Ah, poor Yahoo!. Half their revenues come from search. They desperately want people to use Yahoo! Search. But the world is under the impression that Yahoo! has abandoned search, because they are (or will soon be) using Microsoft’s search index. The distinction is too subtle for most people, who simply think “Yahoo! uses Bing” .. which isn’t the plan at all.
So imagine my reaction when I read, in Yahoo! News, an article called How to Scope Someone Out Online — basically “web stalking 101” — a sentence that states:
[…] it’s always wise to start with a basic Google or Bing search.
I know, it was just a feed from a PC World article, not written by Yahoo!. But it does go to show what even the tech world is thinking when the number 2 search engine has fallen off the side of the road. I suspect Yahoo! has a lot of PR work to do if they want to be seen as serious about search.
The PR and perception concern for Yahoo is legit. Not to mention laying off all the search engineers (Some of them probably end up at ebay? LOL). People outside the industry does not know the detail of the deal. Yahoo essentially will have it’s own complete branding, only the backend infrastructures are provided by Bing.
Meng, thank you for the comment. Yahoo! did not lay off all of its search engineers, unless you think search is only the back end systems.
Bob, I am just half joking. Still your post about PR and perception of the public is completely valid.