See Story Here
We find the headline of this New York Times article to be very misleading.
There is no reason to believe that Yahoo would change their keyword search business model. Why would they move to a 100% free search results model and write off a significant revenue stream? The Yahoo search index (directory) has always required a website listing fee for directory inclusion. Historically, the Yahoo directory was generated and maintained by human editors. Yahoo then switched to a Google Index/Yahoo Directory blended results page model. The blended results were a temporary measure, which gave Yahoo time to complete the transition to and incorporation of the expansive Inktomi spider generated search index system.
The new Yahoo search results page model merely represents a shift from a human generated search index to a spider generated search index. However, nothing else has changed, least of all Yahoo’s fundamental search business model. Inclusion fees are still required to be listed with Yahoo, and these fees do little to ensure premium keyword rankings in their results pages.
Considering the facts, we conclude that the headline of this New York Times story is sensational at best and not patently disingenuous at worst. Why? The headline implies that Yahoo has shifted to a pay-to-play search business model, when in fact that has always been the case. The REAL shift at Yahoo search is that the order in which the search query results appear is now completely dictated by a software robot (ie, the Inktomi/Yahoo Slurp and Archiver spiders) instead of a team of human editors.
Business owners should remain focused with optimizing their corporate website properties for the search engine spiders and spider-based search indeces, which determine over 90% of all keyword search results.
Joel Dalley
Senior Project Engineer
Peak Positions, LLC.
www.peakpositions.com
