Yahoo Buying Inktomi

soldack writes "Byte And Switch has a story about Yahoo buying Inktomi. I imagine they will stop using Google. What does this mean for both Google and Yahoo? How much of Google's traffic came from Yahoo? How much is going to come from AOL using Google?" markpapadakis adds a link to CNET's story on same.

No Inktomi search engine

[jalexand]

They sold it to Verity [inktomi.com] back in November.

This won't make Yahoo stop using Google

[seldolivaw]

Google's pagerank algorithm suite is unmatched for searches "in the wild". It uses links between pages to work out search relevance. However, that algorithm is totally inappropriate for providing search within Yahoo's own categorised database; Inktomi's engine is precisely suited for such a task. Yahoo has been using Google and Inktomi's search tech for external and internal searches, respectively, for a while now. I see no reason for Yahoo's buyout to change this. I imagine Yahoo would buy Google too, if it could.

Ideas

[mugnyte]

Inktomi's current customers [inktomi.com]

Yahoo would be well-served building a cross-reference ranking from Google + Inktomi's results. Most of my searches are quite pointed anyway though, so I'm not sure how this could be improved.

Go try the Hotbot [hotbot.com] or MSN [msn.com] searches yerself. This may well be the future rankings on Yahoo results.

As a trial, I searched for "Oklahoma Dry Spell" and although there was one coinciding match in the top 2, the rest were completely different. It seems Inktomi is a bit more relaxed for inclusions. (14,888 vs Yahoo's 12,800).

For one of the myriad of search engine reviews comparing (roughly) Inktomi and Yahoo/Google, see this page [searchenginewatch.com]

mug

Re:No Inktomi search engine

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they sold their "enterprise search business". Software companies use to set up a search "behind the firewall" for their own internal searches. This has nothing to do with Inktomi web search.

In fact, just the opposite is true - Inktomi is divesting themselves of virtually everything but their web search business. And perhaps now we see why: so Yahoo could get them without the extra crap they didn't want.

MOD PARENT DOWN -1 Overrated

[LostCluster]

Parent note is disinformative.

What was sold was the enterprise search software tool, not the general search engine database.

I think you have missed the point slightly.

[FreshFunk510]

While one of Google's main strong point is the lack of ads, I doubt it would be as popular as it is if it did not return such high quality results.

Secondly, as I understand it, Inktomi actually has 2 primary search engines. One is geared towards business use and the other towards consumers (which they got from a recent company they acquired). According to reports Yahoo is basically interested in the business search engine and not the consumer one.

Lastly, I don't see how Yahoo does not focus on users needs. I believe they offer a great suite of online applications, many of them being free. I would disagree if you believe that just because they engage in online advertising that they are not focusing on users.

Re:Yahoo free email

[Ryan_Singer]

Actually, I for one am extremely pleased by yahoo's spam filter. I get significantly less spam than most other people I know, it all goes straight to my frequently dumped spambox.-Ryan

Re:Yahoo have missed the point slightly.

[Randolpho]

Google is not entirely ad or factored search free, you know. Next time you search, note all those ads in the upper right corner of your page, as well as the 3 or 4 lines at the top of the results portion of the page.

They're called "sponsored links", but they're ads just the same.

In Google's defense, they're ads the way they *should* be done. Pure text. No popups. No annoying flash animations walking in from the side of the screen.

But they *are* ads.

The reason they bought Inktomi

[esconsult1]

The reason why they bought Inktomi, is because of the revenue that can make from it.

Inktomi sells inclusion [inktomi.com] in their results to paying customers. Many results that you normally click on in MSN or other Inktomi distribution partners cost money to the advertiser (about 10 cents each click and up).

To be fair to Inktomi, while they charge for inclusion, your site is still ranked for relevance, so there is no guarantee that your paid links will filter to the top of a search. This is all a Cost-per-Click (CPC) model, or a one time fee for inclusion over a set period of time.

How does this affect Google?
Remember that Google makes their money from search distribution and their sponsored listings. In the short term, it hurts Google a little bit, because they won't be getting paid from Yahoo for that distribution, if Yahoo decides not to use Google in the future. In the long term it does not matter much, because Google's long term revenue model/strategy is the Sponsored Listings (which are being shown at AOL and a variety of their partners [google.com]), which Yahoo was not displaying at all. So even if Yahoo were sending 1 billion searches over to Google, none of those are monetized at all.

How will this affect Yahoo?
Over the long term, Yahoo will make more money from this deal, than by using Google's results, because many of the clickthrough's in their standard search (again.. if they use Inktomi instead of Google for that), will provide some CPC revenue for them. They basically want to monetize the standard search results, and the Inktomi acquisition will help them to do that.

Re:Well...

[SweetAndSourJesus]

Try Google Directory [google.com]. It's the same content from the Open Directory Project [dmoz.org], but all googlified.

Re:Yahoo has money?

[intuition]

As of Sept 30, 2002 Yahoo had :

$319,319,000 Cash and Cash Equivalents

$936,534,000 Total Current Assets

$276,035,000 Accounts Payable

$420,386,000 Total Current Liabilities