Yahoo! Stealing Searching From Google

Did you know that when you search at Yahoo! for google.com or google you get a Yahoo! Shortcut telling you to search the web with Yahoo and not Google.

Now, if you do a search at Google for yahoo or yahoo.com you do not have Google telling you to search with Google instead of Yahoo!. Heck, you already are searching at Google.

But maybe Yahoo! has research showing that Yahoo! users don't always know when they are searching. So when they do a search for Google or Google.com at Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! needs to remind them, that they also have a search engine. Sounds kind of dumb, but trust me, it makes sense.

What is interesting is that Yahoo! does it for Google keywords but not for MSN Search, Ask.com, etc.

How did I notice this? Well, I noticed a drop in traffic from Yahoo! News and figured it had to do with Yahoo! News vertical integration on Yahoo! Search. Guess what? It was. Google now doesnt come up in news results always on Yahoo! Search, instead you get Yahoo! telling you not to use Google.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

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posted rustybrick in Yahoo! Search Engine at August 3, 2006 2:35 PM Comments (7)

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That's strange. It makes perfect logical sense, but then why would they hold back from replicating the behaviour with searches for the other engines? Unless they are trying to take a chomp out of Google specifically...

Posted by Brian at August 3, 2006 14:51

http://www.ask.com/web?q=google now that is useful

some data to back my theory http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/051216-184738 thanks Gary!

Posted by Barry Schwartz at August 3, 2006 14:55

Barry - did you see this http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=1073 - I think it'll make you smile. :)

Posted by randfish at August 3, 2006 15:05

Rand, I am so sorry. I must of missed yours. Really nice find Rand!

I can't believe it.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at August 3, 2006 15:11

No worries! Did you see Matt's comment? He's hoping for a t-shirt...

Posted by randfish at August 3, 2006 18:29

Yea, I plan on doing one big recap tomorrow at SEW on all of this. Of course, this time I will credit you.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at August 3, 2006 22:11

Yahoo occassionally uses CLICK TRACKING in their SERPs - they statiscally understood that users searching for Google were TEMPTED to try it, or trying it as an option.

Few of their users would type MSN to go to MSN - it is just NOT that compelling a search engine.

However, MSN is the default search engine for many IE users - so users are ALSO leaving them.

SO THEY ARE - NOW - DOING THE SAME THING ... lol

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=google&FORM=QBHP

Posted by Search Engine WEB ♣ at August 4, 2006 03:47

Yahoo! Stealing Searching From Google

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