2004; the year of Yahootomi!

Mike Grehan:img:/images/grehan.gif

It may sound like a secret martial art which needs a very cool outfit but there's no real secret about Yahootomi. The search marketing industry is buzzing with "big switch" Yahootomi type musings.

Unless you've been living in Saddam Hussein's last known address for the past month or so, then you may not be aware that Google is being ousted from Yahoo! And in its place comes Inktomi. Hence Yahootomi.

It may be a very subtle and seamless kind of transition for the average surfer. But for search marketers - it'll be about as subtle as a smack over the back of the head with a shovel if you're not expecting it.

So to avoid you having to wear a crash helmet for the rest of the month, just in case, I thought now would be a good time to look at the major players and where their search results come from.

It was no major surprise that Yahoo! bought Inktomi last year. Not to me anyway. If it was seriously going to compete in the burgeoning search market for this year then it would obviously have to compete with their original "fall through" supplier, Google.

Was it a surprise when Overture bought both AltaVista and AllTheWeb? Well, I always felt it needed ownership of their own algorithmic results too. But it did catch me by surprise (as well as a number of others) when Overture went on an acquisition "shopping spree".

And was it a surprise that Yahoo bought Overture, acquiring Alta Vista and AllTheWeb at the same time and giving it three crawler based search engines?

Well no actually. That was more of a quizzical raising of an eyebrow rather than a surprise. To complete the set, Yahoo! really needed to have its own PPC service to seriously go head-to-head with Google and its AdWords product. But what was it going to do with all those other search engines lying around in the back yard?

Was anybody surprised that MSN dumped Looksmart? Certainly not me. It had, earned the somewhat "tongue-in-cheek" title of "Crooksmart" in the industry forums following the overnight transformation from "pay for consideration" directory (like Yahoo at the time) to tying both existing and new customers into a "cost per click" model. Of course, it could only get away with having us all "over a barrel" because of its relationship with MSN, i.e. delivering the primary results ("web directory results" as they are classified on the page).

So up pops Inktomi again - long time deliverer of secondary results (web page results as they are classified on the page) and just in time to be ousted by MSN in favour of its own crawler based service. It could hardly rely on results coming from a search engine owned by Yahoo could it?

That leaves several other players to cover, most significantly Ask jeeves/Teoma, but let's do part one of the round-up here:

Google:

- Supplies results to its own interface and also Yahoo! and AOL (plus other less major services).

- Provides "browsable interface" via its Google Directory (in conjunction with Open Directory).

- Owns AdWords (its answer to Overture's PPC service model).

- Free submit to crawler and directory - no paid inclusion programme (yet!)

In the very near future (Q1) Google results at Yahoo! will be replaced (most likely entirely) by Inktomi. Following the huge amount of publicity surrounding the Google IPO, shareholders may wonder why major competitor Yahoo! has a revenue stream from paid inclusion services and Google doesn't. This could possibly lead to a "rethink" over the current policy.

Yahoo!

- Supplies Google results to its own interface.

- Provides "browsable interface" via its own Yahoo Directory.

- Owns Overture, the innovator of the PPC model.

- Paid inclusion programmes across the board for all of its web search engines: Inktomi, AllTheWeb and AltaVista. Also has mandatory paid "Express Inclusion" to the Yahoo web directory (for commercial sites).

As mentioned above, in the very near future, Yahoo will make the "big switch" to Inktomi results. This means search marketers can kiss goodbye to huge amounts of free traffic and say hello to paid inclusion Inktomi traffic (if they want 'guaranteed' inclusion to the index).

Yahoo has already been carrying out experiments and tests with both Inktomi and Overture with its web properties outside of the US in advance of the big switch. Terry Semel, CEO Yahoo has gone on record to say: "Our short-term goal will be to have Yahoo throughout the entire world using our algorithmic search in Inktomi."

What happens to AltaVista and its massive inventory of patents and AllTheWeb with its huge database and super-crawling technology remains to be seen.

MSN:

- Provides primary results from Looksmart and secondary algorithmic results from Inktomi.

- No browsable interface (as in no directory access from the interface).

- Does not own PPC service (MSN is an Overture affiliate).

- Paid inclusion programme provided by Inktomi.

And so, the sleeping giant awakes. Hugely successful market follower Microsoft squares up in the search ring this year. It's a pure "build not buy" strategy so far. And of course, it's not as if it is so short of cash it has to rush into the marketplace. Inktomi will be ousted for MSN's own algorithmic results. But will Overture still remain as PPC provider? I doubt it.

Will MSN maintain a paid inclusion programme? As already mentioned, it's a revenue stream that Terry Semel of Yahoo thinks can't be ignored. MSN already shows Inktomi paid inclusion results in its mix. It could have insisted on "pure search" without paid inclusion if they felt so strongly about it, but clearly decided against such a move.

So that's it then? Nobody else worth bothering about for the future? Of course there is - but I've run out of space - and you've run right out of time!

Part 2 next issue - until then - keep rising to the top.

**Mike Grehan is managing director of iProspect Europe, 'The Original Search Engine Marketing firm' (www.iprospect.com) and author of Search Engine Marketing: The essential best practice guide (www.search-engine-book.co.uk). Contact Mike at"editorial@netimperative.com ":mailto:editorial@netimperative.com .**

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