Yahoo! Admits Search Defeat to Google?
 

Yahoo!, one of the biggest names in online search has said that personalization is now more important than search, in what some are saying is an admission of defeat to Google.

The comments came from said Tapan Bhat, vice president of Yahoo!'s personalized home page at the Next Web conference in Amsterdam.

"The future of the web is about personalization. Where search was dominant, now the web is about 'me.' It's about weaving the web together in a way that is smart and personalized for the user"

Although Yahoo! has talked about developing a more personalized web before, the statement is the first public admission from the company. The remarks were seen by many as an admission that Yahoo! can no longer compete with Google in search and instead have decided to shift their focus.

Deborah Schultz, a Silicon Valley-based marketing consultant gave one of the conference keynote speeches and had this to say about the comments.

"They're basically admitting defeat." "They've realized they can't compete with Google on search."

When asked to clarify his statement to the Times Online , Bhat said, "We're not admitting defeat. Search still matters, but we need to be providing a wrapper around search to turn the info search offers up into something more useful."

So what does this mean for us? While the ultimate goal of personalization is to deliver more relevant results to each user, I can't see it replacing search all together. I think the two combined can form a healthy mix to assist everyone find relevant information online. What do you think? Let us know via our blog comments!

http://www.ineedhits.com/free-tools/...06-05BNLblog1h

why dont they partner together instead of fighting? they could do something very BIG and workable.

It's called capitalism lol

I think it is more of an admissions that pure search engines are doomed to collapse under their own weight, with spam listings and SEO blackhats pretty much making the listings worthless.

Personal experiences, links collected in surfing rather than randomly selecting listings on a search would appear to be a better way to go. Perhaps they will re-do DMOZ? heh-heh.

thats the reason i alway like to use yahoo way more then google plus they offer great content

Around 3 months ago it seems Yahoo must have changed their algorithm as I had a number one ranking there and at Google for my main search term.
Still up there at Google though I've dropped off the face of the earth so far as Yahoo are concerned.

they were defeated shortly after google launched. i didn't know that was news in 2007. :)

yup they were

but they never admited it until 2007.

yahoo still has a better site, google looks way too plain.

True dat.