Google vs. Yahoo!

My New Year's Resolution #9 is:

To reduce Google's share of my web clickstream and my blog real estate.

Many readers have taken that to be some kind of Google hating on my part.  That's not true at all.  I think Google is great and is clearly the most important player on the web right now.

But I have had this sneaking suspicion that much of Google's leadership comes from its brand and positioning and not from superior services.  So I have resolved to get off my Google addiction and try the rest of the web, starting with the obvious choice, Yahoo!

I often think of the Avis slogan when I think of Yahoo!  It seems to me that Yahoo! tries harder.  They try harder to be open and inclusive.  They try harder to work with other companies.  They try harder to acquire interesting web services (Flickr, Upcoming, and Delicious for example).  Of course they have to try harder because they are number two, at least in the mind of web users when it comes to search, which is the starting point for most everything on the web today.

But let's look beyond search.  Who is the leader in CPM advertising - Yahoo!  Who is the leader in personalization - Yahoo!  Who is the leader in behavioral advertising - Yahoo!  Who has the best web based RSS platform - Yahoo!  I could go on and on.  I like where Yahoo! sits and so I am going to give them some run to see how their services compare with Google.

I have started with search as I blogged about a week ago.  I have been using Yahoo! search exclusively since New Year's Day.  And I have yet to see a reason why Google is a better search experience for me.

About a week ago, I added Yahoo!'s site search to this blog and put it above the fold.  I have been using it exclusively for the past week to search my blog and I can say with certainty that Yahoo!'s site search is a lot better than Google's.  I often found myself having to get very specific with searches to find old blog posts with Google site search.  I find that Yahoo! gets the job done with much less work on my part.  So today I am taking Google site search off my blog and going solo with Yahoo!.  If my readers don't like the Yahoo! search experience, let me know, and I'll add Google back.

The next step for me is replacing Google's Adsense with Yahoo!'s Publisher Network.  I intend to do that this week at some point.  I think this will be the hardest comparison for Yahoo!  Google has a very impressive business in contextual advertising, based largely on the strength of its Adwords service which used to be linked to Adsense.

But the fact is that Adsense doesn't perform very well on my blog.  I earned about $1200 last year, roughly $100 per month, which all went to a non-profit called The Grameen Foundation which supports microlending in the developing world. My eCPM averages about $0.60.

I think the audience that reads my blog ought to be more valuable than $0.60 per thousand impressions and so I am going to see if Yahoo! can do better.  My bet is that they won't.  But it will be interesting to see what they can do.

I have long said that this blog is a laboratory for me and so I am putting it to work to see whether Google's leadership is more than perception. As always, I'll keep you posted as I learn.

Comments

[Nicholas]

"I think the audience that reads my blog ought to be more valuable than $0.60 per thousand impressions"

Like, about a hundred times more valuable...!

I'd think you could easily sell a sponsorship to your blog for a lot more than $1200 per year -- especially given that the proceeds go to charity.

(Nice to see all the ads _about adsense_ accompanying this post - very funny!)

[Erik Schwartz]

The products I built for Y! (Y! Games, Y! Movies, Y! TV and Y! Entertainment), google hasn't even come close to yet. The googlers I know don't really have the right mindset to build these kinds of products well.

[New West Living]

"My eCPM averages about $0.60."

Really? that's way low. I wonder why? certainly you have readers from all over the world and you have had steady growth in traffic right?

[Kripa]

Fred - I enjoy reading your blog. Thought you might like to try this simple but elegant aid in your google vs. yahoo quest.

The web service - http://yubnub.org/

In the query window type -
yagoo "search string"

I have yubnub setup as my searchbar so it makes life really easy. The service itself is an overlap of open source software and web 2.0.

Needs a lot more buzz than it has received. Hope you enjoy.

-Kripa

[Alan Kelley]

I think Yahoo's biggest challenge is being perceived as more "cool" than it currently is. At the Web 2.0 conference, all five individuals on a teen panel said that they very rarely use Yahoo. Google and MySpace were front of mind.

Why is Yahoo search not more respected when it's search results are very good? Why was del.icio.us considered so much "cooler" than Yahoo's My Web? Why did a community convene around del.icio.us but not My Web? Why does Y! Personals have roughly as much traffic as Match, but few people ever talk about Y! Personals? Why has Yahoo 360 not gotten off the ground?

It's possible that Yahoo may have to continue to buy cool through flickr, del.icio.us, etc.

[steve]

why yahoo? seems like you're switching from coke to pepsi. why not go to all the small companies and startups out there, the type of venture you fund and otherwise always support? i would think you can easily get great search and ad network stuff, etc., from the universe of small ventures?

[Daniel Nerezov]

"I think the audience that reads my blog ought to be more valuable than $0.60 per thousand impressions".

Here it is, the secret to Google's success:

They're cheap skates!

Nicholas is right. AVC is hot, and any tech company would pay 10x that amount to recruit on this website (or push some gadget).

Heck! any startup (including us) would do a deal just to get some buzz and initial sales. What better place to announce a lauch that a vc blog?

[josh stomel]

Hands down I could not agree with you more. I personally worked for Yahoo Search marketing, and spent a lot of time working with the new YPN network. It is wonderful, and Yahoo does know what they are doing.. Do it.. Yahoo is the best, google has some great stuff, however it is just a fad..

[Ted Fischer]

99% of the time I don't care which company has the better technology. I want a simple piece of information and I want it fast. Google is easy. Yahoo? Have you ever tried to find anything on their front page? Anything at all? Fifty thousand links, with no clear organization...

The only way to deal with Yahoo is to bookmark direct links to the pages you use.

[Fred]

Google, plain and simple is making tons of money off of advertising. What I find bizarre is that everyone, and I mean everyone on earth wants to advertise with them. It's like a common cold, from one source that now, everyone is catching. Consumers only have so much time and money to throw at products via ads. And ads are like pop-ups; extremely annoying. Google is the first example of a post, dot.com era stock. And we know what happened prior.

[rando]

Sorry for disagreeing but

1. Yahoo takes money to list in their directory. Google doesn't.

2. Yahoo takes money for site submission in their search engine, clearly biasing the results. Google is fairer.

3. You mention three things Yahoo which is better at. You fail to mention the loads of search tools Google has, which Yahoo doesn't.

4. Google's RSS reader simply rocks. One click after you sign in, to start reading. And its fast.

[Tim Converse]

Ted Fischer - if you want to avoid the clutter on the Y! home page, give search.yahoo.com a try. (Full disclosure: I work for Y! Search.)

[Ionut Alex. Chitu]

You can submit your site for free to Yahoo at http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

[arun]

Fred,
>2. Yahoo takes money for site submission in >their search engine, clearly biasing the >results. Google is fairer.

I have to disagree.. Site submission takes money, so those webmasters cud egt some special reports on howmany users clicked,wat search terms landed thier page etc. But it clearly mentions that there is no bias.

[charizardpal]

Here's why I use google:

1) The site loads faster than yahoo-less graphics.

2) I discovered long ago that Google has more websites archived. That means more websites and information for me to find when I make a search.

3) Google has some useful advanced options and is at the head of the innovation.

4) I once submitted a geocites site to yahoo and yahoo never posted it in their search results.

Hovewer, I recently tried yahoo.jp.co, and I think that site has features under the image results that the english google lacks. I'm not sure but I think yahoo has more websites archived than google. Does any one know for sure?