March 2004

Yahoo! launches new search engine

A couple of weeks ago, the search engine wars heated up again. Google lost a major contract with Yahoo! as they launched their own search engine, 'Yahoo! Slurp'. This looks like the start of new things to come from the series of take overs that took place last year, when Yahoo! bought Inktomi, and Overture bought FAST & Altavista, who was then taken over by Yahoo! Below is a brief outline of what's happening as well as some speculation about what to expect.

So what is this new search engine?

The new search engine is known as 'Yahoo! Slurp', and only currently in use at Yahoo.com, but to be rolled out across the other Yahoo! portals. The search engine is based on Inktomi (whose spider is called 'slurp'), but is a much more advanced version, producing more relevant results and crawling deeper into websites. They do not mirror Inktomi results on other websites such as Hotbot and MSN.

How do we submit?

At the moment, you can still submit via Position Tech - the website handling Inktomi’s pay for inclusion (how to submit to Inktomi was outlined in our December issue here). However, any websites submitted now will be dropped from the Yahoo! Slurp index after 15 April 2004. This means that for the next month, if you have paid to be included in the Inktomi index, your results will not only appear in Inktomi but also on Yahoo! Slurp.

After 15 April, you will need to submit via the new submission program, 'Overture Site Match', to be included in Yahoo! Slurp. Existing PFI submissions into Inktomi will not be affected - therefore your search results will still be shown on the regular Inktomi results on MSN & Hotbot. The new 'Overture Site Match' model will charge $49 for your url to be reviewed and then you will be charged on a pay per click basis when your link in the search results is clicked on. The cost per click will depend on your industry sector.

With regards to the Yahoo! directory, it seems the submission process will stay the same, however, will a directory listing on Yahoo! boost our results in the new search engine?

There is much speculation about how the new search engine will operate, how to submit and whether only paid submissions will be included. However, for now don't worry about submitting your website to Yahoo! Slurp until after 15 April. We're keeping our ears to the ground and will keep you updated as more information is available over the next month.


Further reading:

Yahoo.com 'Submit your Site' page

Yahoo! Birth of a new machine

Yahoo sharpens its claws

Yahoo dumps Google at last