Why Yahoo is the worst company on the Internet

December 1st, 2009 by Chris

So I got an email today, saying that Yahoo has decided to terminate Rightmedia, which it purchased not to long ago.

Perhaps terminate is the wrong word, they’re basically going to end all existing Right Media services for small publishers, which is most of what the company offers.

Coming on the heels of their implosion of YPN I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. YPN, of course, no longer exists really, Yahoo is going to completely farm out all advertising to Microsoft in a recent deal.

Does anyone take Yahoo seriously as a company anymore? Let us look into the past and see how Yahoo has innovated and improved, or perhaps not.

1. Yahoo starts company as a web directory, the first, becomes one of the most popular websites on the Internet, directory is manually edited by humans.
2. Yahoo starts charging for directory submissions, makes a gold mine. Search results are based on on directory listings primarily, making directory listings important for ranking well, everyone buys one.
3. Yahoo deemphasizes directory listings in their search results, but still links to matching categories, less people buy them.
4. Yahoo stops even linking to directory categories in search results, “Directory” doesn’t even get a main tab. No one buys listings anymore, nearly impossible to justify the $300 yearly fee with the paltry traffic received, only the most profitable sites should do it.
5. Meanwhile, Yahoo purchases Inktomi, an early search pioneer, to power their search results. Yahoo eventually also absorbs Lycos, Fast (Alltheweb), and Altavista, all early pioneers, all at one time the most popular search engine on the Internet, Yahoo kills them all like so many wives of Henry the VIII.
6. Yahoo inks a deal with Microsoft for search, effectively exiting the search business, all the money spent on acquisitions could have been saved if they just partnered long ago.
7. Meanwhile, Yahoo had purchased Overture, formerly Goto.com, the original PPC search engine.
8. Despite buying the creator of PPC search, Yahoo allows itself to be out manuevered and out innovated by Google.
9. Google PPC ads get smarter, like Google’s search index. Google launches Adsense PPC ad syndication platform, eventually syndicated PPC ads account for something like 85% of Google’s ad dollars.
10. Yahoo plays catchup, launches YPN, perpetually in-beta ad network sputters along through mismanagement after mismanagerment. Yahoo lets in large publishers of spammy sites but doesn’t allow advertisers to opt-out, sites make good money, for a short period of time, but advertise ROI plummets, advertisers flee. Yahoo keeps crappy partners in network, but kicks out good ones for sending international traffic, which every other network on the Internet has no problem just filtering out. Network never leaves beta, network dies.

11. Yahoo buys Right Media, an innovator in small publisher advertising. Creator of an exchange to match up small publishers with small advertisers. Does some innovative things like allowing “R-Rated” sites (and labeling them as such), something most networks do not touch (but should, look at how much money R-rated movies can make). Eventually, Yahoo kills Right Media, reasons unknown.
12. Meanwhile, Yahoo inks deal with Microsoft to outsource all PPC advertising, effectively killing the original PPC search engine.

For all these reasons, I hereby crown Yahoo, the worst company on the Internet.

8 Responses to “Why Yahoo is the worst company on the Internet”

  1. Andrew Johnson  Says:

    I used to think Yahoo bought all of the wrong companies and missed buying the good ones. After reading this post, I think they probably just drove most of their purchases in to the ground. Good thing they missed out on buying Google.

  2. KLB  Says:

    Yahoo has to be one of the most mismanaged companies that refuses to die. It amazes me how well they were able to destroy every company they purchased.

  3. wopular  Says:

    Way a minute, so YPN is no more? What the hell. I just signed up :( Oh well. Good to know.

  4. Chris  Says:

    I decided to check out some of my Yahoo listings today.

    One category I am paying $300 a year for a listing and $100 a month to sponsor it. Traffic gained in the past 6 weeks: 5 unique visitors.

    So… $20 per visitor. That sponsorship is being cancelled.

    The $300 a year listing I’ll keep, because I like the PR.

  5. KV  Says:

    Yahoo is one of the worst company in morality too.Because it provided IP to the chinese monopoly government, a upright reporter who exposed the truth of the limits of news freedom in china was condemned to imprison for 11 years.

  6. آثار  Says:

    Yahoo has to be one of the most mismanaged companies that refuses to die. It amazes me how well they were able to destroy every company they purchased.

  7. Peter T  Says:

    Yahoo is definitely the worst!

  8. John D  Says:

    Yahoo has a nice feature on it’s homepage – but it don’t work. Nosir! There is no way to reply or comment on news articles and all their help choices just run you in a circle. From some of the comments in their help area, it seems this has been a problem for many years and nothing is being done to help it’s users.

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