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Yahoo Tops Portal Market In Visitors
linumax writes "Yahoo Inc. continues to lead the portal market in the number of unique visitors, and is also the top destination for news, a market research firm says. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company led the top 10 Web sites among U.S. home and work Internet users with 101.3 million visitors in August, EMarketer Inc., said. Second was Microsoft Corp.'s site with 95.6 million, followed by its MSN portal, 92.1 million; Google, 80.4 million; America Online Inc., 75.7 million; EBay Inc., 55.2 million; MapQuest, 39 million; Amazon.com, 37.6 million, RealNetworks, 36.4 million; and the Weather Channel, 31.2 million."
I'd argue that raw numbers don't matter with respect to Yahoo. I mean sure, they're paying a whole lot in bandwidth and all, but their site is so cluttered that I never have any idea what I'm looking at. There could be ads for free hundred dollar bills and I wouldn't even notice.
I can't tell you how many times I've gone to yahoo to find their directory of sites and given up and gone to DMOZ instead.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
Anyone knows how the market research firms comeup with unique visitors and hit numbers?
Ooh, the portal market, that's a big market, I can see why Yahoo! would want to go for that market. Clever Yahoo!, very clever.
"Yahoo beat all other sites with 24.9 million unique visitors." what supprised my here was how few people went to the site in a month, there must be at least 300,000,000 different people with net connections, why was the winner so low?... and also, why were the websites which topped the list so boring? lets get http://thebestpageintheuniverse.net/ to the top!
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
I seem to always go to yahoo.com when ever I search for something and rarely use any other search engine like google. I have no idea though because personally I don't care what search engine Im using but I do usually default to yahoo first.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
How did real networks get so high. I never have visited their website. But I use Google, Ebay, and Mapquest often. I can't think of any reason a user would need to use real networks on a daily basis, or even weekly basis.
I think their definition of portal site is being a little overly broad considering who Yahoo is competing with. Yahoo is a better portal site than microsoft.com? Who would have thought it? At first glace every single one of those sites fulfills a slightly smaller role than Yahoo and does a much better job of it. Yahoo might be getting the hits, but I don't know that it's representive of quality or even of perceived quality, just of offering a trillion services through one site. That attitude of quantity over quality is why I haven't been to Yahoo since I was 14.
maybe i could have stretched to imagining yahoo bettering google at something other than search (i'm pretty sure they farm out their search to google to some degree, although i might be wrong) but msn beating google...nah. well, it is a market research firm, not a news outlet...someone has to pay them to do this work. not that i'm suspicious of course
I've been a Google user for years, but I am starting to use Yahoo more often. At first it started because I was at Yahoo for a different reason, and the search was there, so I did it. Boom, less spam results. I went to Google to compare and there is more spam in the rankings.
Try searching for a review of a commerical product like a TV by model number. Google will fill the search with places selling the product, not with reviews. If Eopinions or Amazon does not have a review, you're screwed. You'll be buying blind.
Google to me was most usefull as a NON-COMMERCIAL tool, to find information, not sellers. There are plenty of places to buy, and I know their websites. I don't need google to show me electronic stores.
Considering that Google doesn't offer anywhere close to the amount of crap that Yahoo and MSN do I think Google is doing far better. Yahoo, MSN, AOL, all offer a million different services and Google's primary function is searching. The maintenence costs for those sites must be through the roof, whereas Google can spend the $$$ on research and innovation.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/Google probably has 'em beat. If Google offered the same number of services they'd probably beat them handily.
..and in yesterday's news, new study finds that 'Google Users more Wealthy, Net Savvy', which confirms something I've known for quite some time now:
We're outnumbered.
Okay, they all seem logical except real networks. Can someone explain how real is getting that many users? I am not sure I have ever seen anyone actually use their site for anything.
I know (sadly) plenty of people who leave their home page to the browser default. For IE this is MSN.
For someone to have any other portal (with IE), it is usually because of an action they have taken.
