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Yahoo! Switches Search Engines

Posted by timothy on from the look-this-way dept.

Giorgio Baresi writes "As several sources are reporting, Yahoo! in the last hours dumped Google and rolled out a brand new search engine mainly based on Inktomi search technology and Overture sponsored results. On Monday Yahoo! also launched its own crawler, called "Yahoo! Slurp", which replaced former "Inktomi Slurp". Hey, it seems the search engine war has begun!"

9 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. I love Google. by Chess_the_cat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I love Google (the new deskbar rocks) and I also frequent Yahoo! for chess and Fantasy Hockey. What I want to know is this: why is being the number search engine worth fighting over? Other than selling services to corporations and little text ads, how does Google make money? Or more importantly, why does Google need to be the number one search engine to make money? This reminds me of the browser wars. The logic was, you owned the browser, you owned the 'net. And although you could make the case that IE won the war, how does IE being the most popular browser translate into money for MS when they give it away for free? I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now.

    --
    Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
  2. How does this improve Yahoo!? by yog · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Most people use Google as their default search tool, even a lot of those unsophisticated Windows users whose IE still comes up with the default MSN page. It's entered the vernacular as a common verb.

    How does Yahoo! improve its service by switching away from Google? Unless they have developed an equivalent if not better search engine, which up until now no one has done, all they are doing is downgrading the quality of their service.

    Thumbs down, Yahoo. Use the best tool for the job.

    --
    it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
    1. Re:How does this improve Yahoo!? by bad-badtz-maru · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yahoo's objective isn't to improve their service, their objective is to improve company revenues. Since Yahoo has owned Inktomi for over a year, it's ridiculous for them to continue to license results from Google.

      As for what is the "best tool for the job", you might want to actually take a look at the new Yahoo results instead of blindly pimping Google. It looks entirely possible that the current Yahoo/Inktomi algorithm returns results that are more relevant than Google's current algorithm.

    2. Re:How does this improve Yahoo!? by XaXXon · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Thumbs down, Yahoo. Use the best tool for the job.

      Unfortunately, the job in this case is "Make money." Google has all these ethics things that get in the way of that. Things like not resorting their main search results order to include paid results, always putting advertisements in color. Advertisers don't like that.

      It's kind of weird.. The way I look at it is this: Guys always want the virginal girl.. but they don't want her to stay a virgin around them. Advertisers want a search engine just like that. They want a search engine that everyone respects, except they want to underhandedly move their results up to the top.. which loses respect. Google does everything it can to keep the respect. Sure, for a few dollars, it might let you feel it up, but if you go around claiming that you shagged it, it goes and changes its entire rating system and drops your pages to the bottom of its list.

      Google frickin' rules.

  3. Not quite rid of Google by Tune · · Score: 5, Interesting

    > When will there be anything new from Yahoo!?

    True. The front page still has that bloated good ol' Yahoo look-and-feel that caused the exodus to Google in the first place. It does not seem to be more responsive or more accurate either.
    On top of that, did anyone notice they still seem to be using Google to retrieve images? At least, the result to searching for "$#@%" looks *very* familiar:

    We didn't find any Web pages containing $#@%.

    Suggestions:

    - Check your spelling.
    - Try more general words.
    - Try different words that mean the same thing.

    Also, you can visit the Yahoo! Search Help Center for more suggestions.

    (I bet Google has those phrases trademarked, so they could sue Yahoo for providing useful clues... ;-)

  4. Re:Wonder if it's Linux boxen? by FooAtWFU · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Warning: OS detection will be MUCH less reliable because we did not find at least 1 open and 1 closed TCP port
    Interesting ports on m1.search.vip.dcn.yahoo.com (216.109.117.133):
    (The 1656 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: filtered)
    PORT STATE SERVICE
    80/tcp open http
    Device type: general purpose
    Running: Apple Mac OS X 10.1.X
    OS details: Apple Mac OS X 10.1.5

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  5. Relevance? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Just searched Google and Yahoo about "yahoo slurp". Guess which one's more accurate? (also, it's plainly obvious that Google can withstand /., but can Yahoo?)

  6. Yahoo+Inktomi+Fast+Altavista+Overture vs Google by celerityfm · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Before Yahoo got to the point where they could "dump" Google, they bought up Inktomi, their old search engine results provider before Google and Overture, the biggest pay per click ad distributor next to Google in order get to the point that they could even compete with Google.

    As far as relevancy is concerned, think about how relevant MSN's search results were and you've got an understanding for Inktomi's results-- MSN relied on them for their base result set (after the overture/looksmart advertisements).

    But here's the key-- Yahoo picked up Overture, who had just purchased both Altavista AND AllTheWeb-- Altavista used to be a killer search engine, and AllTheWeb is the best, most relevant search engine next to Google.. so Yahoo has really got a fighting chance here. Good news for competition. But the fact that Yahoo had to purchase up so many assets is just a sign to how strong Google is.

    Now, keep your eye on Microsoft.

    --
    ...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
  7. An in-depth comparison by scifience · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have written up an in-depth comparison of Google and Yahoo that compares the number of results that each provides as well as user experience. The link to it is: http://www.scifience.net/. I would have posted it directly here, except there are screenshots and other such things that can't be posted as a Slashdot comment.