing like Google, or what Google's had since over 7 months ago. The meat is 95% paid directory & Yahoo shopping listings, with others in there like a tossed salad thrown in on the side for good measure. Only with the site I take care of, they dragged out a worn-out, out-dated copy of what hasn't even been in existence since last July.
They're saying some, but not actually saying anything at all. What they're putting out is some cryptic, undecipherable hybrid. It says they'll be using Ink's technology by the end of the year, not their database. That alone is a foreboding of what could come.
But my guess is that they'd better be quick to start divulging what's constituting algorithmic search and what's paid listings. I'm seeing a mix of the two now, without disclosure. Not on all - some still look like Google. Not all, which is what's arousing suspicion.
[edited by: Marcia at 2:22 am (utc) on April 8, 2003]
yahoo will use INK by years end
If YAHOO! started using Ink tomorrow that would be by years' end.
Ink technology can do that, and that's exactly where this can go. If we think the Directory listings will stay $299 a year and never go PPC just like LS did, we're not looking at recent history hard enough.
I just can't see Google remaining involved, at least not on a publicly visible level, with the kind of corrupted, undisclosed mixture potentially being offered as quality search that we're liable to be seeing at Yahoo in the future.
Remember what that looked like at MSN?
That's kinda what it looks like today, no? Big advertisers throw in thousands of pages while the small biz folks are limited to either 1 or sometimes a few more [looksmart.com].
MSN doesn't seem to cluster (is that the right word?) LookSmart results so if the name of your site happens to be a keyword phase you can take the top 5-10 spots for that particular keyword:) which makes the search results look stupid.
In any case, I'd expect YAHOO! to put as many paid results as possible on their SERPs as long as they can find some way to justify it as a "positive user experience".
Anyhow, just a thought... all this money Yahoo are raising for an acquisition... in which people are speculating Overture, E-Spotting, etc. Imagine what the acquisition of Google would do to the market. Hmmm. In my opinion the odds are not that long.
I'd "sit shiva" (official ritual mourning) and be done with it all. With the dirty pool we're surrounded with wherever we look, Google is the last bastion, the last shred of quality, integrity and common human decency that's left.
>>all this money Yahoo are raising for an acquisition...
To surround Google maybe, like a battlefield maneuver, by buying up Overture? If we think about it, Yahoo can pull a LookSmart deal, turn the directory into PPC like LS did. Put that first {preceded by Overture maybe), followed by their hybrid, FTC-baiting backfill with PFI. All including feeds for the corporate crowd, of course.
If Yahoo were to take that spare pocket change they've got now and purchase Overture, they'd have All the Web and Alta Vista. Keep Overture there, follow by their Directory - with the PPC - and the PFI with Alta and FAST as it's been. All theirs, all pay or die.
At that point, what's left? Lycos (using FAST - theirs), MSN (using Overture & Ink - theirs) Jeeves, now selling off part. Then there's AOL, having troubles of their own, with Yahoo now in the SBC/ISP business offering far superior service.
That would leave Google, with AOL and whichever partners still value quality search. But the major portals would be pretty well sewed up, kind of surrounding them.
Far-fetched and fanciful mental meanderings maybe, but a nightmare situation to imagine. More fodder for the DOJ in the making; Yahoo could make Redmond look like Vacation Bible School.
heise.de wrote something similar yesterday at about the same time:
Ende des Jahres soll die Inktomi-Technik dann die von Google ersetzen.
The quote means that Inktomi will replace Google by the end of the year. I've asked the author for a source but didn't get a reply (yet). I hope it wasn't CNN...
The timeline for this is ambiguous, but the "by" probably means well before the end of the year. If I were Yahoo I would want it tested and in place long before the '03 Fall/Christmas shopping season. IMO, I would expect a major rollout this summer.
>>Google is the last bastion, the last shred of quality, integrity and common human decency that's left.
Oh, please! I'm not buying into that one bit.
I'm buying into it, because everything is relative out there. Compare Google with MSN, for example, on all those criteria.
No contest. Ditto their puppet, Looksmart. Ditto Overture. Etc. Etc.
Not just corporate culture (which is critical because it drives everything else) but what you see in the SERPS... returns based on relevancy and not cash.
Back to Yahoo though... I still do not see why everyone seems to think Overture is the likely target. The technology itself isn't worth a lot to be honest (and is easy to replicate). Is the goodwill? Doubt it, especially after GatorGate.
Google on the other hand... what a prize for them. That would make them #1 in a single stroke if they could pull it off.
I know - it doesn't bear thinking about - but the logic is there.
OK, I will. I get more sales from my MSN traffic (around 20% of uniques) than Google's (around 50% of uniques- including Google results appearing elesewhere). Is that because MSN is so much worse? For the surfer that bought something - I doubt it!
I was talking about "dirty pools", not personal sales figures. Microsoft would be the first in the gutter, if only they could edge their way past Looksmart to get there.
The Yahoo/Google contract is non-exclusive so they can mix and match whatever they want.
Inktomi's paid inclusion can provide results for commercial/shopping type searches, while Google fills the rest.
Yahoo makes paid inclusion income off all the money terms while still keeping information seeking surfers happy with what Google has to offer.
For example, if you search for computer software you get results that are largely compiled of shopping sites who paid to play along with Google backfill.
Think of it as how they mix in their categories section with Google's results. Under some commercial searches, you don't have a direct mirror of Google's results. Big sites that are listed in the directory appear to have a benefit. The paid inclusion will just take this to another level.
All speculation but I bet that's what is going to happen.
1. Yahoo will use the Inktomi engine to crawl every listed site from the directory, and use that to provide a "directory matches / web sites" SERP again.
2. Inktomi results will drive the secondary results (web pages) as well.
