Search Engines: Yahoo - We’re Not Dead Yet! Is There a Yahoo Search Engine Revival Underway?
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Written By Noah Mallin | August 5, 2008 | Share This
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Schadenfreude – it’s a scary sounding German phrase that means taking pleasure in other’s bad fortune. When it comes to Yahoo there’s been an awful lot of that going around and I too haven’t been immune.
The bad fortune certainly exists. Yahoo has been struggling to maintain their share of the search engine market against big dog Google and upstarts like Live. The recent agreement to serve Google ads across Yahoo’s platform underscores how thoroughly Google has cornered the online ad market with Yahoo only showing signs of life with display ads. Then there’s been the whole Carl Icahn and Microsoft versus Jerry Yang debacle, including a failed takeover bid.
Whew! Yet a close look suggests that Yahoo hasn’t given up on search and in fact may have the pieces in place for, if not a comeback, at least a stabilization of their fortunes. The first bit of evidence is the re-jiggering of their search algorithms this week. Though it’s unclear what the final result of the changes will be they are at least testing new ranking formulas. There’s also been an upgrade rolled out to Yahoo Maps in the last week or so for better usability and functionality. Life goes on despite the revolving executive door.
On a more fundamental level there’s BOSS (Build your Own Search Service) which I’ve poked fun at from time to time, mainly because acronyms exist to be mocked. The reality is that an open source search architecture is a powerful way for Yahoo to spread elements of its infrastructure through the net.
There have been several stories over the last few weeks about customized engines being built using BOSS, many of which (like Cuil knockoff Yuil) use elements of Google’s engine as well. This is something that Yahoo seems to be encouraging given that their BOSS boss Vik Singh recently came up with BMF which stands for BOSS Mashup Framework (and not banjo murder fanatic). BMF allows Google’s open source app framework to combine with Yahoo’s open source search results.
Yahoo has in effect harnessed the power of thousands of nascent search developers (in theory) to go out there and play around with their system. At the very least this gives them a distinct niche within the search engine world that Google could decide to invade – though the Google folks tend to like to keep their inner workings closer to the vest.
At the other end of the possibilities is that some innovative ideas begin to get filtered back into Yahoo’s search portal from the fringes. This is pretty much how they’ve used the SearchMonkey suite of tools that allow developers to customize search results.
Or perhaps some enterprising coder will hit upon the next great search engine, the proverbial “Google killer” using BOSS. Unlikely? Sure but just like monkeys and typewriters adding more people to the problem could very well increase the chances of a favorable result.
Cynics will say that all of these projects are getting a push now to distract from Yahoo’s leadership and structural problems. Maybe so. The important thing is that these changes have potential, even if its too early to know whether they change the actual search engine game as a whole or just the way Yahoo plays it for now.
Topics: Google, Microsoft, SEO, Search: Innovations, Search: News, Technology, Yahoo! |
[…] Search Engines: Yahoo - We’re Not Dead Yet! Is There a Yahoo Search Engine Revival Underway? […]
I would love to see Yahoo! gain some market share by developing a better algorithm to bring more sanity and competition.
[…] Yahoo: Prepping For A Search Revival — Noah Mallin poses the question of whether Yahoo has been the victim of schadenfraude from the entire marketing industry–that is, we’re all taking pleasure in the Web giant’s bad fortune. While the company has admittedly faced major challenges in recent months, Mallin outlines areas in which Yahoo is charging forward–particularly with search. “A close look suggests that Yahoo hasn’t given up on search and in fact may have the pieces in place for, if not a comeback, at least a stabilization of their fortunes,” he says. “The first bit of evidence is the re-jiggering of their search algorithms this week. There’s also been an upgrade rolled out to Yahoo Maps in the last week or so for better usability and functionality.” Mallin also highlights Yahoo’s advancements with Search Monkey, allowing third-party developers to impact the users’ search experience, as well as the BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service), which lets businesses use parts of Yahoo’s search algorithm to develop their own engines. […]