The fastest way to get to your favorite sites is to bookmark their search form query boxes in firefox using a keyword. I can bring up slashdot or a google image search or an imdb page or a wikipedia article in new tabs, while blindfolded, with a couple of keystrokes, instead of wasting time clicking pretty widgets. You can even tell if the text you were looking for is on the resulting page by the sounds emitted by find-as-you-type.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
I've said this before on Slashdot, but anything I'd go to Yahoo or DMOZ for, I go to Wikipedia instead.
Does anyone else see the irony in an article about number of unique hits on a portal being hosted on that portal? Forget about proclaiming yourself as great and writing an article about youself in your own newspaper. This is an insidious way to generate more hits!
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
They are the tabloids of the web, even blogs like theregister are higher quality.
Hey, all I know is that the majority of the hits to my blog come from Yahoo and MSN. My page titles are crystal clear about what you'll be seeing before you arrive, so I'm not too worried about a lack of "quality" in my site traffic. My hits from Google are from people who search 2 to 5 pages deep in search results before finding me. Much of the time, Google ranks other blogs linking to my post higher than my posts, even for searches which involve my web site's name. So I humbly suggest that Yahoo and MSN aren't popular merely because people are sheep, but because those sheep have found contentment in being fed.
Wouldn't it be better to calculate which portal is the top portal based on the actual number of users that click a portal link?
I have customers who leave yahoo.com as their home page but always click a bookmark or head to another search engine to actually start browsing. I have no idea why people don't change the home page, but even some of my family works this way. Every time they open their web browser, yahoo pops up, and then they head off in a different direction.
With the various search toolbars, will the portal be as important as it was over the past decade? My homepage is blank -- especially on my primary browser, my PDA. Even with a fast connection I don't like the delay in popping up a start page.
I go look at yahoo about once every few months and just can't handle the site. Too much text, way too many colors, and it doesn't respond very quickly on some of my older (IE-based) PCs. I guess the average person doesn't have very much knowledge of proper use of color, text and overall layout. Yahoo reminds me of the beach blanket bingo madness from the 60s.
That is probably at least partly true. I use "my.yahoo.com" because I've been using it for something like 10 years now. I even ran the Yahoo! ticker for a while. Even though I've switched to new accounts on Yahoo! at least three times that I can recall, I still go back to it because I'm used to how it works. That comfort level is worth something, no matter how much I enjoy learning/using new "stuff".
For once, we don't need to use the ?????? in our profit plans :
1. Have news website write how great the portal hosting it is.
2. Get the news posted on slashdot and other news site.
3. Increase page views and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
4. Profit!
About the only complaint I have is their advertising. Adblock goes a long way, but frankly, it's really annoying when they split their dating service ads into cells of a sub-frame.
The quality of service provided by a portal and No. of visitors are two different (although slightly correlated things).
Huh?
I completely disagree. Yahoo! has been innovating in many areas since they first began. Not necessarily in bells and whistles (although they do tend to have lots of good features) but in core technology, uptime, and performance. I'm not sure what half-assed product you're referring to in particular (I'm guessing you're choosing to compare Y!Mail with GMail, since its hip to give google the advantage there), but in general Yahoo! has been a huge innovator in web technology (specifically portal related), and continues to put out quality services on all fronts.
I'm really tired of asking about something on the net and being told that the water is warm in some Yahoo SIG forum that you need to sign up to even see. I'm not saying that they're paid to do that, after all those bald people handing out flowers at the airports weren't getting paid either.
http://www.real.com/rhapsody/
-everphilski-
Variety is the spice of life, and I think there's a market for both the "all-in-one" Yahoo-type solution just as much as the "function before form" Google method. Your personal preference shouldn't affect your judgement towards the other. I personally use both: Yahoo when I'm bored and Google when I need to get a job done fast.
I don't want to be a falmebait but the title of the story is kinda wrong. I tought that "wow, yahoo has more users than google? MSN has more users than google? REAL has more users than google?" It comes out that the stats are for U.S. only.
