What is the Fate of the Yahoo Search Engine?

Finally, after many years of competition, there has been talk that Yahoo and Microsoft are already starting to meet about a future collaboration. With Google as every existing search engine’s biggest competitor, it is no wonder that more companies are starting to rethink the strategy of continuing to be islands in the greater technological sea.

There are still deals to be made that will stipulate that the Yahoo and Bing search engines will be powered exclusively by the Microsoft Bing engine. Although it is not crystal clear about how the collaboration will benefit Yahoo or Bing separately, it has only been stated by Microsoft that with the lessons learned in the implementation of both search engines, a lot of enhancement in tools, key topics, and data listings can be looked forward to by both Bing and Yahoo users. Otherwise, the whole world still remains in the dark about what to really expect.

The only thing that many people don’t want to anticipate is Yahoo becoming yet another ill-fated Alta Vista search engine which Yahoo itself absorbed in the late 1990s. Although Alta Vista initially came out as an efficient solution, and which became a big Google contender, its absorption rendered it almost useless and eventually irrelevant.

Yahoo Search’s Downward Trend

Nobody wants to think that the fate of Yahoo will go down further down than it already has. Statistics show that by the end of 2007, only 23 percent of the US population was using Yahoo as their search engine of choice. But this further decreased in early 2010 when users went further down in number and reached a 17 percent low. With Microsoft Bing’s performance, the US users are still at a low 11.3 percent, but there are still hopes for an increase as it goes up slowly at half points.

Still, it doesn’t hurt to speculate what Yahoo and Microsoft have planned for their search engines in the year to come. The biggest question is whether or not Bing will actually help improve Yahoo with its collaboration or let it continue more rapidly in its downward spiral to oblivion.

Yahoo’s Biggest Problem

So, what is Yahoo’s biggest problem? Why are users veering away from the seemingly popular Yahoo Search and starting to look for footing in other engines, like the ever-reliable Google? Yahoo was not perfect. Since its start, it already had many flaws that were never addressed and that continued to weigh heavily on it until it finally began to sink. The biggest problem was the Yahoo Search page’s undeniable layout clutter.

When you compare Google and Yahoo Search, you can’t deny that it may take you a few moments to even identify where to put your search keyword on the Yahoo Search page. But on the Google page, there really is only one place to search – which is smack in the center. Yahoo has too much eye candy for the regular person to stay focused on the search task at hand. The Yahoo page is a bombardment of popular search lists, celebrity news, political news, top news, interesting pictures, games, top products, and job offerings, among others.

Let’s face it, because of its simple design Google still holds a huge percentage of the worldwide market. Searching has basically become synonymous with “Googling”, so it is no wonder that when you are asked a question, you simply get on your PC and “Google” it!