SEARCH ENGINE AND DIRECTORY NEWS AFFECTING MIVA MERCHANT

Yahoo Buys Inktomi Search Engine

Yahoo renewed its partnership with Google in October and started using Google as its main listings instead of its own directory.  This has Miva Merchant store owners with great listings in Google overjoyed.  The acquiring of another search engine has thrown many for a loop.  What does it all mean?  Will Inktomi replace Google as the main provider of search results at a later date?

"Yahoo!'s vast reach and its unmatched breadth and depth of services, combined with Inktomi's outstanding engineering expertise and leading search technology, will help us achieve our goal of providing users with the most comprehensive, relevant and highest quality search solutions on the Web," said Terry Semel, Yahoo! chairman and CEO. "The addition of Inktomi's search platform adds both control and flexibility to this important business, thus enhancing our ability to create new and more innovative search offerings for consumers and businesses."

It is a possibility that Yahoo may go back to Inktomi for search results.  Inktomi did provide backup search results for Yahoo a few years ago before Google.  It is apparent that Google is increasingly becoming the destination of choice for consumers as they search the web.  Now that Google has the Froogle shopping directory in a beta testing phase, it could mean even more competition for Yahoo.  But if Yahoo goes with Inktomi for its primary or backup search results, it might imply that consumers and relevancy are not as important to them anymore.

In November's issue, we reported that Yahoo made Google its primary source for search listings in their renewed partnership.  This caused us to advise clients on not paying the $299 annual fee for a Yahoo listing and concentrate on Google listings.  Many Miva Merchant store owners are now wondering if they should bite the bullet and pay Yahoo every year for a listing.  It is still too early to say for sure one way or the other.  Either way, a listing in Yahoo is a good thing in Google's eyes and provides additional visits to your store when someone is not satisfied with Yahoo's primary results and wants to see what their directory has to offer.  With Google providing extremely relevant results and paid listings from Overture accompanying them, traffic from directory listings in Yahoo probably are not going to be significant.  Another important factor is that $299 a year is a lot of money for some small business owners using the Miva Merchant shopping cart. We would argue that that money would be better spent on paid listings in Overture and Google Ad-Words or payment to a search engine optimization company like JMH for better results in the top search engine, Google. 

If Yahoo ever changes so that its own directory listings are the primary results, we would definitely recommend paying the yearly listing fee.  If they switch to Inktomi as provider of its primary listings, you can pay a yearly $39 fee for the first url listing and $25 for each url after that up to a 1000.  For now, we would advise holding off on making a decision until something changes. 

Additional Reports on Yahoo's Purchase of Inktomi:

• Yahoo to Acquire Inktomi - Yahoo Press Release
• Yahoo to Buy Inktomi - Techdirt.com
• Overture Chief Hails Yahoo Strategy - I-Media Connection

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