I remember when...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick Apr 08, 2010 3:51 PM EDT |
...Yahoo was one of the best search engines. Remember those fun early Web search engines that came with helpful instructions for performing Boolean searches? Like NOT 1st) AND (1st XOR 2nd). Yahoo used manual indexing, returned better results, and had helpful instructions. Then they caught the mass portal insanity. Everyone wanted to be a portal, instead of just themselves. And so Yahoo became a portal, and Netscape became a portal so you couldn't find out where to download the Netscape browser, but could easily find lots of ads you weren't interested in, and even though becoming a portal was the kiss of death for thousands of sites, to this day there are still PHBs who think being a portal is good. |
| jdixon Apr 08, 2010 3:59 PM EDT |
> Then they caught the mass portal insanity. And they decided to start including results based on whether you paid them or not. :( That and the fact that manual indexing doesn't scale very well are what killed them as a search engine. Though I think there are ways around the scaling problem, there aren't any around excluding good sites because they won't/can't pay to be included. |
| caitlyn Apr 09, 2010 11:44 AM EDT |
I'm with jdixon on this one. Selling ads is one thing. Excluding or burying valid seach results is another. There are still halfway decent alternatives to Google: Cuil, Mooter and even the venerable Alta Vista are all worthwhile. To me, Yahoo is not at this point. I'd like that to change. I have nothing against Yahoo, the company. I just think their business strategy for the search engine lead to the near demise of a once excellent product. |
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