Why the MSN / Yahoo Deal (Mahoo?) is Bad for SEO
So it appears that Microsoft is hell bent on acquiring Yahoo. This is not a good thing for the SEO industry nor is it good for consumers. SEO is already dominated by three main search engines (sorry ASK but you are not one of em). The three are Google, Yahoo and MSN. And MSN is just barely on the radar. I understand why MSN wants Yahoo. It's pretty easy to see it would help them compete with Google. But the thing that strikes me as funny is, other than acquiring existing marketing share, how is that acquisition going to help them to take some of what Google already has. The presumption is that somehow the merger of these companies is going to create a stronger company capable of competing with Google. Unfortunately for them and the average visitor, nothing could be further from the truth. See the real reason that Yahoo and MSN can't compete with Google is that Google's company infrastructure and culture are superior to other two companies.
You can see it at every level of the equation. Google is an innovative company that is constantly on the forefront of development and constantly trying to improve their products with a big focus on user input and even collaboration. Their computer infrastructure is at the forefront of technology and no one has a more powerful system to execute search. Google is constantly getting awards for "best place to work" and attracts the best new talent. If you ever go to a Google party at SES or some other conference, its always a young, hip, dynamic feel to it. If you look at Yahoo and MSN through the same lens of evaluation, both fall short. It's company culture and it starts at the top. When you deal with Google, you get the impression that you are dealing with a company that is focused on their users. With MSN, you get the impression that you are dealing with a company that is focused on money. And therein lies the difference and it's why this deal sucks so bad. I just know that if MSN gets their greedy little hands on Yahoo, they will ruin it. And I will bet you that it won't take for existing Yahoo users to jump that ship in favor of Google. And that's just from the user perspective.
From an SEO standpoint, having two major portals instead of three that matter, reduces the opportunity to provide search listings for clients. So granted MSN listings would mean more, but at the same time, the competition to get those listings would be tougher. I'm not saying that Google doesn't need competition and I certainly don't think that Google is perfect (see Position 6 error..lol). But, I just don't see how repositioning market share without an improvement in innovation is going to improve the quality of Yahoo or MSN's search. If anything, it's going to make it worse while these two huge organizations try to figure out how to merge with one another. To say nothing of all the jobs in search that would lost as the companies consolidate their resources. I really hope that the this deal doesn't happen. I don't think it's a positive development for the SEO community, or for consumers.
You can see it at every level of the equation. Google is an innovative company that is constantly on the forefront of development and constantly trying to improve their products with a big focus on user input and even collaboration. Their computer infrastructure is at the forefront of technology and no one has a more powerful system to execute search. Google is constantly getting awards for "best place to work" and attracts the best new talent. If you ever go to a Google party at SES or some other conference, its always a young, hip, dynamic feel to it. If you look at Yahoo and MSN through the same lens of evaluation, both fall short. It's company culture and it starts at the top. When you deal with Google, you get the impression that you are dealing with a company that is focused on their users. With MSN, you get the impression that you are dealing with a company that is focused on money. And therein lies the difference and it's why this deal sucks so bad. I just know that if MSN gets their greedy little hands on Yahoo, they will ruin it. And I will bet you that it won't take for existing Yahoo users to jump that ship in favor of Google. And that's just from the user perspective.
From an SEO standpoint, having two major portals instead of three that matter, reduces the opportunity to provide search listings for clients. So granted MSN listings would mean more, but at the same time, the competition to get those listings would be tougher. I'm not saying that Google doesn't need competition and I certainly don't think that Google is perfect (see Position 6 error..lol). But, I just don't see how repositioning market share without an improvement in innovation is going to improve the quality of Yahoo or MSN's search. If anything, it's going to make it worse while these two huge organizations try to figure out how to merge with one another. To say nothing of all the jobs in search that would lost as the companies consolidate their resources. I really hope that the this deal doesn't happen. I don't think it's a positive development for the SEO community, or for consumers.
posted by Catfish at
9:49 AM
3 Comments:
You make some very good arguments as to why this merger would not work to topple Google, especially the point about product development and culture.
This is unfortunate as Google is not a good corporate citizen and their search results are dishonest, but the fact that everyone loves Google and that they do come up with some nice offerings keeps them in the for front in many persons perception.
I hope Yahoo in particular with much better search as well as customer service can figure this out and battle Google in this area (Yahoos blogs and other offerings unfortunately come of short of Googles), at least Yahoo is a much more honest company and is not driven by corporate greed and dishonesty.
For examples of Googles dishonest, please reference this article: Google Love Affair
Thanks for the comment Carl. But I don't really see Yahoo as being much better in this regard. How many people have they ripped off $300 to evaluate their site just to tell them they can't be in the directory. To say nothing of the fact that the only reason the directory is worth $300 in SOME cases is the link love you get from it. And I don't believe that Yahoo has better search results. Their technology is FAR behind Google, especially as it relates to canonicalization issues. Yahoo is much slower at processing 301 redirects and is much more prone to having things like keyword stuffing affect it. Personally I don't see where Google is "dishonest" but if can cite some examples I would be all ears. In the meantime, as soon as somebody does search better than Google, I will be happy to switch. But neither Yahoo or MSN has the answer currently.
I have been following this story pretty closely. The value of owning the two search engines is not in their superior algorithms (far from), it is in the aquisition of two dedicated groups of users that make up something like 30% of the search market.
Also, alot of smaller businesses might consider a shot at 30% of the search market a good percentage. There is a good blog post about differences/market share and take-over implications on this blog.
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