Despite still seemingly being the second largest search engine in the world, Yahoo’s challenge for supremacy has been swept to one side in recent times. In fact, good news has been hard to come by ever since they turned down Microsoft’s billions to buy out the brand last year.
Yahoo have sat powerlessly on the sidelines watching Bing, a search engine created by their would-be buyers, swamp the market with advertising and generating a buzz all of its own. However, fresh research from Neilson Online has revealed that they have maintained a very high level of user attention, second only in fact to Facebook in the US.
Google may be leagues ahead in terms of individual searches, 21 million to be exact; however, Yahoo can rightly boast a far more impressive rate of retention. On average, users were utilising Yahoo’s services for 45 minutes extra each month when compared to Google.
This probably highlights both the strength and weakness of Yahoo today. In terms of search, it just can’t compete with Google. Many see their SERPs pages as inferior and they just can’t offer the same complexity when it comes to search options.
However, Yahoo does still have some extremely popular tools and programmes. Their email service is one of the longest established and as such has a huge number of users. Yahoo News remains one of the most popular outlets, no doubt aided by its inclusion on the front page of the search engine. So there are glimmers of hope. Improved search results and a little more innovation are needed though to really start challenging Google where it really hurts.
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