The titel should read: "Yahoo Tops Portal Market In Visitors in US" or something like that.
though not surprised by the large number of /.ers on this topic whose comments are so Google-worshipping. Google has done some very good things, but I think people should give Yahoo a little credit for having come out with a very large number of services, often beating others (including Google) to the web with that service. Maybe, just *maybe*, that's being reflected a *little* in these numbers? I'm not trying to flame Google, or say Yahoo is the bee's knees (god i feel old), but I certainly think that Yahoo deserves a little more credit than people give it. Google has all these great tools, most of which I've been using courtesy of Yahoo long before Google offered them. No, numbers != quality necessarily, but "Google" does not automatically equal "best" or "quality" either. Of all people, we, the people here ought to be most interested in choosing a toolset for its quality, not the press it gets, or the company that makes it.
If Yahoo is so much better than Google, than why does GOOG have more than double the market capitalization [yahoo.com] of YHOO ?
Greed.
Need two?
Irrational exuberance.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Google 2005 == Yahoo 1998
SIGUSR1
Google is the latest "Great White Hope" in destroying the evil that is M$; that's why slashdotters worship Google so much.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
MSN is the default IE browser homepage.
Yahoo the default browser homepage for many DSL providers, including SBC.
Both are the "choice" of people who don't make choices.
Google is a default homepage for people who choose to download Firefox.
Google is also clearly what most people are using to search the web (webmasters, check your web stats - its 85% Google referrals)
So Google is the choice for people who actually choose.
Looking at Yahoo/MSN vs Google's approach makes that pretty obvious: Google is a tool to use, while Yahoo/MSN is for tools to use.
Anyone who reads my post's knows I'm pro MS, but I don't belive for a minute that MS sites have almost double Yahoo. The MS sites get about 114 million, not over 180 million like this report says. If that report were accurate, combined with the AOL deal, MS would have the most lucrative Advertising network the internet has ever seen.
o l.php [iht.com]
l .html?hp&ex=1131426000&en=ca8853d306a6b3e5&ei=5094 &partner=homepage [nytimes.com]
4 1-2245r.htm [washingtontimes.com]
o ry=20051115 [smartmoney.com]
This report also contradicts some stats (that I think are more inline with the truth) published by the NY Times and Associated press for the month of september.
Here are the numbers:
Yahoo = 123 million
AOL = 119 million
Microsoft = 114 million
Google = 87.6 million
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/06/business/a
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/technology/07ao
http://washingtontimes.com/business/20051113-1134
http://www.smartmoney.com/stockwatch/index.cfm?st
Here's why: I tend to want the best content on a particular topic. Amazingly, Yahoo or another directory like Galaxy sometimes meets the bill. We are the Google generation -- who only clicks the top result. I find that horrendous. If you are going to click the top result, why not at least have it be peer-reviewed? Sometimes, I just want basic information on a particular topic. Google's algorithim may show me the most in-depth links, but maybe I just want an introduction. Google's algorithim can't factor that in, and I don't always know what I want enough to specify: "antipsychiatry introduction". And another thing: what if blogs are the most useful content? Do blogs really work well in Google's algorithim. Are they going to say "I'm writing on anti-psychiatry today, (keywords: antipsychiatry, madness campaign) etc. Obviously no one writes like that, but blogs I find aren't in the main web sphere, so they sink much like the invisible web databases like InfoTrac, and the other databases my university and health insurance company subscribes to. Yahoo should not be discounted -- http://health.yahoo.com/ isn't a search engine, it isn't a directory, but it is a damn good health portal. --Sam
AOL owns MapQuest, and 80.4 million + 55.2 million=135.6 million. Sure you can argue that Google+Blogger or Yahoo!+Flickr, but if AOL changed the MapQuest URL to something like MapQuest.AOL.com, then would AOL be first?
Click here if you use MapQuest
Click here if you use AOL
really 867993
Karma schkarma
What is amazing about Yahoo is the number of page views per visit. This is a really important metric for any business counting on advertizing revenues. The numbers are here (also a google.com comparison). Compare that to Google's numbers. Google's numbers are 2-3 times lower!
