Optimization for Yahoo

Google may seem to own the search space these days, but Yahoo still sees a respectable amount of traffic. Unlike Google, Yahoo is a content producer as well as a search engine; additionally, they didn’t start out as an algorithm-based search engine. How does that affect it today? And what does that mean for you if you’re trying to get your site viewed by Yahoo users? Keep reading for the answers.According to Comscore stats, Yahoo holds around 20% of the search engine market share. Compete.com also supports this, giving Yahoo 19.4%. Hitwise awards Yahoo 22.55%, so it’s safe to say Yahoo holds around 20% of the search engine market share in the United States. That number differs for UK, Canada and other countries.

Yahoo Inc originally started in 1994 as a web directory by Jerry Yang and David Filo. It’s original URL resided on akebono.stanford.edu/yahoo, and the name Yahoo translated to “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.” After keeping up Yahoo for a bit, the founders saw business potential and attracted $3 million in investments. On March 8, 1997, Yahoo acquired Rocketmail, which became Yahoo Mail.

Yahoo Search Technology

Yahoo outsourced search to Google for four years. The partnership started on June 26, 2000, and ended in February 2004. It ended after Yahoo and Microsoft realized the importance of search as a standalone business. Yahoo purchased Overture for $1.6 and the Inktomi search engine for $280 million. Yahoo renamed Overture to Yahoo Search Marketing, and Inktomi, along with other search technologies, were combined into Yahoo Search.

The move ended Google’s near-monopoly in search.

Yahoo Search Partnerships

Yahoo supplies search results to AllTheWeb and AltaVista.