As you may have recently read, Yahoo has recently renewed its relationship with Google and will continue to display Google search engine results at Yahoo.com. There had been much speculation as to whether Yahoo would renew this agreement especially as many within Yahoo believed that the Google relationship had already cannibalized much of Yahoo’s audience reach. In fact, Nielsen/Net Ratings recently released new search engine audience figures for the month of August, showing Google’s audience reach barely two points below that of Yahoo’s. With Yahoo already struggling to maintain dominance over MSN, it seemed unlikely that they would renew a relationship with one of their biggest search engine competitors, when options with Inktomi or FAST could fulfill the need without any direct competition. However, when you look at the strength of Google’s name, power of their reputation and quality of their search engine results, you can forgive Yahoo for concluding that maintaining the relationship was the right thing to do. As the saying goes, "Keep you friends close, but your enemies closer".

The big change

So after months of speculation, Yahoo finally announced that they would continue their relationship with Google. The biggest surprise however, is that Yahoo has opted for a strategy that goes beyond merely maintaining the relationship. As of October 10th, Yahoo directory results and Google web pages will no longer be shown separately and will instead be combined to provide new "Web Matches". These Web Matches will be the combined results of both Yahoo and Google indexes, but displayed using Yahoo’s own algorithm. This combined structure moves away from the previous arrangement whereby Yahoo only displayed Google results when there were no Yahoo directory results for a particular search query. With the new Web Matches, you will no longer see the Google logo appearing in the top left of the screen and the only way you will be able to determine that a result has been drawn from the Yahoo directory, as opposed to Google, will be a link under the listing that reads "More sites about" and a red arrow graphic. This link will allow Yahoo uses to click through to the Yahoo directory to view more websites within the same theme. While the new search results will use a Yahoo algorithm, initial testing has shown that this algorithm is very similar to Google’s own, and in some cases it can be very difficult to see a difference between the order of Yahoo’s results and those of Google.

The impact on your website

So, what does this change mean for anyone looking for high positioning on Yahoo? Well, the biggest question centers on the benefit of paying $299 to be listed in the Yahoo directory. While there are Yahoo users who navigate through the directory of human edited listings, most prefer to use the search function to locate the product or service they are seeking. With this in mind, most companies will be able to utilize the traffic from Yahoo without having to pay the $299 a year that was once the only way of securing any chance of top positioning on the Yahoo search engine results.

So why would anyone continue to pay Yahoo $299 for something they can now obtain simply from being indexed by Google. Well there are a number of benefits for listing directly with Yahoo. First, your listing will display the Yahoo edited description and title, which is often better formatted than the Google results. The Google results will continue to show descriptions based upon the location of the keyword in a website’s text. While this is useful for determining that a website is indeed relevant to the keyword searched, it can often look untidy and click through rates can be lower when Google results are placed next to the clean copy of the Yahoo editors. Secondly, being listed in Yahoo can have a huge positive impact on your positioning within Google. With Google reviewing websites that link to your site, a listing in the Yahoo directory often assists in obtaining higher positioning in Google. Opting out of the Yahoo directory in favor of achieving placement through Google could be detrimental to your ranking in Google. This "catch 22" situation has not been thoroughly analyzed, but it is likely that by not being listed in the Yahoo directory, you may hinder your chances of being ranked highly at Google and consequently your Yahoo positioning would suffer in the process.

Decisions, Decisions

Yahoo has been testing the new format for their search results for a number of weeks now, and my guess is that they will continue to tweak the format a little more. The full impact of the change will not be evident for at least a few weeks. In the meantime, what strategy should a company undertake? Pay the $299 for a Yahoo directory listing or rely purely on Google? The answer depends on your budget. If your company has a restricted budget, you may wish to wait and see what benefit you receive from Yahoo simply by focusing on your free listing at Google. However, if you have the financial resources, a link in the Yahoo directory will continue to benefit your website and will remove any doubt as to whether your site will show up in the new and improved Yahoo search results.

Further Reading:

Yahoo Renews With Google, Changes Results

Yahoo! Celebrates £18.5m Profit