Yahoo...today announced that it has created a more comprehensive and relevant search experience for users through the deployment of its own algorithmic search technology --Yahoo Press Release, Feb. 18, 2004
Sounds like good news for searchers. But wait! What are advertisers being told about Yahoo-owned Overture Site Match, which feeds paid inclusion content into Yahoo's search results?
Eliminate guesswork: Ensure that your pages are reviewed and included in the search index quickly and refreshed frequently. No waiting for search engines to find your site or guessing which content will be included. --Overture Site Match product page, May 18, 2004
On the one hand, searchers are told that Yahoo has a comprehensive and relevant search engine, which you'd also assume means it's fresh. On the other hand, site owners are told that Yahoo's search engine apparently just guesses about what to include and may not refresh that content frequently.
Is it any wonder that Yahoo's gained bad press after unveiling its new programs? Either you have a great search engine or you don't. Trying to play it both ways simply doesn't fly...
Google certainly had a field day watching Yahoo try to justify its program. Google had just come off one of the worst periods of publicity it had ever known (this being before the Google Gmail announcement in April and major privacy concerns that have followed). Last December's upset over Google ranking changes spawned a number of anti-Google forum discussions and articles.
What on earth could save Google? Yahoo's complicated paid inclusion program came to the rescue. After weeks of having its own results questioned, Google got to sit back and watch Yahoo's program get put under a microscope.
Google also brought out company cofounder Larry Page in unprecedented fashion for major publications. Gone were the typically cautious or limited comments about the competition Google's normally given. It's search war now, the gloves are off, and by not having paid inclusion, Google seemingly occupies high ground. Page confidently shot quotes like these not just across Yahoo's bow but directly amidships:
"Any time you accept money to influence the results, even if it is just for inclusion, it is probably a bad thing." -- New York Times
"It's really tricky when people start putting things in the search results," -- Wall Street Journal
If you need a last sign of Yahoo's failure on the propaganda front, take note that Yahoo Watch has now been founded by Daniel Brandt.
Brandt created the anti-Google site of Google Watch back in 2002, when Google's incredible rise in popularity was starting to raise concerns. Until now, Brandt has been content to hold Google solely responsible for the ills that often are applicable to its competitors as well.
Brandt did always say he might target other services, if he felt they warranted it. Now Yahoo's paid inclusion programs managed to draw his ire. Google is no doubt pleased to find Yahoo is now part of the axis of search evil it formerly occupied alone....
I also expect Yahoo will likely begin fighting back against charges that it is less pure than Google by pointing out that Google's AdSense program gives Google potentially as much incentive to skew results as does Yahoo's paid inclusion program.
AdSense puts Google ads on pages across the web outside of Google. Obviously, if Google drives traffic to pages carrying its ads, the company may earn more money. It's something Google strongly denied it would ever do when AdSense was launched, a denial it repeated again recently when I looked in December at allegations of Google favoring sites with AdSense content. Nevertheless, as with Yahoo, the incentive for favoritism is there.
I'd already planned to cover the AdSense issue as part of this series. However, I was especially surprised to have Yahoo raise the issue itself, when I was discussing this series with them last week. I don't recall Yahoo employing the "Google has incentive to be bad" argument before. That's why I suspect it may emerge as a new line of defense, if paid inclusion criticisms continue.
The series will also explore the future of paid inclusion. Will the other search engines turn toward or away from paid inclusion. Will Yahoo decide it needs to do inline disclosure of paid inclusion URLs, something I certainly hope will happen.."
posted by Jen @ 5:29 AM
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