Yahoo Buying Inktomi

soldack writes "Byte And Switch has a story about Yahoo buying Inktomi. I imagine they will stop using Google. What does this mean for both Google and Yahoo? How much of Google's traffic came from Yahoo? How much is going to come from AOL using Google?" markpapadakis adds a link to CNET's story on same.

Comments

okay ...

[SuperDuG]

Here's what I don't get, back when Yahoo (tm) wanted to expand its search horizan it used inktomi, then moved to altavista, then to google. If inktomi was so wonderful then why on earth was superceded?

Altavista made it big with babelfish (it's quite possibly the only translator I use). Google made it big with speed, pdf to html (plus pdf searches), cached pages, etc etc.

Seems to me yahoo is more of a "portal" loosely than a search engine anymore, but I can't remember the last time I heard anyone say "I found [insert whatever] on inktomi" at least not in the last 6 years.

My take, google will be fine, I can't begin to name the number of computers I see with google.com as their homepage (more than slashdot).

Re:Yahoo's relevance

[fleener]

I suspect Yahoo is coasting on its prior popularity. In the early days Yahoo was "it." Everyone recommended Yahoo. It's been a couple years since I've heard anyone recommend Yahoo. It's all Google now. Free e-mail? Yes. Web portal? No.

When Yahoo infused its front page with several hundred links it took a pummeling to the head. When it started charging to add businesses to its link directory it knocked itself out.

Yahoo have missed the point slightly.

[miffo.swe]

I use google not because it gives better results but because i really like the adfree slick interface. Google is user oriented and hasnt fallen into factored searches yet. I think Yahoo needs to get back to basics again and focus on users needs. There are much left to do in search engines left and advertising is not what people using them are after.

Re:interesting

[neverkevin]

unlike google, which gives you true results

True results? What does that mean? I don't mean to get into a philosophical debate over the meaning of the word true, and I don't mean for this to be flamebait, but I wouldn't say google gave the true results. Google may give unsolicited results, but I would say only about 1/2 of the time google gives me what I want in the top 10 results. The beauty of google is the fact that it returns so many good results.

Besides, yahoo already does this, the people who pay yahoo get their pages listed on top. Having paid inclusion doesn't change the yahoo product. And with google going public all bets are off when the shareholders want to turn a profit.

Re:Moderate parent: Conspiracy Theory

[Skid]

Ah, but all of those functions are still involved with the concept of "searching". Google's engine is not *just* a web search tool, but an information organization tool!