Is yahoo pulling ahead of google?

[rritoch]

Today I noticed a major shift in my statistics. I'm getting more traffic from yahoo than google. This seems to be a sign that yahoo is pulling ahead in the search engine race. Has anyone else seen a shift in traffic from yahoo -vs- google? I don't know if its possible to find out how many searches per day yahoo is doing, -vs- google, but when I see more traffic from yahoo than google I tend to believe google may be losing its edge. I've seen this trend across both of my sites so I don't believe its a "fluke". If this is the case what use is pagerank anymore? From what I see pagerank isn't even accurate anymore, it only gets updated once every few months, and sites with lower toolbar pagerank are ranking above sites with higher pagerank. My site recently "lost" toolbar pagerank, I had pagerank 5 for nearly a year, and suddenly it dropped to 4. I haven't shifted in rank much at all over the past year, so I tend to believe google's "reported pagerank" is now useless. Is this the end of Google's time in the spotlight...

[mariobox]

Pagerank went down for many sites last update. That is normal. As more pages get added to the index, it can cause PR of some pages to go down. Although it is slightly more complicated than this, we can safely say that as the index grows, a fixed amount of PR has to be divided among a greater # of pages. PR is only one factor affecting rankings though, with link anchor text being probably the most important one. If a page has a PR5 but plenty of backlinks with the search terms in the anchor text, it may rank higher than a PR6 page whose backlinks' anchor text don't include the search terms. PR is definetly not as important as it once was.

[awall19s brother]

I read a article i think it was today where a poll was used of 2000 people and it showed yahoo and MSn gaining on google

[docquesting]

I think I recently said I had a "fealing" that webmasters may need to prepare for the web without google.

[ATLien]

I have to agree recently, I have seen a massive increase in MSN and Yahoo! hits. Also, google has really been going downhill. They shift indexes to much. At one time my indexed pages went from 25,000+ to 4k in an hour. Either they are up to something behind the sences or they are going down hill.

[asamuel]

I have seen a massive increase in Yahoo traffic especially in since start of december. MSN is not far behind and google is refering less traffic than both!! I cant imagine that google are going downhill, I think they are just reacting to a change in their market share, then again they have known about msn's launch for ages so its anyones guess....

[CTABUK]

In the UK what we are finding is an upserge in Broadband provider searches, Wannado, Tiscalli, BT Yahoo, I am personally seeing far more Directory searches, which is really good news. Are people making Directories their home page? Google will suffer to MSN Beta. But I think a darkhorse is looming A6 with its graphics combined with speed, if it shrugs off it's Google mask, who knows!

[ATLien]

I have noticed a increase in Comcast Search hits so I know what you mean.

[gorillaboy]

I too have seen an increase in Comcast referrals.

I think MSN and Yahoo!'s SE promotion efforts are paying off. Comcast defaults your home page to their site when you sign up for their internet service. And they've been signing up broadband customers like MAD!

People are going to use whichever SE is easiest to access...as long as the results provide what they're looking for.

And Doc, I don't think Google is going anywhere anytime soon.

[Dark_Matter]

I am seeing an increase in the amount of visits I'm getting from Yahoo, but I don't think it's because they are getting more users. I think it's because manipulating Yahoo's rankings is very easy compared to Google, so I'm able to rank much higher for high traffic keywords. MSN and Yahoo are much easier to rank high on using simple onpage seo.

For instance, a site that ranks #100 for it's keywords on G might rank #10 for the same kw on Yahoo. Since most people won't get to page 10 in the serps, you're going to see more visits from yahoo on your stats. That doesnt mean Yahoo is getting more traffic than google.

The fact that Yahoo's serps are so easily influenced makes it an inferior data search, hence I don't think G has anything to worry about. And judging from their efforts to expand into desktop search and other areas (not to mention the sucess of the company's stock) they won't be going anywhere anytimew soon.

[gorillaboy]

When big companies spend big money on advertising, it usually has an effect.

[SVB]

I have found Yahoo to bring me the majority of my visitors who come from search engines. I get very few people from search engines, but the stats this month are:
Yahoo - 2553
MSN - 974
Baidu - 102
Google - 88

[gorillaboy]

Well, stats like that just tell me that your Google rankings blow. Right?

If you have good rankings accros the board, your stats should look something like this:

1) Google: 55%
2) Yahoo: 12%
3) MSN: 10%
4) AOL: 8%
5) Ask: 2%

[SVB]

Originally Posted by gorillaboy

Well, stats like that just tell me that your Google rankings blow. Right?

If you have good rankings accros the board, your stats should look something like this:

1) Google: 55%
2) Yahoo: 12%
3) MSN: 10%
4) AOL: 8%
5) Ask: 2%

Purely depends on the site. Notice how I have "Baidu". The reason for that is the subject of my site mainly appeals to japanese users at the moment. That will change on march 25th, where I will expect to find a larger proportion of Google and Yahoo users.

[gorillaboy]

Yes, you're right.

It does depend on the sites target audience.

[GlobalSurfers]

On one of my newer sites (2 months old) MSN is making up 75% of the incoming SE traffic and Google is on 15%,
On my other sites Google remains strong.

[foxtrot]

Yahoo have lifted enormously!