According to the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo may lose up to 15% of its search traffic over the next 12-to-18 months after failing to renew deals with two computer makers.
Yahoo was the default search tool on HP and Acer computers.
However those deals expired last year and Yahoo’s failure to renew them, according to WSL, could cost Yahoo, as much as 3% of U.S. search market share.
In February, Yahoo conducted 20.6% of U.S. online searches, according to comScore Inc.
Therefore if Yahoo loses 3% they would lose 15% of their current market share.
According to the Journal, at the beginning of the year, Microsoft’s Live Search toolbar replaced Yahoo’s toolbar on H-P computers.
In October 2008, Google replaced Yahoo as the default search box on Acer computers.
“””The loss of these deals likely won’t be fully felt for several quarters because it will take time before a sizable number of consumers replace their computers.””
“””Falling below 20% would exacerbate a vicious cycle in which fewer consumers view and click on ads, making Yahoo less attractive to advertisers and driving down the prices for its keywords.”””
The story also quotes Kevin Lee, CEO of search engine marketer Didit LLC who says:
“If Yahoo’s share continues to sink, more of the newer advertisers will not bother opening accounts.”
This would be a real problem for domainers.
We have a lot of our traffic at Yahoo parking companies as many domains just perform better on Yahoo than Google.
Domainers need at least 2 strong upstream partners to monatize traffic.
The scenario discussed by the Journal where Yahoo reduced market share leads to lower PPC prices certainly is not going to help any domainer.
This appears to be another major blunder by a company who seems to make well more than their fair share.
Let’s hope that the Journal’s damage estimates for Yahoo’s failure to renew these deals is way off.
It’s obvious that traditional parking is dying. It’s dying on the vine.
Johnny
It’s not so much dying as being negatively effected by bad decisions of Yahoo management, which is contributing to Google’s ever increasing share of the market and Yahoo effectively taking themselves out of the game.
Parking is dead!!!
I and many people are so sick and tired of looking at the boring lading pages of Parking.
Domains are only as good as they are developed.
People-god give you the creativity pea, so use it,let it grow or it will die.
Yahoo is good at sucking right now and that’s it.
Management doesn’t know what to do or what works anymore and no one has any vision there. They are in survival mode which means they will die a natural death or get eaten by Mr. Softie.
I have had minisites show up #1 in Yahoo and get ZERO traffic.
Seriously, no one uses Yahoo for searches anyway.
It’s over for Yahoo, maybe as early as this year, Yahoo will be a shell of it’s former self.
Yahoo killed the overture keyword suggestion tool a while back not to show the embarrasing #s
LOL
Sad… I tell ya
Microsoft needs to buy them out already and get their operations back on track (hopefully) by re-investing some of that $$$ and creativity
Without Search, yahoo is just like any BS site.
I won’t even approve Yahoo to be part of my BullShitWebsites.com family.
They are below par.
Yahoo has everything that an internet user may want.
Sure, it’s not for everybody but there are lots of people (talking about tens of millions) who like having a centralized system and go-to place.
It has to do with trust, comfort, etc.
It’s hard to focus when you got so many opportunities and this has been Yahoo’s biggest problem.
They just aren’t dedicating the proper resources to where they should be.
Oh well.