Yahoo to drop Google - finally ...

surprised? ;-)

[beachlover]

The WSJ reports in today´s issue in a rather large article that Yahoo will drop Google as the primary search technology partner within a few months.

Not that surprising this news.

[steveb]

"as the primary search technology partner" means nothing. The idea from the beginning was to mix Google with something else.

The news would be in the "within a few months" which would be an admission that Inktomi is nowhere near ready for prime time.

[FrankWeb]

The news is not that surprising but it is an eye-opener for me if I may say so.

Since the Florida Update I have been focussing to much on Google. This news reminds me to not only focus on Google, even more when the future will bring changes in the SE.

I am curious if you can already do some preparation for good ranking whenever Yahoo will not use the Google input anymore. My rankings are on general pretty good on inktomi, but will that be enough?

[Rugles]

WW members have know this for what.... a year.
Amazing how slow the press can be in the search world.

[worker]

Check out the headline on Drudge Report. Looks like this is going to be a big story.

Based on the non-Google results I've seen periodically at Yahoo, this could be the single biggest thing to help Google grow.

As soon as people are exposed in a big way, to the sub-par Ink results, they will leave en masse to Google. I would love to see Yahoo come out with a strong alternative, but if they go live with a Ink anchored Yahoo search, Yahoo Search will quickly become a joke.

[steveb]

Yahoo has been doing everything right, so the idea of launching Ink as a competitor to Google... well, that would just be insane, period.

Ink hasn't exactly been hiding. The public has voted with their feet on this issue already, and they sure haven't voted for Ink.

Yahoo has to be building a hybrid of the technologies it has purchased. Scooter is out crawling the web like mad. Why, just so that data can be left on an abandoned AV site?

The possibilities are exciting if Yahoo builds a quality search engine from the scraps it has, and MSNbot ends up also making quality results. Compared to that, the folks down at the 'plex must be drooling over even the remote hope of facing both Yahoo and MSN using Ink when the IPO goes out! That would literally raise Google's value by billions of dollars.

[sem4u]

[story.news.yahoo.com...]

The strategy isn't simply to match what Google does now but to add features its rival can't easily match.

I will believe it when I see it.

[newwebster]

What I have noticed is not Inktomi results, rather what looks like Yahoo is pulling in results from Inktomi, Altavista, and It's own directroy and then only listing pages that appear in at least 2 of the 3 of these.

[worker]

The fact that Ink revolves around the PFI model makes their database significantly limited automatically. Why would anyone think that Ink will be able to provide comparable search results when many areas are significantly limited by sites not able to afford the PFI approach. And many sites that can afford it, choose not to go PFI because of the rumors that as soon as you submit for PFI, your URL's are dropped from the free crawling Ink performs.
Aside from a smaller database defined by those that are willing to pay (think of the quality of the Looksmart db), there is the problem of Ink spam. There are pages and pages of keyword hyphen keyword hyphen keyword, followed by the same site with a slightly different combo. of words, followed by the same site with a slightly diff. combo.
I'm consistently surprised by the lack of quality results within Ink, and I'm surprised that Yahoo would allow this to leak while that system isn't working.

[shorebreak]

Thanks for the cogent posts; I was especially interested in the comment about Looksmart's high-quality db, as I think that's a valuable thing.

Does anyone care to speculate who would be interested in Looksmart's PFI advertiser/keyword database and how they might value it? Trying to understand if that makes LOOK a stock play; after all, they're trading at all of $1.50.

-shorebreak

[Brett_Tabke]

Glad the WSJ could join us (only 12 months late with the story).

The most recent installment:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[J_Mac]

Is Yahoo going back & forth between Ink & Google results?

During the day from my office computer I do a search and my sites are claiming anywhere from 2-4 of the top ten postions in many of my most prized keywords. Then when I get home and conduct the exact same searches it is nothing but Google results across the board.

This has only been happening for the last couple of days, but it seems odd to me. Any thoughts as to why?

[Ledfish]

Not sure how this relates but lately our site has been rocking with Yahoo. We rank much better than we do on Googles pages and thus our traffic from Yahoo searches has increased 3 fold in the past week.

[rfgdxm1]

>The fact that Ink revolves around the PFI model makes their database significantly limited automatically. Why would anyone think that Ink will be able to provide comparable search results when many areas are significantly limited by sites not able to afford the PFI approach.

Ink has a huge number of sites in the database that aren't PFI. Not only have my amateur sites been spidered, but also every other significant site on the topic.

[worker]

Ah, so you don't have to pay for inclusion. Great.

If they don't give preferred placement to the paying customers, and just return the most relevant search results, then I think they will have a great model.

Free inclusion and relevant results!

Unfortunately, that is not what I've seen from Ink when I've done test searches, but I'm hoping they end up with a solution like that.

[rfgdxm1]

>Yahoo has to be building a hybrid of the technologies it has purchased. Scooter is out crawling the web like mad. Why, just so that data can be left on an abandoned AV site?

This is a significant point. Why assume Yahoo will be showing just Ink SERPs? They also own Alltheweb.

[thaedge]

Anyone know what its(Yahoo) pulling from? Is it Google at times, Ink at times and? I at this time cant tell, everthing is changing too much so kind of hard to really test and see. I imagine its like this for anyone but thought id ask and hope someone knew :)

Never hurts to ask :)