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

Yahoo's relevance

[DoctorPhish]

Does Yahoo still control a majority of users? I would have expected that MSN would have the greatest portal penetration simply by being the default home-page under windows, and most people I know have been using Google for their searching for a couple of years now (And I mean non-technical users)...Is Yahoo even that relevant any more?

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.

motivation?

[smd4985]

does anyone else think yahoo made this move because google has become a bit more of a portal of late, i.e. google news? there is no doubt google has the superior search technology, but i think yahoo is a little upset that google seems to be trying to be more than 'just search'.

it'll be interesting to see if any overt enmity develops between these two stanford-born businesses....

Inktomi isn't a database (really)

[markhb]

Inktomi gave up their general full-Web search years ago, in favor of selling embedded search services / software to Web site owners. If you look at their site, they also promote their expertise in the second-ickiest of Internet businesses: search engine placement. Yahoo has probably decided that the Inktomi search software is the best available for outright purchase, especially with their ad-placement programs in place.

This won't make Yahoo stop using Google

[seldolivaw]

Google's pagerank algorithm suite is unmatched for searches "in the wild". It uses links between pages to work out search relevance. However, that algorithm is totally inappropriate for providing search within Yahoo's own categorised database; Inktomi's engine is precisely suited for such a task. Yahoo has been using Google and Inktomi's search tech for external and internal searches, respectively, for a while now. I see no reason for Yahoo's buyout to change this. I imagine Yahoo would buy Google too, if it could.

Ideas

[mugnyte]

Inktomi's current customers

Yahoo would be well-served building a cross-reference ranking from Google + Inktomi's results. Most of my searches are quite pointed anyway though, so I'm not sure how this could be improved.

Go try the Hotbot or MSN searches yerself. This may well be the future rankings on Yahoo results.

As a trial, I searched for "Oklahoma Dry Spell" and although there was one coinciding match in the top 2, the rest were completely different. It seems Inktomi is a bit more relaxed for inclusions. (14,888 vs Yahoo's 12,800).

For one of the myriad of search engine reviews comparing (roughly) Inktomi and Yahoo/Google, see this page

mug

Re:I'm Buying Beer

[aengblom]

Which is approximately as news-worthy.

Yahoo is one of Google's biggest customers--not only in the somewhat significant "hits" catagory, but the more important "licensing" catagory. Yahoo pays Google real cash--and this helps Google.

However, Yahoo is also one of Google's biggest customers. Eventually this was going to come to and end--and it just did IMO.

I'm sure many if not most of people looking to search will head to Google, but the Yahoo partnership was/is a boon for Google.

To me, Yahoo just called for a fight.