Yahoo!'s New Search Engine

On February 18th, Yahoo launched its new search engine, Yahoo Search, a mix of technologies built around its subsidiaries Inktomi and Overture Services, and replaced Google as search engine results provider. A day earlier, Google officially announced that it had reached an important milestone with immediate access to more than 6 billion items, including 4.28 billion web pages, 880 million images, 845 million Usenet messages, and a growing collection of book-related information pages. Why would Google brag about its leading position at this auspicious time? Because changes are coming

Such changes will have immediate impact on search engine rankings and traffic as the main search engines' market share is anticipated to change dramatically.

According to a Nielsen//NetRatings report released on February 23rd, search engine use in the United States increased to include one of every three Americans or, 39% of the US population! Specifically, 114.5 million unique users turned to search engines to find information about products and services in January, and each spent nearly 40 minutes there.

The heavy usage of search engines in January was no different from the reliance on search engines during the 2003 holiday shopping season:

• 36 % of those surveyed said they used Google during the shopping season
• 25 % used Yahoo! Search
• 14 % used MSN Search
• 5 % used either AOL or Ask Jeeves.

Not surprisingly, the top five search engines in January were:

• Google (59 million visitors)
• Yahoo Search (46 million)
• MSN Search (45 million)
• AOL Search (23 million)
• Ask Jeeves (13 million)

What the Nielsen report did not indicate is the intricate connections between the main search engines and the results they provide to their partners. In January, Yahoo used to show the organic search engine results provided by Google. MSN Search provides organic search engine results provided by Inktomi, a Yahoo company. And AOL Search shows Google-provided search engine results. This complex interdependence between the main search engines makes current changes in the web search market place more intriguing.