Apparently, they're both ok with being number two. Years after Avis embraced their number two spot in the rental car industry with the slogan "we try harder," a major Yahoo! executive told Bloomberg news that the Yahoo! team is perfectly happy to play second fiddle to Google when it comes to search market share.

"It's not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share" said Yahoo! CFO Susan Decker in an interview with Bloomberg's Jonathan Thaw.

Yahoo! has taken some critisicm over the statement, mostly by those who say that if Yahoo! isn't going to aim to be number one, they clearly can't be serious about search. In fact, Steve Rubel went so far as to say "I have no interest in using a product that the company doesn't aspire to make best of breed. If search is no longer hip to Yahoo, then Yahoo Search is no longer hip with me."

I think that some of these critics are missing the boat. While Google has about double the market share for search queries (46% to 23%), Yahoo! still out paces Google in terms of total traffic. The reality may be that Yahoo! is realizing that there's still plenty of cash to be had for second place, especially when you consider that search related revenue makes up just a portion of Yahoo!'s overall bottom line.

After all, why spend time and money running a race that you're unlikely to win when you can take home the consolation prize and focus your energies on other revenue builders? Does it make Yahoo! less of a search engine? Maybe, but it doesn't make them less of a destination site and that might be their biggest concern.