Simpy
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Al those google-worshipping slashdotters here should really give yahoo a look. I used to use google as a search engine, but switched to yahoo's: better results is the main reason. Yahoo's toolbar is the only one of it's kind I ever use, and it's far above the google variant (and obviously the M$ variant). It also centralizes my bookmarks for my linux box, windows box and dual-boot laptop. Very handy!
Yahoo mail has also served me beter than gmail, including the best spam protection I have ever seen. My Yahoo is my homepage and it does a fine job at that: I can preview my mail, check on news-stuff at a glance and all the other goodies. M$N does not compare to My Yahoo. At all.
But, I admit, the standard colour scheme is butt-ugly and you beter throw out what they think is interesting and add content of your own choice.
Not that slashdot people actually use standard settings..
Guess this post makes me a Yahoo fanboy..
*dodges*
As a quick look at Alexa would point out, 50% of pages on yahoo are on mail.yahoo.com. 90% or more of those pages are refreshes to see messgages or even your inbox because of how their mail reader system works.
Compare that to the G-mail system (only 6% of their pages by Alexa's count link) that's smart enough to allow you to check all your mail without a page refresh something like Alexa will pick up. That's where so many of Yahoo's page views come from: a dumb mail system.
www.yahoo.com is total, crap, I agree with you.
But http://my.yahoo.com/ is awesome. Its totally customizeable, you can add your own RSS feeds, integrates with all your Yahoo services like calerndering, etc.
It is basically what Google personal wants to be, but isn't yet (My Yahoo! has several items you can't find on Google personal, like TV listings for my area, a calender that syncs with exchange and my PDA, and a better stock ticker, for example).
Try it out. I don't understand why it isn't the default start page at www.yahoo.com either. It is much better. Maybe some people are just too attached to the old Yahoo! where you start at the directory.
Google is first and foremost a search engine - one or two page views per visit. Google was late to the webmail game so the traffic from GMail is probably 10% of that of Yahoo! Mail. Other than that, there is not a whole lot that would warrant multiple page views in the Google world -- maybe GoogleGroups, but I doubt that it's very popular outside of the geek world. In contrast, I've been using Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Mail for years. Both of these by their nature take several page views per day. I think that both Flickr and the old eGroups both suck down page views too, but I don't use those.
Yahoo!
/sorry
innovating ever since they first began?
i guess that would be because for the majority of yahoo!'s lifespan Google powered its searches only recently started using their own proprietary search technology.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But again, Yahoo's business has never been about search, its about being a portal, which is what this article is about.
The default for millions of (suckers) aka Microsoft Customers who use Internet Explorer - MSN is by default their home page.
They're just too stupid or brainwashed to change it.
is that Yahoo! beat out microsoft(the page visited by windows update), MSN(the default IE start page), Google(A modded version is the default for firfox, not sure if that's counted in these stats or not), and AOhelL(the default for AOhelL idio^h^h^h^husers and for AOhelL webmail). Other than downloading the Yahoo! toolbar, I can't think of a way that Yahoo! is forcing anyone to visit their site. You have to bear in mind that most people don't bother to change the startup page for their browser, so most of this list is skewed numbers. Of course, then again, since most people are not computer savy, that would explain alot. In my experience people who have a concept of how to work a computer use Google, the remainder use Yahoo!. Also, I find myself wondering if they aren't counting the modded version of Google that Firefox starts up in, do they count page hits if you search from the Firefox search box, or are they only counting hits on the home page?!?!?!?! There are many ways these numbers can be totally thrown off.
My software never has bugs.
It just develops random features.
I would like launch.yahoo.com to work with my browser Firefox. When it detects Firefox it stops me dead in my tracks, saying you should download Netscape or IE, and I can't listen to my music/my station, or watch my videos. I'd prefer it offer a warning instead, saying my experience could be diminished for using an alternative browser, but let me proceed anyway, because I have a bunch of multimedia players ready and waiting, and I'd prefer to stay loggged in to yahoo mail, or my yahoo! and so on.
Please Yahoo, Firefox is now as mainstream as it can get.