News Flash: Yahoo Falling Farther Behind Google
Jul 18th, 2007 by msdanielle
Were any of you surprised by the announcements of Yahoo’s disappointing second quarter earnings? I just wish Yahoo would get their game together and step it up already. I’m getting tired of this! It’s disappointing as an advertiser to only have one major reliable option for paid search. Don’t get me wrong, Yahoo and MSN both return quality traffic, but it’s the reliability in results that brings the enormous volume of search users back to Google.
My Top 5 Reasons Why Google Beats Yahoo and MSN in Search Advertising
5. Google Gives Quality Results
Google obviously has by far the highest relevancy in search results. “Google” anything and most likely you’ll have a good reason to click on all 20 results (10 natural and 10 paid). This reliability establishes increased user trust and frequency, and increased qualified clicks for advertisers.
4. Google’s Platform is Simply Better
If any of you have tested all three advertising platforms, you’ll probably agree that Google’s is the fastest to load, easiest to navigate, and most user-friendly of them all. Some days I just want to bang my head on my keyboard until my Yahoo campaign finishes loading. Some days I forget about MSN…just kidding! Sort of…
3. Google’s Advertising Range Leaves Y+M in the Dust
Not only is Google’s search volume larger, but their capability for site-targeting in the content network and displaying banners, and international and local geo-targeting, far exceeds the availabilities of Yahoo or MSN. I can just as easily point an ad at Germany as I can toward San Jose, California.
2. Google Charges for Clicks Purchased
While MSN also brings in lower volumes of traffic, at least they, like Google, only charge for clicks purchased. Yahoo requires pre-payment. One point for MSN!
1. Google Gives Me More
It’s pretty obvious that more qualified clicks with a steady conversion rate equals a higher return. While it may take longer to set up campaigns properly in AdWords, and it may initially cost more, continual ad optimization will result in higher total profits. And in the end, we all could use some more money, couldn’t we?
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Yahoo and MSN definately need to step it up and offer something that people want. Just being the default home page for large online service providers isn’t enough anymore.
I’d personally like to see a Slim-Yahoo that doesn’t have advertisements plastered all over the pages. Heck, they can call it Slim-Y and have Shrek promote it. People are tired of the “same-old same-old”. Flashing images and rich adverts don’t grab our attention the same way as it used to. Once these search engines realize this and become Sultans of Subtle like Google, they might start generating the traffic they crave so much.
Until then, Anything they provide will just be second best.
Note to MSN: Enough with the Microsoft XML, already. It’s so poorly implemented on your site that you’d swear some 10 year old designed your entire web-presense in FrontPage with a shotty PostgreSQL 2.0 back-end. I have 10 Mbit DSL and still find everything MSN related to be slower than dial-up on my 9600 baud modem. I have a 12 year old cousin that is quite well versed in HTML and PHP that you could hire for $5 an hour, and I can almost guarantee that she’ll turn out something both user-friendly and attractive.
Heck … maybe I should put her to work for me, instead
hey jason!
did you read shoemoney’s post about msn’s search volume increase? It was great!
in regards to slim-Y, i agree. since the yahoo hm page is a portal, the search is sort of a side feature, and probably will remain so. perhaps if they did have a page with nothing but a search bar, they’d realize that what’s returned is not highly relevant.
I’ve read it now … kinda funny how that works, huh?
I have read in DigitalPoint that MSN is paying corporations for installing MSN search as the default search engine on their computers. Microsoft pays a certain amount for each search carried out.
Maybe Yahoo needs to build a YahooPlex. Then they will have the power.
At least they have a decent Fantasy Football League system.
Google is awesome when it comes to almost anything and everything. It is really surprising that Yahoo — who was so big in he game only 10 years ago — has allowed a startup to best them in just about every category. All Google needs to do is start a Google Personals, and Yahoo is officially toast!
hmm they could call it GoogleMatch
Definitely agree with #1, I feel that Google just has a lot more to offer. My friend and I have this thing where she prefers Yahoo but I am trying to get her to use Google and finally she has switched to my side. I just think people like the ease of Google. The page has been the same since its beginning, aside from the graphical change. Yahoo and MSN are good search engines too but those 5 points you stated is what makes Google that much better than the rest!
Yahoo just bend over for Google and let them have it. Something similar to what I saw in the movie “Honey, I Laid the Nanny”.
I totally agree with what you say in this post. I just dont know if Yahoo is ever going to be able to make up any ground…
i want to hate google so bad . . . but i can’t cuz i need them to survive . . . .
Honestly though, there system is amazing! Have you tried to search for anything on Yahoo or MSN and been happy with the results?
Maybe Google will end up buying Yahoo?
Google’s quarterly announcement is coming up today which will be interesting. Last quarter was positive although the share price didn’t go up much at the time (it has since though – $550!).
yea i can’t wait to see google’s report as well. in all fairness yahoo did double profits, but fell short of what investors were hoping for. at least, that’s what i’m reading.
@gary – the curse continues… =/
@chris – thanks. in search, i’m not sure they’ll make the necessary strides either. they need to do as google did and pick 1 thing and be the best at that.
I have been thinking along the same lines recently, it’s such a shame that Yahoo is going the way of the dodo. Have you guys heard about Mosh? What a joke that is…come on Yahoo get it together!
Note to self: Stop buying call options on YHOO before earnings.
What’s up with yahoo publisher’s program? It seems as if they are only accepting only a handful of applications.
hi Renee
i’m not a member of YPN. but it seems they will not accept a large number of publisher sites like google, since their content network is still in beta. until they offer a large content network, it will continue to be restricted, unfortunately.
Yeah, they’ve been in Beta for some time now.
(nice mybloglog plug!)
YPN is not available outside US. Once they start accepting registrations from other countries, a large number of the publishers will switch to YPN. There are rumors that YPN gives better earnings compared to Adsense.